The rage gave way to something worse—respect. And something even more dangerous underneath it.
She'd learned the lesson I'd been teaching her all along.
In this world, the only person you could trust was yourself.
I gripped the edge of the desk, jaw clenched, and made a decision.
I'd let her go once. I'd convinced myself that love meant releasing her, meant giving her the space to choose.
I wouldn't make that mistake again.
Not because I was afraid of losing her.
But because I'd finally understood what she was teaching me: that love in this world didn't mean letting go.
It meant walking into hell beside her.
CHAPTER 20
Julietta
Cold shocked me into awareness. Not the gradual kind that creeps through your bones. The kind that hits all at once, like plunging into black water. My eyes snapped open to darkness so complete it felt solid.
I was on concrete. My wrists burned.
The zip ties bit into my skin—I could feel the plastic edges digging in where I'd thrashed against them in the sedan before they'd forced the hood over my head. Before everything went dark.
I forced myself to breathe. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. As soon as I sat up, the light flickered on–motion sensored. The air tasted like rust and something worse—something organic and rotting.
My eyes adjusted slowly. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, maybe forty watts, casting everything in sickly yellow. Walls of exposedbrick. No windows. Metal bars forming a cell maybe twelve feet by eight, with a cot in the corner and a bucket that I didn't want to think about.
This wasn't Dante's penthouse.
This wasn't anywhere with marble floors or climate control or the illusion of choice.
This was a cage.
I pulled at the zip ties. Hard. The plastic held firm, and pain shot through my wrists like electric current. I pulled again, teeth gritted, trying to slip my hands through. My skin scraped raw. Blood pooled between my palm and the plastic.
It didn't matter. Nothing moved.
I forced myself to stop. Yanking like an animal wouldn't help. That's what they wanted—panic. Desperation. A woman so terrified she couldn't think.
I'd been that woman once. The day Dante's men pulled me from the car on Aldrich Street, I'd screamed. I'd fought. I'd believed the world was ending.
But that wasn't me anymore.
I sat back on my heels and cataloged what I could see. The cell had a reinforced door with a slot at the bottom—where they'd pass food, probably. The bars were old but solid, welded at the corners. The light bulb hung from a fixture that looked original to whenever this place was built. Not a modern compound. Somewhere older. Somewhere forgotten.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time moved differently in the dark.
I could hear footsteps above me sometimes. Muffled voices. The scrape of furniture. I was underground. A basement or a sub-level. The kind of place my father probably owned a dozen of across the city.
Of course. He'd taken me somewhere he controlled.
I lay still and listened. Not just to the muffled sounds above, but to everything. The rhythm of footsteps—guard rotations, multiple people moving in patterns. The distant hum of generators—this place was off-grid, which meant Lorenzo was hiding here, not just using it for storage. The faint smell seeping through the ventilation, expensive tobacco mixed with cigar smoke. Cuban. The kind Lorenzo favored.
I was inside his stronghold. The place he felt safe enough to smoke cigars and conduct business.
