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Sandro Heliodor's blue-jade gaze danced with fascination and frustration, firmly fixed on the black woman in a fitting silver gown, her beautifully crafted asymmetrical black bob and rosy red-tinted lips complemented her brown skin's glow perfectly. Sandro felt like a starved wolf, finally catching a hint of blood on the wind after wandering in the wilderness too long. This was not a good sign - his uncontrollable cravings an old habit, unrelenting and stubborn. The nights that changed your trajectory in life didn't come with warning labels. Instead, they came like a quiet ink-black storm that smacked you in the face, and before you knew it, you were drowning. But tonight was different. Sandro had planned the night to perfection, every single moment rehearsed severally in his mind's eye. He was going to come out of the turbulent waters as king, whether the stars were aligned or not.
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Tecu Carliorossi, studied the yearning and steely determination swirling trance-like in his friend Sandro's eyes. There must be something in the air of the palazzo, Tecu couldn't help but speculate. 7 had been eyeing Logan Vernier's girlfriend with a near-identical intensity.
He sighed and broke through Sandro's trance with a soft question, "What are we staring at?"
Sandro's gaze momentarily wavered, trying to rid himself of the enchanting spell the woman seemed to have cast on him.
"Someone almost as beautiful as you, babe" Sandro's silky response betrayed his true intentions and revealed the dark hunger simmering under his skin.
It was a side of him that he tried to conceal, always a challenge in her presence. He had known she would be here, had practiced his attack with deadly precision and yet something within him, unshakable habit or unfriendly ghost, itched for release at the sight of her. As he watched her laugh with a handsome devil, Sandro felt like he was standing at the edge of a cliff, one step away from falling deep into the abyss.
He managed to tear his gaze away from the stunning woman long enough to acknowledge Tecu's presence.
"I see Nyla couldn't make it," he said, hoping to change the topic. He could already see the gears working in Tecu's mind, hoping to dissuade him from tonight's grand plan.
Tecu's shoulders stiffened, a tight smile on his lips as he nodded. What was he supposed to say? That he didn't know where his wife was? That he hadn't seen her in weeks? It was a painful topic, one that he preferred not to dwell on. He had hoped his little brother, the spy chief, would help track Nyla down. But instead, 7 had breathed in whatever chemical in the palazzo Sandro was exposed to and kept staring hungrily at Logan Vernier's girlfriend.
Tecu couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. Something was brewing beneath the surface, something that would ultimately lead to a clash between 7 and Logan or Sandro and she-who-must-never-be-mentioned. Sandro was usually cautious, calm, calculated but around her he morphed into a man of passion, one who wouldn't hesitate to follow his heart, even if it meant putting himself in harm's way. As for 7, Tecu had never seen his little brother like... that.
This was gearing up to be one heck of a night!
"If it's who I think it is... we're in public." Tecu sighed, trying to bring Sandro back to reality even as his friend's eyes darted back to she-who-must-never-be-mentioned.
Sandro had a tendency to get himself into trouble, super especially when it came to she-who-must-never-be-mentioned and matters of the heart.
Sandro raised his champagne flute to Tecu, a sinister glint in his eyes as he confirmed, "You're Catholic, yes?"
His eerie calm seemed to belie the sinister intentions lurking beneath the surface. Tecu bit his lip in apprehension, knowing that there was no bargaining.
"What about the vial you got from the Vatican?" Tecu reasoned after a short pause, his tone pleading, desperate for delay.
Sandro seemed unfazed as he shrugged the thought off and declared, "Left it in the car."
Tecu's gaze shifted to the champagne flute lifted to him as if it were a holy offering to a displeased god. He couldn't help but feel a sense of unease as Sandro nudged the flute towards him again as if to rush him.
"You should spit on it too...maybe," Sandro added, his tone playful but with a hint of malice.
Tecu dismissed the idea with a low huff of his breath. Not wanting to aggravate Sandro any further, he did the sign of the cross over Sandro's champagne flute, mumbling, "Benedictus Iesus Christus, verus Deus et verus homo," under his breath.
