Aria's POV
I woke up in full darkness.
My head pounded. My mouth tasted like chemicals. And I couldn't move my arms.
Panic hit me like ice water. I tried to sit up, but my hands were tied to something—a bedpost? My knees too. I was lying on a bed in a pitch-black room, bound and powerless.
The dinner. The alley. Those ice-blue eyes watching me fall.
"Help!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "Somebody help me!"
No answer. Just quiet so thick it pressed against my ears.
I pulled at the ropes, ignoring the burn against my skin. This couldn't be happening. Things like this didn't happen to people like me. I was nobody. I had nothing worth stealing, no one who'd pay ransom—
The door opened.
Light flooded in, blinding me. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
"You're awake." A man's voice, smooth and cold. "Good. We have much to discuss."
I forced my eyes open. The man from the gala stood in the doorway—tall, dark-haired, wearing new clothes now but still radiating that same dangerous elegance. Behind him stood the scarred man I'd seen him talking to.
"Who are you?" My voice shook. "What do you want?"
The man stepped closer, and I saw his face clearly for the first time. He was beautiful in a terrible way—sharp features, ice-blue eyes, the kind of face that belonged on magazine covers or in dreams.
"My name is Dante Salvatore," he said softly. "And I want you to answer one question honestly: Do you know who I am?"
"No," I whispered. "I've never seen you before tonight."
"But you know your father is Lorenzo Morelli."
It wasn't a question. My stomach twisted.
"I—yes. But I don't know anything about his work. I don't talk to him. I haven't seen him in years—"
"Liar." Dante's voice turned to ice. "You were at the same gala he went. Playing violin while your sister flaunted her engagement. Don't insult my intelligence by claiming you're separate from that family."
"I am separate!" Tears burned my eyes. "He doesn't claim me. I'm his mistake, his embarrassment. The girl he hides. I only played at the event because I needed the money—"
Dante moved so fast I didn't see it coming. One moment he was across the room, the next his hand was gripping my chin, causing me to meet his eyes.
"Tell me what you know about the Salvatore family massacre," he said softly. "Tell me what your father told you about the night he burned innocent people alive."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" I was crying now, scared and confused. "Please, I don't know anything about a murder. My father doesn't tell me anything. He doesn't even—" "Boss." The scarred man spoke from the doorway. "Her room. You need to see this."
Dante stared at me for another long moment, his eyes searching mine like he could read the truth written in my soul. Then he released me and left without another word.
The door locked behind him.
I lay in the darkness, shaking, trying to understand. Salvatore family killing. Fifteen years of planning. My father burned people alive.
Oh God.
Whatever my father had done, this man thought I was part of it. He thought I was worth taking, worth hurting. He didn't know the truth—that Lorenzo Morelli barely acknowledged I existed.
Time passed. I had no way to measure it. I dozed in and out of awareness, my head still fuzzy from whatever drug they'd used.
When the door opened again, Dante looked different. His face was harder somehow, his eyes colder.
"You weren't lying," he said quietly. "You really do live like that."
"Like what?"
"Like someone your father forgot about." He pulled up a chair and sat facing me, his arms on his knees. "Studio apartment in a bad area. Bills you can't pay. An room with nothing personal in it except a cheap violin and music books. No shots of family. No link to the Morelli empire at all."
I didn't know if that was good or bad. "So you'll let me go?"
Dante laughed, but it was the cruelest sound I'd ever heard. "No, Aria. I won't let you go. Because I just realized something interesting."
"What?"
"Your father doesn't value you. Which means hurting you won't hurt him." He leaned closer, and I saw something broken and terrible in his eyes. "So instead, I'm going to keep you. Train you. Make you into everything Lorenzo tried to hide. And when I'm done, when you're standing beside me with the Salvatore name instead of his, when everyone knows the daughter he threw away picked his enemy—that's when he'll finally feel what I felt."
"I don't understand—"
"You will." Dante stood. "This room will be your home until I decide otherwise. You'll eat when I allow it, speak when I permit it, and remember every single day that you're paying for your father's sins."
He walked to the door.
"Please," I whispered. "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not part of whatever he did to you."
Dante paused, his hand on the handle. When he looked back at me, his face was empty.
"My sister was eight years old," he said softly. "She liked to draw flowers. She was afraid of clouds. And she screamed for three full minutes while she burned to death because your father wanted to send a message." He opened the door. "So no, Aria. You didn't do anything wrong. But neither did Sofia. And she paid for sins she didn't commit too."
The door closed. The lock clicked.
And I understood with terrible clarity that I'd been caught in a war I didn't know existed, taken as payment for crimes I'd never heard of, by a man who had nothing left to lose.
I was going to die here.
And no one would even know I was gone.