The Don's Daughter & Her Guardian

INVISIBLE CHAINS

Dante's POV

Her father left us there. Me, standing by her safe. Her, looking like she wanted to set me on fire with her eyes. Isabella Rossini. Bella. I had watched her for so long that being this close felt wrong. Like touching a painting in a museum.

"I need to sweep the penthouse," I said. My voice came out normal. Good. She didn't need to know that her proximity made my pulse do things it hadn't done in years.

"The penthouse is fine." She crossed her arms. The movement made her shirt pull tight. I looked away. At the wall. At the files I had memorized. At anything but her.

"Fine gets people killed."

I moved past her toward the door. Three feet of space between us. Should have been enough. Wasn't. Her perfume mixed with the smoke from tonight's attack. Jasmine and gunpowder. That would stay with me.

The penthouse was twelve floors up. Private elevator. One way in, one way out. Unless you counted the service shaft I had mapped two years ago. Or the maintenance ladder I had tested six months back. Or the window washing rig that could hold two people if they didn't mind close quarters.

She followed me. Of course she did. Stubborn ran in the Rossini blood like murder and money.

"How long have you worked for my father?" Her question echoed in the elevator.

"Long enough."

"That's not an answer."

I pulled out my phone. Started scrolling through security feeds. Not because I needed to. Because looking at her reflection in the elevator doors was becoming a problem.

"Seven years," I lied. It had been nine. But she didn't need to know about the first two. When I was just another soldier. When watching her was just another job. Before it became... complicated.

The penthouse door had new locks. Good ones. I had suggested them to Lorenzo six months ago. Right after the Calabrese family started sniffing around. Right after I found their scout in her favorite bookstore.

"You've been here before." Not a question. She was smart. Always had been. I remembered her medical school graduation. Watched from the parking lot. Eliminated a kidnapping team that same night. She never knew.

"Security assessments." Another half truth. I had been here seventeen times. Twice when she was home. Both times she had been asleep. Both times I had stood in her doorway longer than the job required.

I started with the windows. Bulletproof glass. I had made sure of that. But the frames needed reinforcement. Made a note. Moved to the doors. Interior locks were a joke. Another note.

"Do you ever speak in complete sentences?" She dropped her bag by the couch. "Or is mysterious and monosyllabic part of the job description?"

"Yes."

She actually laughed. Short. Surprised. The sound hit me in the chest like a bullet.

I opened my laptop. Started transferring security feeds. The past month played across the screen in fast forward. Her life in surveillance clips. Coffee shops. Hospital. That damn clinic. And always, always, shadows that didn't belong.

"Is that... is that me?" She leaned over my shoulder. Too close. I could feel her breath on my neck.

"Pattern analysis." I switched screens before she could see more. Before she could see the file labeled 'Threats Eliminated.' Two hundred and thirty seven entries. Each one a person who had gotten too close. Each one a death she never knew about.

"You've been watching me." Her voice had gone cold.

"Someone has to."

The footage from last week filled the screen. Tuesday. 2:47 AM. Two Volkov assassins in the parking garage of her apartment building. Clean shots. Quick disposal. Wednesday. 8:15 PM. Three men following her from the hospital. Kidnappers. Amateurs. Still dead. Saturday. 4:33 AM. A bomb under her car. Disarmed. The bomber fed to his own dogs.

She didn't need to see any of that.

"This is insane." She paced behind me. Six steps left. Six steps right. Same pattern she used when thinking at the clinic. "You can't just... document my entire life!"

"I document threats." I pulled up the current feeds. Real time. "You live your life. I make sure you keep living it."

"How noble." The sarcasm could have cut glass. "And what gives you the right?"

Your father's orders. Your mother's last wish. My own stubborn refusal to let you die.

"My job," I said instead.

The motion sensors blinked. East stairwell. She was good. Had disabled two cameras on her way. But not good enough.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked without turning around.

She froze by the kitchen counter. "I need air."

"The balcony is that way."

"I need air that doesn't come with a view of my father's kingdom."

"No."

"No?" She came around the counter. Fury made her eyes darker. Made her look like her mother. I shoved that thought down deep. "You don't get to tell me no."

"I just did."

She grabbed a knife from the block. Pointed it at me. Her hand shook. Just a little. Just enough to tell me this was bravado, not intent.

"I'm leaving."

I stood. Slow. Careful. Like approaching a wounded animal. Which wasn't far from the truth.

"Put the knife down, Bella."

First time I had said her name to her face. It felt like breaking a rule. Like crossing a line I had drawn in blood and years.

"Don't." The knife wavered. "Don't say my name like you know me."

But I did know her. Knew she took her coffee with two sugars when she was sad. Knew she hummed Puccini when suturing. Knew she still slept with a night light because the dark reminded her of the night her mother died.

"The service elevator." I kept my voice even. "Your secret exit. Very clever. Except someone is already waiting there."

The knife clattered to the counter. "What?"

I turned the laptop toward her. The figure in the shadows was barely visible. Professional. Patient. Female, from the stance. Armed.

"Twenty minutes ago. Right after you packed. Someone knew you would run. Someone who knows you as well as..." I stopped. As well as I do.

"Who is it?"

"I don't know." The admission burned. "But they're good. Very good. And they're waiting for you to do exactly what you just tried to do."

She sank onto the couch. All the fight drained out of her like water from a broken cup.

"I can't live like this. Watched. Hunted. Caged."

"Then let me teach you." The words came out before I could stop them. "Let me teach you to survive."

She looked up at me. And for one moment, one perfect terrible moment, I saw past the anger to the fear beneath. Saw the girl who had lost her mother. Saw the woman who saved lives to balance the ones her family took. Saw why I had spent nine years in her shadow.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why do you care if I survive?"

Because I've been yours since the day I saw you cry at your mother's grave. Because every life I take is measured against the ones you save. Because protecting you is the only clean thing I've ever done.

"It's my job," I said.

Her laugh was bitter. "Right. Your job."

I turned back to the screens. Watched the figure in the shadows shift position. Whoever they were, they would wait all night. Which meant I would too.

Bella moved to her bedroom. Stopped at the door. "That file. The eliminated threats. How many were there?"

I kept my eyes on the screen. "Enough."

"How many, Dante?"

My name in her mouth was a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed.

"Two hundred and thirty seven."

Silence. Then, so soft I almost missed it, "Thank you."

She closed the door. I listened to her move around the room. Listened to her breathing change as sleep finally took her. And I watched the shadows. The ones outside. The ones inside. The ones that lived in the space between what I was and what I wanted to be.

The figure by the service elevator never moved. Neither did I.

Some chains, I was learning, were invisible for a reason.