Chapter 351: Do You Remember First Time We Were Here?

The response was immediate: "Okay. Wait for me. I’ll pick you up after work."

By 4:30 PM, Eve had showered in the executive bathroom and changed into the kind of outfit Sinners required, a black dress that was elegant but edgy, a dress that showed skin but didn’t apologize for it, heels that were expensive and dangerous.

She looked like she belonged in both worlds now. The corporate executive and the mafia lord’s woman. The balance was still precarious, but she was learning to walk it.

Her last meeting of the day was with a potential new client...a woman in her late twenties who’d been offered a reality television deal and wanted advice. Eve walked her through the pros and cons, the way these shows could either launch a career or destroy it depending on how they were managed.

"The key is controlling the narrative," Eve explained. "You decide what story they tell about you. You don’t let the producers or the network decide. Every scene, every confession, every moment of drama...you’re the one directing it, even if it doesn’t look like you are."

The woman listened intently, taking notes.

"Do you really think I could make this work?" she asked.

"I think," Eve said carefully, "that if you’re smart about it, if you’re willing to be strategic instead of just spontaneous, you could build something significant from it. But you have to understand what you’re trading. Privacy. Control over your image. The ability to ever fully escape this narrative once it’s out in the world."

"Is it worth it?" the woman asked.

Eve thought about her own life, about the privacy she’d lost when she became involved with Dimitri, about the way her safety had been compromised, about everything she’d traded for the connection they’d built.

"That depends on what you’re getting in return," Eve said finally. "If you’re doing it for the right reasons, if you’re building something that matters to you, then yes. It’s worth it."

By the time Dimitri arrived at 6 PM, Eve was ready. He came directly to her office rather than waiting in the lobby, moving through her space like he owned it..which, in a way, he did. His presence alone commanded attention. Her staff scattered from the elevator banks as he passed through, giving him space without being told to.

"You look incredible," he said, pulling her close and kissing her deeply before anyone could pretend not to notice. His hand found the small of her back, possessive and certain.

"Professional with an edge," Eve said. "I’m trying this new thing where I’m both versions of myself at the same time."

"I like it," Dimitri said, his eyes dark with something that had nothing to do with her outfit and everything to do with the fact that she was his. "It suits you."

They took his car to Sinners, and as they drove through Manhattan, Eve watched the city transition from corporate towers to the grittier, more industrial waterfront where the club was located. The evening was settling into night, the sky darkening from blue to purple to black.

When they arrived at Sinners, the club was in full swing.

The bass was audible from the parking lot...deep, rhythmic, the heartbeat of a place that existed outside normal rules. Dimitri’s men recognized the car and moved aside, letting them park in the private section behind the building.

Inside, the club was chaos and control mixed together in perfect balance. Strobing lights cut through darkness. Bodies moved on the dance floor in a tangle of limbs and sweat and desire. The bar was packed with people drinking, talking, dealing. Private tables in the corners held men conducting business in low voices.

This was the underworld at leisure, and it was beautiful in a dangerous way.

Dimitri guided Eve through the crowd with a hand on her back, and she felt the shift in how people responded to her presence. Before...during her first visit to this place, she’d been a curiosity, an outsider, a woman out of place in a world of criminals and violence. Now, with him publicly touching her, publicly claiming her, she was something else entirely. She was his.

They moved through the main floor, past the bar, past the dance floor, toward the stairs that led to his private lounge. Men nodded at Dimitri with absolute deference. Women watched Eve with a mixture of envy and respect. Everyone understood the hierarchy in that moment...Eve was untouchable because Dimitri had claimed her.

The private lounge was exactly as she remembered it. Dark wood, leather furniture, windows overlooking the main floor of the club below. Dim lighting that made everything feel intimate and removed from the chaos outside.

Eve walked to the window and looked out at the club spread below...the dance floor, the bar, the private tables. This was his empire. Not the penthouse or the offices or the legitimate businesses. This was where the real power lived.

Behind her, Dimitri appeared. She didn’t hear him come up, she just felt him, felt his presence like a physical thing. His hands found her waist, and he pulled her back against his chest. He kissed her neck, slow and deliberate, and she felt her breath catch.

"Do you remember the first time we were here?" he asked against her skin.

Eve’s eyes closed as memories flooded back. The night she’d broken up with Simon. Getting drunk because the heartbreak felt unbearable. Coming to Sinners to escape, to lose herself in the noise and the bodies and the chaos.

And then some men had tried to rough-handle her. They’d surrounded her on the dance floor, hands rough on her body, voices aggressive, the situation escalating toward something she didn’t want.

Until Dimitri had come.

Until he’d pulled her away from them and brought her up here to his private space, and touched her for the first time..his hands on her face, his mouth on hers, claiming her in a way that felt like salvation.