Was there a difference?
Hours crawled past. The sky lightened from black to charcoal to that bruised purple that came just before dawn. I didn't move. Didn't cry.Didn't do anything but sit in the dark and wait for the moment he'd return.
I heard him before I saw him. The soft sound of his footsteps in the hallway. The deliberate, controlled way he unlocked my door. He entered carrying a tray—fresh fruit, pastries, espresso in a small white cup. The domesticity of it felt obscene.
He set the tray on the small table by the window, and I watched him move through the space like a predator in his own territory. Every gesture calculated. Every breath measured. He was dressed for the day already—charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, ice-blue tie. His hair was still damp from the shower.
"You're awake early," he said, not looking at me. "Couldn't sleep?"
I studied him. Looked for the man who'd just told his associates he'd burn cities. Looked for the crack in his armor. But he was smooth again. Polished. The kind of dangerous that wore a three-thousand-dollar suit and smiled like he wasn't already planning someone's death.
"Dante." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. Smaller than the rage that was building in my chest.
He turned. His eyes found mine, and for just a moment—a fraction of a second—something flickered across his face. Something that looked like guilt.
"Yes?"
I stood. My legs felt unsteady, but I forced myself upright. Forced myself to meet his gaze without flinching.
"Why me?" The question came out quiet. Steady. But underneath it, I could hear the tremor. The need. The fact that I was standing in front of the man who'd kidnapped me and asking him to explain why he hadn't let me die.
Dante's jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I thought he might throw me back out of his life like I was something he'd picked up and regretted touching. But instead, he stepped closer.
One step. Two.
Close enough that I could see the faint stubble along his jaw. Close enough to catch the scent of him—something expensive and dark.
"You want the truth?" His voice was low. Carefully controlled.
I nodded.
He reached up, and I felt my breath catch as his fingers brushed against my cheek. Almost gentle, except for the way his thumb traced the edge of my jaw with the kind of deliberation that suggested he was mapping out something that belonged to him.
"I saw you at that gala." He was speaking slowly, each word weighted with something I couldn't quite name. "Six months before your engagement announcement. You were standing near the terrace, and you were watching your father like you were trying to solve an equation that kept changing the variables on you."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
"I couldn't stop watching you after that. I told myself it was strategy. That you were useful. That knowing everything about you would give me leverage." His hand dropped. "I was lying."
"To who?" My voice was barely a whisper.
"To myself." He stepped back, and the loss of his proximity felt like something had been torn away. "I took you because I wanted you. Because the thought of you marrying that cartel prince, belonging to anyone but me, was something I couldn't—"
He stopped. Jaw clenching.
"Couldn't what?" I pushed.
"Couldn't tolerate." The words came out rough. Raw. Like he'd pulled them from somewhere deep and it cost him to let them go. "Itold Vince it was leverage. Told myself it was business. But the truth is, I would have taken you regardless. Strategy or no strategy. Dead fiancé or not. I would have found a reason."
I stood frozen, processing the weight of what he'd just admitted. The possessiveness of it. The danger. The fact that I was standing in front of a man who'd orchestrated my abduction not out of necessity but out of pure, primal need to own me.
"And now?" The question escaped before I could stop it.
His smoldering icy blue eyes locked onto mine. The muscles in his jaw worked, and I could see him wrestling with something. With the truth, maybe. Or with the decision of whether to give it to me.
"Now," he said, his voice dropping to something that sounded almost like a confession, "there's a two-million-dollar contract on your head. Your father decided you were more valuable dead than alive. And the only thing keeping you breathing is the fact that everyone knows I'll destroy anyone who tries to collect."
The words should have terrified me.