He knew that Sandro would do exactly what he'd practiced for this exact scenario. And for all the scenarios Tecu had watched him run through, this was the least... exacting? Dramatic? Publicly embarrassing? But as Sandro took off, Tecu couldn't help but feel a sense of dread.
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Sandro Heliodor stood there, frozen in a moment of divine reckoning. His eyes locked onto the stunning figure before him - Awuor Jowi. The way her dress hugged her curves, the sparkling of her jewelry and the fragrant aroma of her perfume - it was all too cruelly familiar, yet so distant. Thorny memories flooded back like a tsunami, the waves of her earth-shattering kisses, the cadence of her velvet voice, and the sweet scent of floral spices that filled the air around her. Sandro felt his hunger for her well up inside him, too raucous to be quelled.
With great effort, he put a lid on the maelstrom of emotions swelling within him, a noble feat, especially with the way that dress hugged the divine curves of her body and shimmered against her dark skin.
"You," he croaked, his voice thick with emotion as wobbly as the glass he raised to her, his eyes fixed and unwavering.
As Awuor turned to face him, her onyx eyes widened, much like the abyss at the cliff's edge opening its jagged mouth to swallow him whole. For a moment, the world paused, as the two locked onto each other. She recognized him, her eyes defying her otherwise nonchalant expression. What did his eyes say to her in return? Sandro was like an antelope caught in a lion's gaze, unsure of whether to run or attack. He was frozen to the spot, his body uncurling with a unholy desire too evil to name, a hunger begging to be fed.
Forgiveness blew over the ashes of who they used to be, seeking a flicker, an ember, anything to rouse the fiery pits of hell again. He was either losing balance over the cliff's edge or completely in control of his actions, either way the champagne flute in his hands moved as if ordained by a holy spirit, emptying its contents over her face and chest.
"lasciami andare, demone!" Sandro demanded of the ethereal beast before him, his voice harsh at the memory of that night. He could almost feel the earth trembling beneath his feet as she slipped away, her dress swaying with her movement.
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Awuor Jowi had ignored a sense of foreboding that nagged at the back of her mind tonight. It wasn't like she had much of a choice anyway. She'd been to five auctions in the last year and this piece kept getting withdrawn by its mysterious owner each time. Now here she was, champagne dripping down her face and chest, a wave of frustration washing over her thanks to Sandro Heliodor. He couldn't be bothered to apologize for his actions. Yet for a brief moment, before he very intentionally emptied his champagne flute in her face, Awuor had thought she saw a glimmer of forgiveness in his eyes. It was fleeting, and as quickly as it came, it vanished, washed down her chest with lukewarm champagne, extinguished by the cold, hard reality of his deliberate actions.
She refused to give Sandro the satisfaction of seeing her falter, taking a deep breath and with her elegant composure intact, Awuor managed to summon a soft curve of her lips that revealed her charming dimple even as champagne soaked her dress. Sandro wasn't sure what he expected, for her skin to fizz, for her to melt into purple goo screaming and cursing his bloodline, for her to turn into a pillar of salt... anything but the composed calm.
Looking up at him coolly, she spoke in a relaxed tone, "It's great to see you again, Alex." Her words wrapped around him like a snug blanket on a cold night, a quicksand of velvety warmth he was sinking fast into. "I didn't know you attend art galas."
His gaze fixed on her wet breasts in stunned silence as she patted them dry with a paper napkin all while calling him uncultured swine in that calm tone. The thought of slipping her dress slightly to the side to reveal her perfect chocolate nipple with the beauty mark on its upper left was tantalizing, a dangerous thought that threatened to consume him whole.
He had underestimated her once again, failing to predict her magnetic pull on him and the vortex of unearthly emotion it conjured from him. His heart was racing, his mind a jumbled mess of desire and confusion, nearly blanking with yearning.
"There's a piece I'm interested in," Sandro said, trying to regain composure
He knew the gleam in her onyx eyes all too well; the holy champagne hadn't fazed the vile seductress one bit.
