Bound by His Revenge

Chapter Seven – Fear & Fire

The morning after my failed escape attempt, the mansion seemed different.

Not because anything had changed within its walls—the chandeliers still glittered, the roses still perfumed the air, and the staff still moved like silent shadows—but because I had changed. My body still remembers the steel of Dante’s hand at my throat, the fire in his eyes when he promised I belonged to him.

Every corner felt dangerous. Every step echoed like a warning.

However, I didn’t expect the danger to escalate so quickly.

By noon, a servant appeared at my door. His bow was respectful, but his words were stiff.

“The Don requests your presence, Signora.”

Dante wanted me. Again.

My pulse raced as I followed the servant through a corridor I hadn’t been down before. The halls grew darker, lined with heavy doors and thicker walls. A chill seemed to hang in the air, heavy with something I couldn’t name.

When the servant opened one of the doors, I stepped inside—and froze.

It wasn’t a dining hall, or a sitting room, or anything resembling the grand world upstairs. It was a cellar. Stone walls. A single light overhead. And in the center, a man tied to a chair, his face already bloodied, his breathing ragged.

Dante stood before him. Calm. Immaculate. A glass of whiskey in his hand as though this were a casual conversation.

For a moment, my brain refused to process it. Then Dante turned, and his eyes met mine.

“Ah,” he said smoothly. “My wife joins us.”

The word wife coiled around me like a chain. But I barely heard it. My gaze darted towards the man in the chair. He looked at me desperately, pleading, as though I could save him.

My stomach lurched. “What… what is this?”

Dante’s lips curved faintly. “Lesson one, Casa Milà.” He set the glass aside and rolled up his sleeves, the movement slow, deliberate. “This is the world you married into. My world.”

Without hesitation, Dante struck the man across the face. The sound cracked through the room, sharp as thunder. The man groaned, his head lolling to the side, blood dripping from his split lip.

I gasped. My hands flew to my mouth. “Stop—what are you doing?”

Dante didn’t even glance at me. “This man stole from me. Betrayed me. In our world, betrayal has only one answer.”

He picked up something from a table nearby—a knife. The blade gleamed under the dim light.

I staggered back. “No—please—you can’t—”

But he could. And he did.

The knife sliced across the man’s arm, not deep enough to kill, but enough to make him scream. The sound was raw, agonized, filling every corner with the cellar. My knees weakened. I pressed against the cold stone wall, trembling.

Dante’s face remained calm, controlled, as though this was no more troubling than cutting bread. His voice was low, measured. “Fear, Isabella. Fire. They keep men in line. They keep me on the throne.”

He plunged the knife into the table beside the prisoner’s hand, missing flesh by an inch. The man whimpered, begging incoherently.

I turned my face away, but Dante’s voice forced me back. “Look at me, Isabella.”

I shook my head violently. “I can’t—I can’t watch this—”

“You will,” he said sharply. His eyes locked on mine, burning with command. “Because this is the life you chose when you became mine.” To turn away is weakness. And my wife cannot be weak.”

My chest heaved. Tears blurred my vision, but I forced myself to look. Forced myself to see.

And what I saw carved itself into my soul.

Fire

Dante took a lighter from his pocket. A small silver thing, engraved with initials. He flicked it open, the flame leaping to life with a soft click.

The prisoner’s eyes went wide with terror.

My voice broke. “No—Dante, please—”

He tilted his head, regarding me. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Yes!” The word tore from my throat. “Please—don’t do this—”

For a long, terrible moment, he only studied me. Then, slowly, he extinguished the flame and set the lighter down.

Relief shuddered through me, so sharp it hurt. But Dante wasn’t finished.

He leaned down close to the man, his voice soft, deadly. “You should thank my wife. She spared you from fire. But mercy is hers, not mine.”

With a sharp nod, he motioned to his guards. They dragged the man away, half-conscious, still bleeding.

The cellar fell silent again, except for my ragged breathing.

Dante turned to me. He wasn’t bloody. He wasn’t shaken. He looked as composed as ever, his dark eyes fixed on me like a hunter watching prey.

I pressed back against the wall. “You’re… you’re a monster.”

He stepped closer, slowly, unhurried. “No, Isabella. I’m a king. A monster is mindless. I am not. Every act, every cut, every flame—it has a purpose. Without it, everything I’ve built would fall.”

My tears spilled. “And you expect me to accept this? To live with this?”

“Yes.” He stopped inches from me, his body towering, his scent of smoke and iron curling around me. “Because you already live with it. Because whether you want to admit it or not, part of you understands.”

I shook my head furiously. “Never.”

He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his voice a velvet threat. “One day, you’ll see me for what I am. And you’ll stop fighting. Fear and fire will teach you what vows never could.”

When he finally left me alone in that cellar, my legs gave out. I slid to the cold stone floor, shaking, my mind replaying every sound, every drop of blood, every scream.

And yet, beneath the horror, something else coiled in my chest—something I hated myself for.

It wasn’t desire. Not exactly. It was something darker, sharper—a magnetic pull toward the man who terrified me.

The man who had just shown me his world.

The man who said I belonged in it.