23. Chapter 23 Natalie

Chapter 23 Natalie

T he scent of salt and citrus hangs thick in the air as I wander the narrow streets of the Italian town, the sun dipping low on the horizon, casting everything in hues of gold and crimson.

It’s beautiful—breathtaking, even—but all I can feel is the knot tightening in my chest... The beauty of this place is a cruel taunt to the turmoil roiling inside me, a constant reminder that I’m not here for pleasure, no matter how Dante dresses it up.

He’s been playing the perfect gentleman these past two days, a dangerous game I’m all too aware of. When he’s not working, he’s doting, attentive, and charming in a way that makes it easy to forget who he really is.

But I’ve seen him in action—watched him cut the Corsini’s off at every turn with the precision of a master strategist. It’s like watching a chess grandmaster, every move calculated, every outcome already known.

It also terrifies me because I know there’s no mercy in him, not really. Not when it comes to what he wants.

And what he wants is me.

I shiver, despite the warm breeze, as the memory of that night at Club Lusso flickers behind my eyes. The Corsinis trying to take me from him, the violence that followed, and the man I thought I saw—my father.

Why would he be there? Could he have been the reason Luca Corsini went to war with Dante? No. My father wouldn’t be involved with men like that. Monsters masquerading as men.

I keep telling myself it was just my imagination, but doubt clings to my sanity, gnawing at the edges. The questions circle in my mind, a relentless loop that keeps me awake at night, staring at the ceiling of our lavish suite.

Dante doesn’t ask, doesn’t pry, but I feel his gaze on me, even when he’s not looking. He knows something’s wrong. He always knows.

The cobblestones under my feet give way to the polished wood of the yacht’s deck as I step on board, the luxurious vessel swaying gently beneath me. The Mediterranean stretches out in every direction, an endless expanse of blue that feels both liberating and suffocating at the same time.

There’s nowhere to run out here, nowhere to hide from the reality of what I’ve gotten myself into.

I find him on the aft deck, shirtless, his skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat that only highlights the power coiled beneath the surface. He’s lounging like a predator at rest, a bottle of champagne in one hand, two flutes in the other, the picture of decadent ease.

But I know better.

I know that every muscle is primed, every thought focused, and when he looks up at me, I feel the intensity of his gaze like a physical touch.

“You look like you could use a drink,” he says, his voice smooth as the bubbles dancing in the crystal glass he hands me. “Careful, moy voron. Keep frowning like that and you’ll mar that pretty face.”

I force myself to take the glass, my fingers trembling just slightly as they brush against his. The touch sends a jolt through me, as if he’s wired directly to my nerves. I want to hate him for it, for the way he can command my body with just a glance, a word, but hate is a slippery thing. It keeps slipping through my fingers, morphing into something else—something darker, more twisted.

I lift the glass to my lips, the effervescence tickling my nose as I take a small sip. “Maybe I want to be scarred,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “Maybe then you’d finally lose interest.”

He laughs, a deep, rich sound that seems to vibrate through my very bones. “Oh, Natalie. Sweet, foolish Natalie. When will you learn? There’s no version of you I wouldn’t crave, wouldn’t destroy worlds to possess.”

Dante’s words send a shiver racing down my spine, a dark thrill that I can’t deny. Because I know he means it.

There’s a steel certainty in his voice, the same unwavering confidence he brings to everything he does. Resisting Dante is like trying to hold back the tide—futile, exhausting, the outcome inevitable.

I try to pull away, to put some distance between us, but he’s already moving, his arm snaking around my waist, pulling me down onto the chaise beside him. His thigh presses against mine, a scorching line of heat that makes my breath hitch.

“None of that now, don’t ruin this,” he chides, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “You’ve been so good for me, little raven. Let me reward you.”

I want to resist, to throw up some kind of defense, but my body betrays me, leaning into him, craving the contact even as my mind screams at me to run. The cool kiss of champagne touches my lips again, this time guided by his hand, and I swallow reflexively, the bubbles a fleeting distraction from the storm inside me.