It couldn't be because it was champagne could it? Jesus turned water into wine...
"Oh? Which one?" She softly pried
He could feel her judgmental gaze burning into him, concluding he was a fraud who couldn't name any of the pieces up for auction. Sandro's smile darkened as he tried to quell the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her, just to see if the earth would shatter beneath his feet. He knew the danger of prolonged exposure, and he was determined not to succumb to her charms. The champagne hadn't worked, and his best bet was retreat.
Without another word, Sandro stepped back, his voice low and menacing. "Good luck, Awuor," he gruffed, ready to fight another day.
As he pulled out his phone and activated the device, a smirk played on his lips. He had slipped something into her purse, and he knew he would send her back into the fiery pits of hell where she belonged. He knew that he was playing with fire, that the ethereal little wraith might take him with her to abyss she'd crawled out from. But he couldn't help himself, it had to be done!
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Ryeo Macsen sighed, blowing a wisp of his russet hair off his face. He studied his date as she dabbed champagne off her chest.
"That can't be good," he muttered under his breath, his eyes flickering over to Alessandro Heliodor's retreating figure.
immovable object meets unstoppable force. Both parties more than capable of outmaneuvering each other.
"It wasn't," Awuor agreed, her face a mask of calm composure. She knew she had been the mature one in that exchange, refusing to be drawn into Sandro's game.
But what had Alex been thinking, bringing throwing wine to a gunfight? This wasn't real housewives, after all.
"Yet abeonim seems... alive, still," Ryeo smirked, smile faltering when Awuor glared at him with bombastic side-eye
The world knew Sandro as the most divorced billionaire bachelor but Ryeo knew who Sandro truly was, shrewd to the point of cruelty, a dangerous man, one who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. But Awuor was a force to be reckoned with, a woman who wouldn't back down from a challenge. It was a match made in either heaven or hell, but nothing in between.
"As he should be, of course," Ryeo added, trying his best to hide his glee at the tense exchange he'd witnessed.
He didn't know who to bet on; despite his sense of loyalty to Awuor. Luckily he didn't have to wait long for the battle of the century; he had front row seats. Alessandro Heliodor hadn't made a rare appearance at an art gala just to spill champagne on his ex-girlfriend. Ryeo couldn't help but feel drawn to the danger, to the thrill of the game the two were playing.
"The piece is almost up." He announced, reminding her why she'd been forced to attend this art gala.
He had a feeling they weren't going home with any art tonight, but he wasn't dumb enough to voice it.
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As the auction for the coveted piece of art drew to a close, Ryeo could feel the tension in the room rising. Awuor and Sandro were locked in a bidding war, each determined to come out on top. Ryeo couldn't help but hide his smirk behind his paddle-board as he watched the two outbid each other over and over again.
"Going once," The auctioneer called,
Ryeo's curious gaze found Sandro, who calmly sat back as if defeated
"Going twice."
The whole room stared at Sandro Heliodor, the atmosphere so tense no one was breathing.
Ryeo couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding at the eerie calm. Sandro wasn't one to take defeat lightly, it was a game of wits, a race against time, and a battle of wills.
Even the auctioneer didn't seem to believe she was about to declare a winner as she declared "Going..."
A harangued assistant rushed onto the stage and whispered something in her ear. Sandro's lips twisted into a diabolical smirk, and Ryeo knew something was about to go down. The piece was withdrawn from auction at the very last second by its owner, leaving the entire room in shock. Ryeo had to cough away a sense of excitement masked as a peel of laughter when Sandro's smug blue-jade gaze turned to Awuor. Anyone else would've been scared stiff but Awuor read something in Sandro's eyes, hidden in there just for her, her fist folding in quiet rage.
Awuor turned to Ryeo, her eyes blazing with a mix of anger and determination. "We're stealing it," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "Now that we know who owns it."
Ryeo nodded, his lips curling into a smile, securing his front row seat to round two.