wear that dress again and you’re mine—the mafia boss warned her, so she wore it to his wedding The first time Dorian Esposito saw Angel Charman in that emerald dress, he warned her in a voice low enough to ruin her sleep for years.

wear that dress again and you’re mine—the mafia boss warned her, so she wore it to his wedding

The first time Dorian Esposito saw Angel Charman in that emerald dress, he warned her in a voice low enough to ruin her sleep for years.

“Wear that dress again,” he said, pinning her against the side of her car with nothing but one hand at her waist and the weight of everything they were forbidden to want, “and you’re mine.”

So Angel wore it again.

Not to his club.

Not to some private hotel where secrets could hide behind blackout curtains and fake names.

She wore it to his wedding.

And when the priest asked if anyone objected to Dorian Esposito marrying another woman, Angel stood in the back of a packed Manhattan cathedral, in the same green dress that had once made a mafia boss forget every rule he lived by, and said two words that stopped the entire city’s underworld from breathing.

“I do.”

But before that moment, before the marble church and the screaming bride and the furious families, there was only a woman standing in front of her bedroom mirror, choosing trouble on purpose.

Angel Charman knew the dress was dangerous.

That was why she picked it.

Emerald green. Smooth satin. Fitted enough to be a confession, elegant enough to be a weapon. It hugged her body like it knew secrets about her, the neckline bold but not vulgar, the slit high enough to make every step look like a decision she might regret later.

Her best friend Henry was sitting cross-legged on her bed, eating popcorn from a mixing bowl like he had paid for front-row tickets to her downfall.

“Girl,” he said, looking her up and down, “that dress should come with a court order.”

Angel turned sideways in the mirror, adjusting one loose wave of her honey-brown hair. “Good.”

Deborah, her other best friend, stood by the bedroom door with her arms folded and concern written across her face. Deb was a nurse, which meant she spent her life spotting danger before anyone else did.

“Angel,” Deb said carefully, “Dorian Esposito is practically engaged.”

“Practically is not legally,” Angel replied.

“He’s engaged enough that his family is already negotiating flowers with Greta Maro’s mother.”

Angel’s lips tightened at the name.

Greta Maro.

The icy blonde heiress from one of New York’s oldest crime families. Perfect hair. Perfect smile. Perfect bloodline. A woman raised to turn a marriage into a merger and a husband into an asset.

“I’m not asking him to marry me,” Angel said, picking up her clutch from the dresser.

Henry snorted. “No. You’re just going to his nightclub dressed like a billionaire’s midlife crisis and hoping he has an emotional breakdown.”

Angel smiled at him through the mirror.

“That’s different.”

It was reckless. She knew that.

Dorian Esposito was not the kind of man sensible women tested.

He owned restaurants, clubs, warehouses, and half the quiet fear in lower Manhattan. To the public, he was a sharp-suited businessman with charity connections and a family legacy. To anyone who knew the real map of the city, he was the youngest Esposito boss in three generations, a man whose name could end conversations.

And yet Angel remembered the way he had looked at her one year earlier at a private charity auction.

Like he had found something he had no right to touch.

They had kissed once that night in a quiet hallway near the coatroom. Once. A mistake. A fire. A memory that had followed her like perfume she couldn’t wash out.

Afterward, Dorian had pulled away, breathing hard, his forehead pressed to hers.

“This can’t happen,” he had whispered.

Angel had believed him.

For about three days.

Then she had spent the next year seeing him at charity events, family dinners, art openings, and private parties where their worlds overlapped just enough to torture them. He always kept his distance. She always pretended not to notice his eyes finding her across rooms.

Now he was being pushed into marrying Greta Maro, and Angel was tired of being the woman he almost chose.

Eclipse sat on the edge of the Meatpacking District, sleek and dark and expensive in a way that made people speak softer the moment they entered. The bass from inside pulsed through the sidewalk. Black cars idled at the curb. Security men in tailored suits recognized Angel the second she stepped out of the rideshare.

Not because she belonged there.

Because everyone around Dorian Esposito eventually learned the names of things that could make him lose control.

Henry looped his arm through hers. Deb followed close behind, still looking like she might drag Angel home by the hair.

Inside, Eclipse was all blue light, mirrored walls, velvet ropes, and people pretending they weren’t desperate to be noticed. Angel felt heads turn as she moved through the crowd. Men looked once, then twice. Women gave her the quick, assessing glance of people measuring a threat.

Angel lifted her chin.

“Don’t look now,” Henry whispered, “but the dark glass upstairs is giving murder.”

Angel looked.

Above the dance floor, behind a wall of tinted glass, was Dorian’s private office. No one inside could be seen from below, but everyone knew he watched the club from there like a king watching a kingdom.

Angel smiled directly at the glass.

Then she stepped onto the dance floor.

Upstairs, Dorian Esposito stopped listening to the man across from him mid-sentence.

“What did you say?” his underboss, Marco Bell, asked.

Dorian did not answer.

One of his guards had entered the office seconds earlier and said four words that should not have affected him as much as they did.

“Angel Charman is downstairs.”

Dorian’s jaw flexed. “Alone?”

“With friends.”

Dorian glanced at the security monitor. “Why are you telling me?”

The guard hesitated, which was never a good sign. “Because she’s wearing a green dress, boss.”

Marco’s brows rose.

Dorian picked up the remote and switched the camera angle.

Then he saw her.

For a second, the entire room went silent in his mind.

Angel moved under the lights like she knew exactly where every camera was. The green dress caught the shimmer of the club, clinging and flashing and daring him to look away. She laughed at something Henry said, tossing her hair over one shoulder. She looked free. Untouchable. Completely devastating.

And every man near her noticed.

Dorian’s fingers tightened around his glass.

Marco leaned back slowly. “Should I continue with the shipping numbers, or should I wait until you finish committing murder with your eyes?”

“Meeting’s over,” Dorian said.

The men around the desk exchanged looks but knew better than to argue.

By the time Dorian reached the main floor, a stranger had already approached Angel.

The man was tall, drunk, and too confident. He leaned too close. Angel stepped back, polite but firm. Dorian saw the man’s hand close around her wrist.

Something black and immediate moved through him.

He crossed the floor in seconds.

“She said no,” Dorian said.

The man turned, annoyed, then went pale when he saw who had spoken.

“Mr. Esposito. I didn’t know she was—”

“She isn’t anything of yours,” Dorian cut in. “And if you want to leave this club walking, you’ll remove your hand.”

The man let go so quickly Angel almost laughed. He disappeared into the crowd without another word.

Angel turned to Dorian.

He wore a black suit, no tie, the first two buttons of his shirt undone. His dark hair was pushed back, his face controlled, but his eyes were not. His eyes were all accusation and hunger.

“Hi, Dorian,” she said sweetly.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”