Chapter 4 Face to Face with the Devil

Chapter 4: Face to Face with the Devil

The penthouse was a cathedral to wealth and power, and Elena had never felt more like a sacrifice.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city from forty stories up, transforming the streets below into veins of light pulsing through darkness. Marble floors gleamed under recessed lighting. Original artwork adorned walls the color of expensive whiskey. Everything was immaculate, curated, perfect—a showroom designed to remind visitors exactly who held the power.

Elena stood in the center of it all, barefoot and trembling, while Dante circled her like a shark scenting blood.

"Welcome home," he said, the irony sharp enough to cut.

"This isn't my home." Elena wrapped her arms around herself. "This is a cage with a better view."

Dante paused mid-step, amusement flickering across his face. "You're not wrong. But it's a very comfortable cage." He gestured to a hallway. "Your room is the third door. En suite bathroom, walk-in closet, balcony access—though I should mention the balcony is forty stories up and monitored by cameras."

"You mean suicidal."

"Semantics." He moved to a bar cart and poured himself whiskey. "Drink?"

"I don't want your whiskey. I want to go home."

"We've established that's not happening." He took a slow sip, watching her over the rim. "But I admire your persistence. Most people would have started negotiating by now."

"What is there to negotiate? You hold all the cards."

"True. But that doesn't mean you have no value to offer." Dante approached with predatory grace. "You could make this easier on yourself. Accept your situation. Stop fighting what you can't change."

Elena lifted her chin. "Or what? You'll kill me? Do it then. At least I won't have to spend another minute looking at your face."

His laugh was rich, genuine, utterly unexpected. "Cristo, you have a mouth on you. Does nothing scare you into submission?"

"You scare me." The admission escaped before she could stop it. "You terrify me. I watched you murder a man like it was nothing. But if you think I'm going to grovel and thank you for kidnapping me, you're insane."

"We've established I'm probably insane." He was close now, close enough that Elena had to tilt her head back. "But here's what you're going to learn about me, Elena. I don't want your gratitude. I don't want your submission. Those things bore me."

"Then what do you want?"

His hand traced the line of her jaw. "That's the question, isn't it? Why didn't I kill you? Why did I bring you here instead?" His thumb brushed across her lower lip. "Because the answer, cara mia, is that I want to know what breaks you. What makes you bend. Whether that fire in your eyes burns just as bright when you're underneath me."

Heat flooded Elena's cheeks—fury and something more dangerous. "I'm not sleeping with you."

"I didn't ask you to." But his smile said he knew exactly what that flush meant. "When you come to my bed, Elena, it will be because you choose it. I don't take what isn't freely given in that regard."

"Then you'll be waiting forever."

"Possibly." He stepped back. "But I'm a patient man. Now, here are the rules. You're free to move anywhere in the penthouse, but the doors are locked and alarmed. The windows don't open. There's food in the kitchen. Your things from the apartment will arrive tomorrow, including your cat."

Despite everything, relief surged through her. "You actually sent someone?"

"I said I would. I may be a monster, but I'm a monster of my word." His expression hardened. "No one in this building will hurt you. You're under my protection. That makes you untouchable."

"How reassuring."

"It should be." He moved toward the hallway. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we'll discuss what comes next."

"What comes next?" Elena's voice rose. "What else could possibly come next?"

Dante paused at the doorway, and when he looked back, his expression was unreadable—part promise, part threat, part something she couldn't name.

"You learn to live with me, Elena. You learn the rhythms of this place. You learn that resistance only makes you tired." His smile was slow, dangerous. "And eventually, you learn that accepting your place here might not be the torture you're expecting."

He left, and Elena stood alone in the enormous living room, surrounded by marble and morning light, with the city lights below and the taste of his words still burning.

She should start planning escape. Should map exits. Should plot survival.

Instead, she found herself remembering the way he'd touched her face. The promise in his eyes. The certainty in his voice when he'd said when you come to my bed.

Not if. When.

Like her surrender was inevitable. Like he could see a future she couldn't yet imagine. Like he knew something about her she hadn't discovered herself.

Elena moved to the windows, pressing her palm against the glass, staring down at the city that had been her home and was now her prison. Forty stories of empty air between her and freedom.

She was trapped. Completely. With a man who'd stolen her life with the same casual ease he'd ended Marco's.

The penthouse was silent except for her breathing and the distant hum of the city. Beautiful. Perfect. Suffocating.

Elena closed her eyes and made herself a promise: she would survive this. Would find a way out. Would not become whatever Dante Valeri wanted her to be.

But as she stood there in the pre-dawn darkness, a small voice in the back of her mind whispered a terrifying question:

What if you already are?

And somewhere in the penthouse, in his own room, Dante Valeri stood at his window looking at the same city, touching the same glass, and smiled.

Because he'd seen something in Elena Hayes that she hadn't seen in herself yet.

Not just defiance. Not just courage.

But recognition.

The same emptiness he carried. The same loneliness. The same desperate need for something—anything—that felt real in a world of calculated moves and hollow victories.

She didn't know it yet. Would fight it with everything she had.

But Dante knew. Had known from the moment their eyes met in that warehouse.

Elena Hayes was his.

She just needed time to realize it.

And Dante Valeri, mafia king and patient predator, had all the time in the world.

He pulled out his phone and sent a single text to Carlo: Double the security. She'll try to escape again within forty-eight hours. When she does, bring her to me. Unharmed. We're going to have a conversation about consequences.

The response came immediately: Boss, are you sure about this? She's a liability. Protocol says—

Dante didn't bother reading the rest. He knew what protocol said. Kill the witness. Eliminate the risk. Move on.

But protocol hadn't accounted for the way Elena's defiance had made him feel alive for the first time in fifteen years.

Protocol hadn't planned for obsession.

And Dante was done following protocol where she was concerned.

He was keeping her. Training her. Breaking her down and building her back up into something that could survive in his world.

Or she would break him first.

Either way, neither of them was walking away unchanged.

The game had begun.

And only one of them knew they were playing.