“There you go,” Dante murmurs, his voice laced with something like approval. “Just relax, let yourself feel. Let me make it good for you.”

His other hand drifts lower, toying with the knot of my robe, and I tense, my breath catching in my throat. His touch is gentle, almost tender, but there’s an undercurrent of possessiveness that makes my skin prickle with anticipation.

“Shh,” he soothes, his fingers slipping beneath the silk, skimming over my stomach, igniting a trail of fire in their wake. “You can fight me later, scream and thrash and tell me what a monster I am. But right now, in this moment? You’re going to let me adore you.”

The word lands like a blow, knocking the breath from my lungs. Because I know what Dante’s adoration entails. It’s not soft or kind; it’s a consuming, devouring force that will leave nothing of the girl I was behind. And yet, some twisted part of me yearns for it—yearns to be remade in the flames of his obsession.

I let my head fall back against his shoulder, my eyes sliding shut as I surrender to the inevitable. His hum of satisfaction vibrates through me, his touch growing bolder, more insistent as he pulls the robe open, baring me to the sun and his unyielding gaze.

“Magnificent,” he breathes, his hand molding over my breast, kneading the flesh with a reverence that’s almost painful. “A work of art, every inch of you. And all mine, to do with as I please.”

A whimper escapes me, my body arching into his touch, seeking more despite the voice in my head telling me to stop, to resist.

But there’s no resisting Dante… There never has been.

His fingers find my nipples, rolling and pinching them until sparks of electricity shoot straight to my core, making me gasp. I’m already wet, already aching for him, and he knows it.

He always knows.

“Please, Dante…” I whisper, the word a broken plea on my lips. “Don’t stop–”

"Please what, solnyshko?"

His tone is all dark amusement, his touch maddeningly gentle as it drifts lower, skimming over my ribs, my navel, coming to rest just above the throbbing apex of my thighs. "Use your words, tell me what you need."

I swallow hard, a battle raging between my pride and the clawing hunger his proximity ignites. He knows what I need, what I'm too ashamed to voice. But he'll make me say it anyway, the words a confession and a penance.

"Touch me," I manage, the syllables scraping like gravel in my throat. "Make me come. Make me forget everything..."

A low growl rumbles through his chest, resonant with masculine satisfaction.

"Good girl," he praises, dipping his fingers into my dripping folds. "So hot, so ready. Your greedy little cunt begs so sweetly for my attention."

I keen as he circles my clit, each flick and swirl wringing a fresh flood of arousal from my treacherous body. Dante plays me with expert finesse, building me higher and higher until I'm writhing in his grip, my hands scrabbling for purchase on his sweat-slick skin.

"That's it," he coaxes, slipping two fingers deep into my eager heat. "Ride my hand, fuck yourself on my fingers like the desperate slut you are. Show me how much you need it, how much you need me."

His filthy words stoke the flames, a pressure coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine. I rock against his thrusting palm shamelessly, pride and reason long since burned away in the crucible of his ardor.

"Dante, please," I sob, teetering on the knife's edge of relief. "I can't... I need..."

"I know, Moya Koroleva," he assures me, his free hand coming up to wrap around my throat, holding me in place as he starts to finger me in earnest. "And I'm going to give it to you. Going to wring every last drop of pleasure from this succulent little body until you're spent and shaking and ruined for anyone else's touch."

Then, his teeth close over my hammering pulse, biting down just shy of pain. The depravity. The dark possession of the act hurtles me over the edge, shatters me into a million glittering pieces. I cry out his name like an invocation, a prayer, my release gushing over his plunging fingers in hot, steady pulses.

Dante works me through the aftershocks, his touch gentling as I slump bonelessly against him. Stray tremors wrack my frame, my nerves still sparking with residual bliss.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my damp temple. "You're always so beautiful when you let go, when you give yourself over to me completely."

