Ruthless Devotion:His innocent captive

Chapter five: The Red Zone

The piercing wail of the alarm cut through the bedroom like a knife. Red emergency lights flushed through the glass balcony doors, turning the entire room into a bloody shade of crimson.

Dante didn’t panic, he was still like it didn't affect him. In less than a second, his entire posture changed. The heavy, dark lust in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, lethal focus.

He rolled off me instantly, his hand reaching under the pillow on his side of the bed. When he pulled his hand back, he was holding a heavy, black semi-automatic handgun.

I scrambled to the corner of the bed almost falling off, I pulled my knees to my chest, my heart beating so fast I could barely breathe.

"What is happening?" I screamed over the noise of the siren.

"Stay down," Dante ordered, his voice flat and deadly calm.

He moved silently across the room toward the double doors, his bare feet making no sound on the carpet. Before he could reach the handle, the sound of muffled gunfire echoed from downstairs. Pop. Pop. Pop.

My stomach dropped. Someone was inside the house.

Dante didn't look back at me. He clicked the safety off his gun, the sharp sound making me flinch.

Suddenly, the bedroom doors burst open. I opened my mouth to scream, but Dante was already moving. He fired two precise clean shots into the hallway. Two heavy thuds followed as bodies hit the floor.

The smell of gunpowder flooded the bedroom, sharp and metallic. I covered my ears, burying my face in my knees, weeping from pure terror. This wasn't my world. I was just a normal girl, trying to survive and now I was stuck in the middle of a literal warzone.

Dante turned around, his chest heaving slightly as he looked at me. "Clara. Get up. We don't have time to waste anymore”.

"No, I can't," I cried, my legs feeling like it has been paralyzed. "I can't move."

In three long strides, Dante crossed the room. He didn't ask again. He grabbed my arm and yanked me off the bed, pulling me flush against his side.

His body felt like a shield of solid iron. He kept his gun raised, pointing it toward the door as he guided me out into the smoky hallway.

"Look at me," Dante commanded, his fierce gray eyes locking onto mine for a brief second. "Keep your eyes on me and keep moving. If you trip, I’m leaving you behind."

I knew he was lying about leaving me.I was his only leverage against my brother,but the threat did wonders to me.

I forced my shaking legs to move, keeping my eyes glued to the dark tattoos on his bare back as he led me down a narrow, hidden staircase at the back of the master wing.

Downstairs, the house was in chaos. Shadows danced on the walls from the flashing red lights, and more gunfire echoed from the front lobby.

Dante led me into a cold, concrete basement corridor that smelled like damp earth and dust. At the end of the hall stood a massive, solid steel door with a digital keypad.

It was a panic room.

Dante punched in a quick code, and the heavy steel door clicked open with a loud hiss. He shoved me inside first. The room was small, filled with security monitors, a small cot, and walls lined with weapons. It looked like a high-tech bunker.

"Stay in here," Dante said, stepping back toward the hallway. "The door locks automatically from the inside. Nothing can get through this steel."

"You're leaving me?" I panicked my eyes almost bulging out, my hand reaching out to grab his bloody forearm before I could stop myself.

Even though he was my captor, right now, he was the only thing keeping me alive in this house of horrors.

Dante looked down at my hand on his arm, his eyes softening just a fraction. He reached up, his rough fingers cupping the side of my face for a brief, intense second. His thumb brushed against a tear on my cheek.

"I have to clean up my house, piccola," he murmured, his voice low and raspy against the sound of the distant alarms. "No one touches what belongs to me. And right now, you belong to me."

He pulled away, stepping out of the room. The heavy steel door slid shut with a deafening slam, and the electronic lock clicked into place.

Then it dawned on me that I was completely alone.

I rushed over to the security monitors on the wall. The screens showed different angles of the mansion. In the main lobby, I could see Dante’s men fighting off masked invaders dressed in black tactical gear. Then, the camera angle shifted to the back hallway right outside my panic room.

My breath caught.

On the screen, a lone masked man was sprinting down the concrete corridor, holding a suppressed pistol.

He stopped right in front of the steel door of the panic room. He didn't try to guess the code which doesn't sit right with me.

Then I saw what he was about to do, he pulled a small, brick-sized block of gray plastic explosive from his vest and slapped it directly onto the digital keypad.He was going to blow the lock.

I backed away from the monitor, my eyes wide with horror as the man pulled out a detonator, looking directly into the security camera lens before pressing the button.