The darkness was absolute until it wasn't. When the hood was finally yanked away, the sudden glare of a crystal chandelier felt like physical needles in Julian's eyes. He gasped, his lungs burning with the stale, metallic scent of the car ride.
He was in a room that defied everything he knew about modern Sicily. This wasn't a sleek apartment; it was a fortress of 17th-century opulence. The walls were draped in heavy, midnight-blue damask, and the ceiling featured a sprawling, faded fresco of a titan falling from the heavens.
"Sit."
The voice was like the slide of a blade against silk.
Julian looked up. And up.
The man standing behind the massive mahogany desk was a shadow made flesh. He was towering—easily 6'4"—with shoulders that seemed to eat the light in the room. His hair was black as a raven's wing, slicked back to reveal a face carved from cold marble. At 28, Dante Vitale didn't just look like a leader; he looked like a god of the underworld.
Julian's breath hitched. He tried to stand, but his legs, small and trembling, gave out. He collapsed back into the velvet chair, his 5'2" frame practically swallowed by the furniture.
"I... I was just taking pictures," Julian whispered, his American accent thick and jagged with terror. "I'm a student. From the university. I didn't see anything."
Dante moved then. It wasn't a walk; it was a prowl. He rounded the desk, the floorboards of the ancient palazzo groaning under his weight. He stopped inches from Julian, looming over him so completely that the air felt thin.
He reached out. Julian flinched, eyes snapping shut, but the blow never came. Instead, a large, calloused hand—scarred across the knuckles—hooked under Julian's chin. With agonizing slowness, Dante forced Julian's head back until their eyes met.
Dante's eyes weren't dark. They were a terrifying, translucent grey—the color of flint before a spark.
"You have beautiful eyes, piccolo," Dante rasped, his thumb brushing over Julian's lower lip. The touch was possessive, a silent claim. "It's a shame they saw the one door they were never meant to find."
"Please," Julian choked out, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Let me go. I'll delete the photos. I'll leave the city."
Dante leaned down, his face so close Julian could smell the expensive tobacco and bitter espresso on his breath. A cold, mirthless smile touched the Capo's lips.
"You aren't leaving Palermo, Julian," Dante murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous, intimate vibration. "You moved to Sicily to study the past. Well... welcome to the oldest tradition we have. You're mine now. And I don't give back what I've claimed."
Dante turned to the men standing by the door, his eyes returning to their usual icy deadness. "Take him to the north wing. Lock the doors. If he so much as touches a window, I want the skin off your backs."
As Julian was hauled away, his small hands scratching uselessly at the guards' suits, he looked back one last time. Dante was already back at his desk, pouring a glass of dark liquid, looking for all the world as if he hadn't just ended a man's life without a single drop of blood being spilled.