Page 31

Silence lingered in the penthouse like smoke.

The city lights flickered far below as dawn crept through the glass walls.

Isolde sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in one of Dante's black silk shirts, her knees pulled up to her chest.

Her collarbone bore faint purple bruises in the shape of his mouth. Her thighs were marked. Her lips swollen.

She didn't remember when she last looked in a mirror.

She didn't want to.

Dante stood near the window, shirtless, arms crossed, one bare foot resting over the other.

His body was a study in control every muscle held in still tension. A lit cigarette burned between his fingers, untouched.

His eyes were fixed on a blinking red light across the skyline. Isolde studied him.

The way his jaw clenched. The twitch in his temple. The slow, rhythmic tap of his thumb against the cigarette.

He was calculating something.

And whatever it was-He was angry.

"Who is it?" she finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Dante turned slowly. His eyes were steel.

"There's a new faction," he said, voice calm, controlled, terrifying. "Someone with more balls than brains trying to prove themselves by aiming for my throat."

He took a drag from the cigarette, then exhaled smoke slowly through his nose. "They sent me a message last night."

"What kind of message?"

He looked at her for a long, quiet moment.

Then crossed the room.

When he knelt in front of her, she felt her pulse skip. His body heat soaked into her thighs.

His fingers gently parted her knees and placed his palms on her bare skin.

His voice was soft. "They sent me a picture of you leaving the café... from before I took you."

Her blood ran cold.

"They've been watching you longer than I thought," he murmured. "That means they were circling. Waiting. Like hyenas sniffing at a wounded lion."

He looked up at her. His hands slid higher. "I will bury them alive to the ground."

She touched his face-hesitant. "Don't kill because of me."

His lips twitched into a smile "Dove," he whispered, "I kill only because of you now."

Later after 1 hour.....

Inside Dante's bulletproof SUV, silence stretched.

Alex sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through surveillance reports on a matte-black tablet.

He turned the screen toward Dante "This frame was pulled from a traffic camera three weeks before you took her."

The image showed a man leaning on a lamppost across the street from Isolde's café.

A blurred face, but unmistakable posture-shoulders squared, cocky tilt of the chin, cigarette in hand.

Dante leaned forward. Elbows on knees. His jaw clenched "That's Luca?"

Alex nodded. "Confirmed with facial reconstruction. He scouted her routes three separate times. One instance, he followed her to the florist on 9th Street. Never made contact-but he was watching."

Dante's hands curled into fists. "Who else knew?"

"Just him. Looks like he was working freelance. Probably planning to sell her location to Eastern clients."

Dante's smile was cold. "No one else will get the chance. Ever."

By nightfall, Dante had summoned the core of his empire to a private slaughterhouse-turned-war room known as the House of Teeth.

It wasn't a name. It was a promise.

Isolde wasn't supposed to come.

But Dante brought her anyway.

He said nothing as they stepped out of the black car.

He wore a steel gray suit over a black shirt, no tie, black leather gloves, his hair swept back with precision.

His jaw was clenched. His posture upright, shoulders tight, veins bulging at his throat.

He walked like a man going to war.

And dragging devil with him.

Isolde followed, draped in a long dark coat over silk, heels quiet against the concrete. Her collar glittered beneath the coat.

The place smelled like blood and sawdust.

Inside, a bound man knelt in the center of a metal cage lined with surgical lamps.

A member of the rival syndicate. Young. Cocky. And stupid.

Dante walked toward him slowly, each step like thunder across a frozen lake.

His shoulders squared. His gloves flexed "Did you enjoy watching her, Luca?" he asked softly.

The man said nothing.

He stood. Cracked his knuckles "Hold him."

Alex stepped forward with another enforcer. They yanked the man's head back and stretched his arms outward.

Isolde stood frozen near the door, hands trembling.

Dante turned his head slightly toward her, his voice dark silk "Watch, Isolde."

She flinched "No."

"Watch." She looked.

And he made the man scream.

The first eye came out with a hiss of blood and a snap of tendon. The second followed with more resistance.

Dante tossed them onto the steel table like rotten grapes.

Then he took out a branding iron.

Red hot.

Carved with the letter B. For bastard.

He pressed it into the man's chest. The stench of burning flesh filled the room.

When he was done, the man was unconscious.

And Dante's suit was soaked in blood.

Later.

In the quiet room above the kill floor.

Dante sat on the edge of a leather couch, still in his bloodied shirt.

One hand hung between his knees, the other gripped a crystal glass of bourbon.

Isolde stood in front of him, silent.

Her eyes were wide. Her breath uneven.

"You brought me here to break me," she whispered.

"No," he said.

He looked up at her, eyes soft but wild.

"I brought you here so you'd never doubt the length I'll go to keep you."

He reached for her wrist and pulled her gently into his lap.

She didn't resist.

His hand slid up the back of her thigh beneath the coat.

His voice dropped.

"You are my spine, my ruin, and my salvation. If the world ever tries to take you again..."

He kissed her throat "I'll teach it how a devil mourns."

And then he took her there. Hot. Dark. Messy.

Her body still trembled from the blood-soaked screams below. But in his arms, she moaned.

And when he whispered her name like a sacred word, she closed her eyes-

And forgot how to run.