I want to deny it, to summon some witty rejoinder that will cut him down to size.

But all I can manage is a weak moan as he withdraws his fingers, bringing them to his lips to suck clean. The sight of him tasting my essence, his eyes fluttering shut in hedonistic appreciation, sends a fresh wave of want crashing through me, drowning me in sense memory.

"Insatiable," he chuckles, no doubt feeling the way I clench around the emptiness he's left behind. "My perfect little paintbrush. You'll be the death of me, you know that?"

I laugh, a fractured, disbelieving sound. "That's supposed to be my line."

His smile is a dark promise, his eyes glinting with an emotion I dare not name. "Ah, but what a way to go. Consumed by the flames of our desire, lost in the inferno of our own making."

He stands, pulling me up with him. I stumble slightly, my knees still weak from his ministrations. Dante catches me easily, the hard planes of his body a steadying anchor.

"Come, moy voron, we have much to do before Enzo’s party," he commands, lacing our fingers together. "And I have such delights in store for you, before we go. Pleasures and agonies beyond your wildest imagining. And you'll beg me so sweetly for them all."

My stomach clenches, equal parts trepidation and anticipation. The rational part of me wants to run, to scream, to deny the twisted hunger his words evoke. But that part gets quieter with each passing day, each heated touch and honeyed threat.

In the end, I let him lead me into the belly of the yacht, into the opulent den of sin he's prepared just for me. Because as much as it terrifies me, as much as it tears at the tattered remnants of my soul...

Dante's brand of ruinous adoration is a drug I can no longer resist. And falling into his dark embrace?

Feels like coming home to the hell I was always meant to rule.

***

The Tuscan sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of orange and indigo as I walk the grounds of the villa. Each step takes me further from the main house, the distant strains of music and laughter fading until all I hear is the whisper of the warm breeze through the cypress trees and the pounding of my own traitorous heart.

I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't have let Dante lure me away from the safety of the crowded terrace, the watchful eyes of Enzo and the other guests. But the temptation, the dark thrill of the forbidden, is too strong to resist.

Just like he was proving to be.

I round a corner and there he is, lounging against the trunk of an ancient olive tree - sinful and almost biblically dangerous - like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve. The fading light casts his features in a sinister portrait, all sharp angles and deep shadows.

Those obsidian eyes find mine, twin black holes threatening to devour me whole.

"Natalie." The way he says my name, low and intimate, sends a shiver down my spine. "I was starting to think you'd lost your nerve."

I lift my chin, defiant even as my pulse trips into overdrive. "What do you want, Dante?"

Those kissable lips curve into a blade of a smile. "You know exactly what I want, solnyshko."

He extends a hand, an unspoken command. Every instinct screams at me to turn and run, to flee the peril incarnate. But my body betrays me, drawn to his darkness like a moth to an infernal flame.

I am a marionette dancing on strings only he can see, my will siphoned away drop by treacherous drop. How much of me will be left when he finally tires of this game? Will I even recognize the shell he leaves behind?

My feet carry me to him, the heat of his gaze a physical caress against my skin. His fingers curl around my wrist, searing, branding me with his touch.

"Sweet Natalie," Dante murmurs, "still fighting, even now. Don't you know you were made for this, for me?"

"I was made for no one," I bite out, but the words ring hollow even to my own ears. Because the truth, the vicious, tearing truth, is that I crave this.

Crave him with a ferocity that frightens me.

Dante chuckles darkly, the sound vibrating through me like the toll of a funeral bell.

"Don’t tell lies, little raven," he breathes, drawing me into the cage of his arms. "Your body sings a different song. Shall I make it confess the depths of its need? After all, actions speak louder than words…"

I open my mouth to protest, but he silences me with a kiss, brutal, and always claiming. I whimper against his lips, even as I surrender to the onslaught, my own mouth moving with his in a dance I’ve come to know too well.

