The corridor was so quiet I slid as quietly as a specter, heels kissing the marble but barely, but my head was screaming.
It still rang in my ears.
First the man was begging, and then Dante fired as quick as light.
No mercy, no hesitation.
Only silence and blood.
This was no longer a game.
Then, out of nowhere, a maid appeared at the end of the hall,
She gasped as she looked at me, but let them fall at once, "Mr. Moretti wants to see you in his office," she said, her voice tense with fear. "Now."
ohh, yeah he always does.
I nodded, hiding the quiver in my hand as I approached the far wing. The massive oak doors to his private study lay before and two armed guards stood to each side silent sentinels who didn't so much as look at me as I approached. One of them tapped twice and threw open the door.
"Enter."
His voice, quiet, commanding, threaded with something unsaid.
I stepped in.
Dante was seated behind his desk, tumbler of whiskey in hand, sleeves to elbows, no jacket, no tie, Just a man who didn't need layers to be intimidating, the room smelled of cedarwood and menace.
"Lock the door."
I paused.
"Now, Isabella."
Click.
He waved me into a seat. I sat, folding my legs carefully and returning his glare as though I wasn't moments from disintegrating.
"You were beautiful last night," he said lazily, swirling the amber fluid in his glass. "A bit too comfortable breaking into places you shouldn't be."
My stomach tightened.
"You think I didn't notice?"
"notice what?" I replied, pretending to be stupid, "I lost my way, this house is. enormous."
A smile curved the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were still cold. "Don't try to insult my intelligence."
"I would never dream of it."
There was silence between us, He leaned forward slowly, elbows on the desk, his eyes paralyzing me where I stood like a predator weighing its prey.
"You're not afraid of me," he said after a while.
"Should I be?"
He chuckled low in his throat, "everyone should be."
I didn't answer, couldn't, my thoughts careening in fast calculations of exits, lies, angles, I'd learned to lie, to kill, to seduce, But no one had ever taught me how to handle him for the way he made my skin hum with fear and something perilously close to lust.
"I've wondered," he said, rising from his chair. "Why would a demure little girl like yourself agree to marry a man like me? What are you hiding, Isabella?"
I rose, too, more out of habit than defiance. "I'm keeping from you the fact that I hate being treated like one's property."
He rested his head, eyes glinting,"Good response."
He circled the desk and walked toward me cautiously. I backed away, only to hit my head against the bookshelves standing behind me.
He stopped inches from me.
"I don't trust people easily," he snarled, speaking low. "But I don't kill them for nothing either, Don't give me one."
His fingers stroked a lock of hair from my cheek, and my skin jumped where he touched it, and then he simply turned and left the office with the door open behind him.
I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
That evening, I couldn't sleep.
My mind wouldn't cease to spin, I was here for a mission, a target A clean kill, But Dante was a mess, unpredictable, I needed leverage, information.
I did what I wasn't supposed to do.
I snuck out of my room after midnight.
The house slept or at least seemed to, I wore black, silent shoes and a thin knife concealed under my robe, My fingers brushed against the cold stone walls until I found the hall that I had seen him disappear into during the week the one behind the enormous mirror in the east wing.
I pushed, and the mirror moved open.
A hidden passage.
I went down rapidly, with care, in a steep stairs until I reached a heavy steel door, Locked, of course. But I had a pin to unlock the door.
It took ten minutes for the lock to open.
I sneaked in.
The room was not at all I'd expected. No comfort, no warm, Just concrete walls, rifles lining the shelves, and a wall of photographs and names faces of men, women, some with red Xs. Some. still blanks.
One of them was my father.
My heart came to a halt.
Why was he on this wall?
"Finding something?"
I was frozen.
The voice came from behind me deep, lethal, amused.
Dante.
I turned slowly.
He stood at the door, arms crossed, and for the first time, I saw it raw fury flickering behind his calm.
"What is this room?" I asked, trying to stay composed.
"The truth," he said. "And you just stepped into it."
He approached me, slow, deliberate, closing the door behind him with a diffenitive bang.