Chapter 4
I didn’t see Dante for three days.
Elena said he was handling business—traveling, too occupied for meals or meetings. I told myself I was relieved.
I was lying.
The mansion felt different without him. Emptier. Safer. Unbearably boring. I served lunches to his various associates, learned the names of men who smiled with their mouths but not their eyes, and discovered that Luca, the scarred guard, actually had a dry sense of humor when Dante wasn’t around.
“You’re still here,” he commented one afternoon, finding me in the garden.
“Where else would I be?”
“Most people run.” He lit a cigarette, offering me one. I declined. “First week in Dante’s world, they realize what they’ve gotten into and disappear.”
“And then what?”
“He finds them. Sometimes.” Luca exhaled smoke toward the sky. “Sometimes he lets them go. Depends on whether they’ve seen too much.”
“Have I?”
He looked at me with something almost like sympathy. “You’ve seen things you can’t unsee the moment he looked at you.”
Dante returned on Thursday night.
I was reading in my room when I heard his voice echoing through the hallways—sharp, angry, speaking rapid Italian to someone on the phone. Doors slammed. Footsteps pounded past. Then silence.
I should have stayed in bed.
Instead, I found myself walking toward his study, drawn by some instinct I couldn’t name. The door was half open. Inside, Dante stood by the window, jacket discarded, shirt untucked, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Even from behind, I could see the tension in his shoulders.
I knocked softly. “Are you all right?”
He turned. The look on his face stopped me cold—raw, exhausted, almost vulnerable.
“You should be in bed.”
“I heard shouting.”
“Business.” He turned back to the window. “Nothing that concerns you.”
But his voice lacked its usual command. He sounded tired.
I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you look like hell.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Honest as always.”
“It’s one of my flaws.”
I moved closer, cautious. “What happened?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he drank the rest of his whiskey in one swallow and said, “Someone I trusted betrayed me. Sold information to the Calibrazy family. Three of my men are dead because of it.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.” He set down the glass with a sharp click. “Mercy is a luxury I can’t afford.”
“Is that why you’re alone?”
His eyes snapped to mine. Dangerous.
“I’m not alone. I have soldiers. Business partners. Allies.”
“But no one who knows you.”
“No one can know me.” He crossed to me then, moving with that predatory grace. “Knowing me means becoming a target. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has either died or betrayed me. So I stopped caring.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“That sounds smart.”
We were inches apart now. His voice dropped to something almost intimate.
“So why are you still here, Arya? Standing in my study at midnight, looking at me like you want to fix something that’s been broken for years.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Then let me tell you what I know.” His hand came up, fingers tracing the curve of my neck. “I know you should walk out that door. I know I should let you. And I know that neither of us is going to.”
My pulse hammered under his touch.
“Dante—”
“You feel it too.” Not a question. A certainty. “This thing between us. Dangerous. Inevitable.”
“You said I was supposed to be invisible.”
“You were.” His other hand found my waist, pulling me against him. “But you opened your mouth and spoke Italian and looked at me like I was human. And now I can’t stop seeing you.”
“This is insane.”
“I know.” His forehead touched mine, breath warm against my lips. “I know every reason this is wrong. I know the danger. The complications. How it ends badly for everyone.”
“So why?”
“Because for the first time in ten years”—his voice was rough with something I’d never heard from him before—”I want something more than power. I want you.”
Then he kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle. It was claiming. Consuming. Ten thousand unspoken words compressed into touch. His hands tangled in my hair. His body pressed against mine with barely controlled intensity.
And God help me, I kissed him back.
I kissed him like I’d been drowning and he was air. Like every moment since meeting him had been leading to this. Like the danger didn’t matter. The consequences didn’t exist.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, reality came crashing back.
“This changes everything,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“Your world will try to destroy you because of me.”
His thumb brushed my swollen lips. “I should send you away. Give you money. Set you up somewhere safe where my enemies can never find you.”
“But you won’t.”
“No.” His smile was dark, possessive, almost sad. “I’m too selfish for that. Too broken to do the right thing.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
“Then you’re more dangerous than I thought.”
He kissed me again. Softer this time. Almost reverent.
“Stay with me tonight. Not as staff. Not as obligation. Just stay.”
I should have said no. Should have remembered every warning, every red flag, every reason this man was wrong for me.
Instead, I let him lead me to his bedroom. Let him show me the man beneath the monster. Let myself believe—just for one night—that love could exist in darkness.
We fell asleep tangled together, his heartbeat steady against my ear.
When I woke at dawn, Dante was already gone. But he’d left a note on his pillow, written in sharp, elegant script.
You’re not safe here. But I’m too selfish to let you go. Forgive me. —D
Beneath it, a name I didn’t recognize.
May you like
Marco Calibrazy.
The man who wanted Dante dead. The man whose family would now target me—simply because I’d slept in the wrong bed.