Dante walks me back until I'm flush against the tree, the rough bark snagging my hair, digging into my skin. A distant part of me recoils, aghast at my own wantonness. But it's drowned out by the thunder of my blood, the drugging heat of his touch as it maps a trail down my throat.

"I could take you right here," he rasps against the hammering pulse point below my jaw. "Hitch up this pretty little dress and fuck you until the only words you remember are ‘I’m yours’."

A fractured moan escapes me, lust and loathing twisting serpentine in my gut. I should be repulsed, should be clawing away from this monster wearing a man's face. But my treacherous body reacts on instinct, back arching, hips rolling against his in blatant invitation.

Dante moans, a sound edged with both hunger and triumph.

Those clever, cruel fingers dance along the hem of my dress, dipping beneath to skim the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I suck in a sharp breath, thighs parting like the Red Sea, eager for him to desecrate my holy land.

"So ready for me, aren't you, solnyshko?" His touch inches higher, grazing the damp proof of my shame. "I barely have to crook my finger and you're dripping, desperate for what only I can give you."

It's agony, exquisite and excruciating. The aching emptiness inside me howls and rages, demanding to be filled, to be stretched and taken and branded in the most primal way imaginable.

But I can't give in, can't let him win.

Not again. Not like this.

"Please, Dante…" I manage in a pathetic whimper against his smirking mouth. "Not here. Someone could see."

He laughs, nipping sharply at my bottom lip. "And why should that stop me? You're mine, moy voron. To do with as I please, whenever and wherever I please."

The worst part is, I can't even deny it. No matter how much my mind rebels, my heart, my body, my very soul belongs to this beautiful nightmare.

"Dante," I try again, desperation leaking into my tone. "I’m not into this—I'm not an exhibitionist- "

"Shh," he cuts me off, his free hand coming up to wrap around my throat, a possessive squeeze that sends a thrill of dark delight zinging down my spine. "No more lies, moy voron. No more fighting what we both know to be inevitable."

His touch grows firmer between my legs, two fingers spearing into my pulsing pussy without preamble. I keen, high and wounded, hips bucking helplessly into the sudden fullness.

Dante pumps in and out, each thrust a lewd squelch in the twilight quiet.

"Do you feel that, Natalie?" His breath is hot against my ear, the words dripping with sadistic promise. "How your greedy little cunt clings to me, begging to be stretched and filled and fucked into oblivion?"

A broken sob is his only response, blocked by too much denial and furious assent.

I do feel it, with every fiber of my being. The way my very flesh and sinew cry out for him, for the blinding ecstasy and searing degradation only he can provide.

"You can't deny it," he goes on, a third finger joining the fray, working me open with ruthless precision. "Can't escape me, or the dark carnality we create in chaos. Stop trying to run from your true nature and embrace it."

I’m free falling from each flick as his calloused thumb finds my clit, deft strokes sending me hurtling towards the edge. Dante latches onto the column of my throat, sucking a deep purple bruise into my pale skin and I toss my head back, a nymphette in the throes of pagan ecstasy.

Marking me as his own.

I shatter with a ragged cry, my release flooding over his fingers in hot, slick pulses. He strokes me through it, murmuring filthy praise in Italian against my fevered flesh.

But it's not enough–and I don’t think it will ever be enough.

My orgasm is a pale shadow, a firefly glow against the supernova Dante's ignited inside me. I need more, need everything. Need to be split and remade and devoured until nothing remains but the taste of his name on my tongue.

"Please," I whimper, nails scrabbling against the silk of his shirt. "Please, Take me- "

"I know what you want," he growls, the words cutting me to the quick. "I know exactly what you need, and I'm going to give it to you."

I kinda love being manhandled when Dante spins me around, pressing me against the rough trunk, the ancient wood biting into my palms, as unforgiving as the man poised to claim me. The sound of his belt unclasping, followed by the rustle of fabric...

