The silence after Dante’s words felt louder than a gunshot.
He knows you’re gone. And he hasn’t lifted a finger.
The sentence replayed in my head like a curse, poisoning every ounce of hope I’d tried to cling to. My father knew. He knew I’d been taken, and instead of rallying his guards or calling the police, he had done… nothing.
Because Dante was right. I wasn’t his daughter. I was his accessory. His bargaining chip. His doll.
A useless pawn.
The leather straps cut into my wrists as I struggled against them, tears burning at the corners of my eyes. I hated them. I hated Dante for taking me. I hated my father for leaving me. But most of all, I hated myself for the way my body still remembered the brush of Dante’s breath against my skin, the weight of his gaze, the dangerous thrill that came with being seen by him.
I jerked harder against the restraints until pain lanced through my arms. No use. The chair groaned, unmoved. Finally, spent and trembling, I sagged back, my chest heaving.
The door creaked again.
I stiffened, every nerve in my body going taut. He stepped inside as if summoned by my despair. Dante. His shirt had changed — dark now, black cotton stretched across his chest — but his presence was the same. Heavy. Magnetic. Impossible to ignore.
He closed the door behind him with a quiet click, his storm-gray eyes locking onto me. I wanted to spit, to curse him, to tell him I’d rather die than give him what he wanted. Instead, all I could do was sit there, wrists bound, heart pounding like prey sensing the predator’s approach.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said, his voice low, calm, almost conversational. He dragged the same chair from before across the concrete floor and sat across from me again. But this time, he leaned back further, spreading his legs, arms loose on the rests — deliberate dominance, as if to remind me of the power imbalance.
I lifted my chin. “Maybe because you left me tied to a chair in the dark like an animal.”
His lips curved faintly, though not in humor. “Animals don’t fight back the way you do.”
I narrowed my eyes, refusing to give him the satisfaction of silence. “Untie me, and I’ll show you how much fight I have.”
For a moment, his gaze dipped — not to my eyes, but lower, trailing over the way the silk of my gown had wrinkled from my struggles, the neckline that had slipped slightly in my restrained position. My skin prickled with heat under his stare. When his eyes finally met mine again, they burned with something darker.
“Tempting offer,” he said, his voice rougher now.
I hated the way my pulse leapt, hated the way the room seemed to shrink around us, air thick with something neither of us wanted to name.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, desperate to steer the conversation anywhere else. “If you want information, you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything.”
“You know more than you think.” He leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. The motion brought him closer, close enough that I could see the faint stubble shadowing his jaw, the line of a scar disappearing into his collar. “But maybe it’s not what you say that matters. Maybe it’s what you reveal when you’re pushed.”
My throat tightened. “You think you can break me.”
His gaze darkened. “I don’t think. I know.”
I wanted to laugh, to spit in his face, to scream. But what came out instead was quieter, sharper. “You don’t scare me.”
The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, because the truth was that he terrified me. Not just because he held me captive, not just because his men would obey any order he gave without hesitation. But because every time he looked at me, something inside me bent closer to breaking.
Dante studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he reached forward. His fingers brushed the leather strap binding my wrist, not loosening it, just touching. The calluses on his fingertips grazed my skin, rough and startling. I jerked back instinctively, but the strap held me firm.
“Fear looks good on you,” he murmured, almost to himself. Then his thumb traced a line up my wrist, deliberate, lingering. “But fire looks better.”
A shiver tore through me, and I bit it back, forcing myself to glare at him. “You’re sick.”
“Maybe.” His voice was maddeningly calm. “But at least I don’t lie to myself about what I want.”
The air thickened, charged, my chest rising and falling too fast. I wanted to demand what exactly it was he wanted — my father’s empire? My silence? My submission? But I already knew part of the answer. The way he looked at me, the way his thumb refused to leave my skin, told me more than words ever could.
And God help me, part of me wanted to know the rest.
His hand dropped suddenly, leaving my skin cold. He sat back again, eyes narrowing as if measuring the effect of his touch. “You’ll tell me eventually, Isabella. Whether with your words… or your body.”
Heat flooded my cheeks, fury and humiliation twisting inside me. “I will never give you that.”
He leaned in once more, his voice a low, dangerous promise. “Never is a long time.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but the words froze when his fingers lifted again — not to the strap this time, but to my jaw. He brushed a strand of hair from my face, the pad of his thumb grazing my cheek. My body betrayed me, leaning infinitesimally into the touch even as my mind screamed no.
Our eyes locked, and the air between us crackled. His thumb lingered near my lips, his gaze dropping there with a hunger he didn’t bother to hide this time.
“Why do you fight me,” he murmured, “when your body tells me the truth?”
My breath caught. My lips parted against my will, a trembling inhale betraying me. For a terrifying, intoxicating second, I thought he would close the distance. That his mouth would claim mine, not as a captor but as a man starved for something forbidden.
And I hated how much I wanted to know what it would feel like.
The door banged open.
Dante’s hand dropped instantly, his expression shuttered. One of his men stepped inside, dark suit, gun at his hip. He glanced at me once before bowing his head toward Dante.
“Boss,” he said. “We have a problem.”
Dante’s jaw flexed. He stood without another word, towering over me again. His eyes met mine one last time, stormy and unreadable.
Then he turned and walked out, leaving me bound, trembling, and burning with a need I didn’t want to name.