Chapter2

What I needed wasn't a tearful, emotionally unhinged confrontation. That would only make him bury Serafina and his entire plot even deeper. I needed hard evidence—something that could nail him to the wall.

So, I started keeping tabs on his schedule. Three times a week, religiously, he was supposedly "handling the South District's shipments." For three consecutive weeks, a call from the exact same number came in, and he drove off into the night alone.

On the fourth Wednesday, I used a sleepover at a girlfriend's place as an excuse, swapped my usual ride for an unmarked car, and tailed him. His car parked in the side alley next to "Nightingale," an underground club, bypassing the main entrance completely.

A lone bodyguard stood watch at the mouth of the alley, smoking, rotating shifts every ten minutes or so. I perfectly timed the gap between shift changes to slip over to a slightly ajar side door. A single wall separated the narrow corridor from a VIP booth, and the soundproofing was remarkably poor.

I pulled out a digital voice recorder and pressed it flat against the wall. At first, I heard Serafina's voice, thick with a petulant, tearful whine: "Dante, I'm scared. The Rossi family's men are still hunting me."

"I'll have Isabella take every bullet aimed at you," Dante replied. "Just stay safely hidden. Once the heat dies down, I will marry you."

But it didn't end there. The sounds that followed completely paralyzed me where I stood.

Serafina suddenly let out a soft laugh. "Dante, tell me... if she knew what we were doing right now, would she still be such a good, obedient girl for you?"

Dante's breathing suddenly grew heavy. "Don't bring her up."

What followed was the harsh metallic clank of a belt buckle being yanked open, and then Serafina's uncontrollable gasps, mixed with breathy, broken pleas: "Gentler... Dante, not so rough..."

Dante's voice was so incredibly hoarse he sounded like a completely different man. "You wore this to see me today. Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

I clamped my teeth brutally down on the back of my hand, biting back the whimpers threatening to spill from my lips.

Three years. Whenever he was with me, he was always so gentle, so meticulously restrained. Even his kisses carried a gentle, questioning hesitation. I once thought that was respect. I thought it meant he cherished me.

It turned out, it was none of those things. He simply didn't want to waste his most primal, unhinged side on a mere body double.

I stumbled my way backward out of the alley. I had shed enough tears that first night; right now, all I wanted was proof.

Back at the estate, I headed straight for the glass art studio—the one room he strictly forbade anyone else from entering. The lock was brand new. I tried three different bobby pin angles, relying on that one time I had helped him fix a jammed lock, and spent nearly ten agonizing minutes before the cylinder finally clicked open. My palms were drenched in cold sweat.

The walls were completely plastered with portraits he had painted of me.

I studied them one by one, until my eyes suddenly snagged on the painting tucked in the darkest corner. There was an unnatural seam along the edge of its frame.

I grabbed a screwdriver and pried it open. Inside a hidden compartment lay a thick stack of documents. The top page read: Project Codename: Bella.

My schedules, medical data, favorite restaurants, and go-to perfumes. Every single item was highlighted with tags like Highly recognizable and Easy to track and locate. An attached memo laid it out bare: As long as the Rossi family believes she is Vitale's sole weakness, their firepower will naturally concentrate on her.

Beneath that lay a chemical analysis report for the custom perfume I wore every single day. A hand-signed note sat at the bottom: The fragrance profile heavily matches Miss Rossi's preferred scent. Similarity rate: 99%.

The bombs wired under my car. The stray bullets grazing by as I bought coffee. His breathtakingly deepening kisses every time he carefully cleaned my wounds after a close call. None of those were accidents. They were meticulously calculated setups, followed by his own hand-delivered, theatrical compensations.

A sudden, heavy ache tugged at my lower abdomen. I furrowed my brow, suppressing the strange flutter, and pushed it to the back of my mind without a second thought.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. I had no time to hide.

Dante pushed the door open. Seeing me standing directly in front of the open hidden compartment, his steps faltered for less than a split second before he seamlessly shut the door behind him, acting entirely unfazed.

"Three weeks of snooping, and this is all you managed to dig up?" His voice was chillingly calm. His gaze landed on the files, devoid of even a shred of surprise.

My heart sank heavily. He had known I was tailing him all along.

"Serafina has severe PTSD. She can't handle any sudden shocks." He methodically lit a cigar. "Without me three years ago, you would have completely rotted away in that basement. This is what you owe me."

"What I owe you?" I glared at him, my fingertips visibly trembling. "When you were cleaning the shrapnel out of my skin, were you just secretly thanking God that she wasn't the one taking the bullets?"

He didn't answer. He simply watched me through a thick veil of gray smoke.

"Every single thing I gave you came with a neatly printed price tag."

He closed the distance in a single, predatory stride and aggressively seized my wrist. "This conversation," he warned, "ends right here."

The phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed to life. He didn't let go, nor did his dark gaze leave my face. With his free hand, he pulled out the device and methodically thumbed the answer button.