Then, the blunt head of his cock presses against my entrance, the suddenness of it making me tense despite myself. I quickly mask the flicker of fear with a smooth arch of my spine, willing my body to relax.

“Breathe, solnyshko,” Dante murmurs, his touch softening for a fleeting moment. “Let me in. You know you can take it—let me fill all those aching, empty spaces inside you; let me make you whole.”

Tears prick the corners of my eyes, my heart a wild creature throwing itself against the cage of my ribs. It's futile. He's already inside me, has been since that first searing glance across a blood-spattered gallery.

I am a house gutted by flame, and he is all that will ever dwell within my charred walls.

Dante's thrusts falter at my hesitation, and the moment stretches, taut with the weight of his unspoken demand. His hand releases my hair only to snake around my throat, squeezing just enough to cut off the whimper caught in my throat.

I almost beg when he pulls out, leaving me empty, my body keening at the sudden loss. My eyes snap open, meeting his in the dim light. His gaze is feral, darkened with a need that borders on obsession.

Still…Dantee doesn’t move, doesn’t blink—just stares down at me, his fingers tightening incrementally around my neck, a silent warning. He won’t fuck me again until I give him what he wants.

The realization sends a shiver down my spine, adding to the exquisite feeling twisting low in my belly.

"Solnyshko," Dante growls, the command vibrating through his chest and into mine, every word laced with possessive fury.

The words burn as they leave my lips, each one a piece of myself I’m surrendering to him, and only him. "I'm—I'm yours," I gasp out, each syllable tearing at my soul. "Made for you, only for you, fuck—"

A demonic sound in the form of a roar erupts from him as he drives into me with brutal force, his hand coming down hard on my ass in a ringing slap. The sting reverberates through my body, pushing me closer to the edge, my walls clamping down around him like a vice.

"Again," he demands, punctuating the command with another stinging blow. "Say it again, like you fucking mean it."

"Yours!" I cry out, tears spilling over, the confession branding my soul, leaving me raw and bleeding for his dark desire. "I belong to you, Dante. Always. Fucking. Yours!"

A strangled grunt escapes him, his thrusts turning frenzied, erratic. I can feel him pulsing inside me - swelling as his dick twitches - ready to flood me with his release.

"Fuck, Natalie," he rasps, the words steeped in dark wonder. "My perfect whore, my twisted queen. Come for me, like a good girl. Crown my cock like you were born to."

His fingers find my clit, and that's all it takes. I detonate with a scream, my body spasming as I convulse around his plundering length. Dante stiffens behind me, following me into oblivion with a guttural moan, his heat erupting deep in my trembling core.

We stay like that, shaking, panting, locked together in the aftermath. When he finally slips free, I whimper at the loss, bereft without his searing presence inside me.

Dante chuckles darkly, smoothing a proprietary hand over the curve of my ass.

"Look at you," he muses, fingers delving between my thighs, gathering the sticky evidence of our coupling. "Fucked out and dripping with my cum. The perfect canvas for my twisted desires."

His eyes don't leave mine as paints my inner thighs with our mingled release—an artist leaving his signature—a perverse benediction. I shudder, humiliation and illicit heat coursing through my overstimulated nerves.

With a wicked grin, he brings his coated fingers to my lips. "Taste us," he commands, his voice a low, dangerous purr.

I part my lips, taking his fingers into my mouth, tasting the mingled essence of our sin. The act is filthy, depraved—and I crave every second of it. He watches me with burning eyes, then slowly withdraws his fingers, licking them clean, savoring our shared corruption.

What has he made of me, that I could crave such brazen debasement?

"I'll never be free of you, will I?" The question is soft, plaintive, a dove loosed into the closing night.

Dante turns me to face him, his expression unreadable in the deepening shadows. "No, solnyshko. You won't. You're mine now, in every way that matters. Best accept it, embrace it. Fighting will only make the fall that much sweeter in the end."

My heart clenches, my tattered pride roaring its bitter dissent. "And if I do? If I give in, let you reshape me in your darkest image? What then?"

He smiles, slow and serpentine. "Then, my love? Then the real fun begins."

With that promise, that threat, he tucks me back into my dress, smoothing the wrinkles his passion has wrought. I let him, pliant and numb, a doll in the hands of a capricious master.

Hand in hand, we walk back to the villa, back to glittering smiles and sparkling conversation. But with each step, I feel the shape of his possession settle more deeply into my bones. An insidious knowing, an inescapable truth:

I am his, now and forever. And heaven help me...

A part of me rejoices in my fall from grace.

The walk back to the villa is a surreal blur, the distant strains of music and laughter growing louder with each step. Dante's arm is a steel band around my waist, his possessive grip a stark reminder of the dark claiming we've just indulged in.

I can feel the evidence of our coupling trickling down my thighs, a lewd seepage that flushes my cheeks and quickens my breath. It's not the first time I've played the coy ingenue with cum dripping between my legs, but it's the first time I've done it stone-cold sober.

The last time was at one of Sienna's infamous parties, when I was riding high on cocaine and the twisted thrill of being a fox in a henhouse. I'd let one of her entitled broker bros finger me to a screaming orgasm in the coat closet, then floated back into the crowd with his spend painting my inner thighs, a dirty little secret only I was privy to.

But that was before.

Before Dante, before my world narrowed down to the gilded cage of his obsession. He's the only drug I have access to now, his touch the only high left to me. And God help me, I'm starting to wonder if it's all I'll ever crave again.

We step onto the terrace, the clink of glasses and hum of conversation washing over me like a tidal wave. I plaster on a smile, the muscle memory of a thousand gallery openings and schmoozefests taking over. Dante’s lips brush my ear, his voice a dark purr that sets my nerve endings alight.

“Mingle, solnyshko. Dazzle them with your wit and grace. But as my cum slides down those creamy thighs, don’t forget who you’ll be begging to tear you apart again before the night is over.”

With a final squeeze of my hip, he melts into the crowd, leaving me bereft and aching. I take a shuddering breath, trying to ignore the way my body mourns the loss of his heat, the phantom pressure of his bruising grip.

"Natalie, cara mia!" Enzo's jovial greeting cuts through the static in my head, his kind eyes crinkling at the corners as he approaches. "You look absolutely radiant. Italian living agrees with you, no?"

His gaze flickers over my flushed cheeks, my kiss-bruised mouth, and I fight the urge to squirm. Can he smell Dante on my skin, see the shadows of his fingerprints on my flesh? The thought sends a perverse thrill zinging through me, even as my stomach twists with shame.

"Enzo," I manage, summoning a smile that feels brittle as spun glass. "You're too kind. I'm just trying to keep my head above water in all this splendor."

He chuckles, pressing a champagne flute into my hand. "Nonsense. You fit right in, bella. Like you were born to dazzle us all with your brilliance."

I take a sip of the bubbly, letting the effervescence dance across my tongue. It's a poor substitute for the cocaine that used to fuel me through these sorts of functions, the heady rush and diamond-sharp clarity nothing but a distant memory.

"You give me too much credit," I demur, my eyes scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Dante. "I'm just an artist playing dress-up, pretending to belong in a world I barely understand."

Enzo’s hand finds my elbow, a steadying anchor amidst the glittering whirl of the gala.

“Listen to me, Natalie. You are so much more than you give yourself credit for. I’ve seen your work—the raw, visceral power of it. That kind of talent, that kind of vision? It belongs wherever it damn well pleases.”

When did I become such a crybaby?

Enzo’s words hit me like a punch to the gut, raw and unexpected. He always knows what to say—like he can see the fractures in me that my father used to mend. The pieces of me that needed Dad like oxygen, his words the glue that held me together.

I miss him so much. The ache in my chest is constant, a wound that never heals. And I should hate Dante for taking me from him, for ripping me away from the only real warmth I’ve ever known. I should hate him with every fiber of my being.

But I don’t. I can’t.

Because in this sea of sharks and vipers, Enzo stands out. He’s genuine, a beacon of human warmth untainted by the darkness that surrounds us. His kindness is a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge of the abyss that Dante keeps me teetering over.

The urge to unburden myself to him, to spill the dark secrets festering inside me, is overwhelming. I want to tell him everything—about Dante, about what I’ve done, about the parts of me I’m afraid I’ll never get back. I want to confess, to let the words tumble out in a desperate plea for redemption.

Not like I can, since the words are lodged in my throat… choking me.

I take another sip of champagne, the bubbles fizzing against my tongue, a poor distraction from the storm brewing inside me. My pulse hammers in my ears, the weight of my secrets pressing down on me, suffocating.

“Enzo...” My voice is barely a whisper, trembling with the weight of everything I can’t say.

He squeezes my elbow gently, his gaze steady, reassuring. “You don’t have to say anything, Natalie. Just know that I’m here. Whatever you need, whenever you need it.”

I nod, the lump in my throat making it impossible to speak. His words are a balm, soothing the raw edges of my soul. But they can’t heal the damage Dante has done, the scars he’s left on my heart, my mind, my body.

And as much as I want to believe Enzo’s promises, I know the truth: There’s no saving me. Not anymore.

But before I can summon the courage, a commotion near the villa's entrance draws our attention. Raised voices, the urgent tread of heavy footsteps. Dante materializes at my side, his jaw clenched and eyes hard as flint.

"We have to go," he says tersely, his grip on my arm just shy of bruising. "Now."

Enzo frowns, concern etching deep lines into his furry brow. "What's going on, Dante? Is it the Corsini’s?"

Dante gives a sharp nod, already steering me towards a side door. "They've made a move on one of our shipments. Killed two of our men. It's not safe here, not anymore."

Cold dread slithers down my spine, the reality of the deadly game I'm caught in crashing over me like a bucket of ice water. The Corsinis, Dante's blood feud, the ever-tightening noose of violence and retribution - it all feels suddenly, terrifyingly real.

And it’s all my fault…

"Where will you go?" Enzo asks.

And I’m thankful he breaks my spiral, still speaking while falling into step beside us as Dante hustles me through the villa's winding halls. "The compound in the mountains?"

"No," Dante grits out, his eyes scanning the shadows for unseen threats. "Too obvious. I have a place, off the books. We'll lay low there until I can mobilize a response."

We reach a nondescript door at the end of a service corridor, and Dante punches a code into the keypad with fluid efficiency. The door swings open, revealing a hidden garage housing a fleet of sleek, armored vehicles.

"Take the Audi," Enzo advises, tossing Dante a set of keys. "It's the least conspicuous. I'll stay here, try to keep a lid on things until you give the all-clear."

Dante clasps his shoulder, something like gratitude flickering in his gaze. "Thank you, brother. I owe you."

Enzo shakes his head, his smile tight but genuine. "Just keep our girl here safe. And Natalie?" He turns to me, his eyes soft with concern. "Remember what I said. You're stronger than you know."

I manage a nod, throat tight because for the millionth time tonight I want to cry.

Then Dante is bundling me into the passenger seat, the engine roaring to life as he peels out of the garage and into the inky Italian night.

I stare out the window as the villa recedes behind us, the glittering lights and lilting music fading into a distant dream. Beside me, Dante is a coiled spring of barely leashed tension, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"I won't let them touch you," he vows, the words low and fierce in the charged silence. "I'll burn their whole fucking empire to ash before I let them lay a finger on what's mine."

A shudder rolls through me, and I’m still afraid but somehow filled with dark elation. Because even in the midst of this swelling chaos, this spiral into the belly of the underworld beast, one truth remains inescapable.

And maybe I should accept that I am his. Wholly, irrevocably. And in the end, that dark belonging might be the only thing that saves me from the coming storm.