A Silk Wall Cage
1020 Words
The house was beautiful, like a knife that could be beautiful, sharp, poised, and be used once.
Luna stood in the grand foyer, bag strapped over one arm, rigid back tense beneath its weight. Marble floors shone with the sheen of a chandelier that likely set her back more than anything she'd ever paid. Expensive paintings and stern watchers in suits adorned all the walls, each of them tipping their head as if they already knew who she was. What she stood for.
Dante hadn't arrived to greet her.
One of his men, however, Marco, tall and brawny, with sharp, hawk-like eyes, took her silently up a broad staircase and down a very long hall lined with doors. He stopped in front of the last one.
"Your room," he said, pushing it open.
The room was not even in contention. " Like an angel surveying heaven, the suite had velvet drapes, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a view of the city. It was overdone.
That was exactly the problem.
"Is this meant to impress me?" she snapped, coming inside.
Marco said nothing. He just closed the door behind her, confining her with her silence and her mind.
Luna dropped her bag and stepped to the window, folding her arms. The cityscape was on fire, oblivious to the storm raging within her. She had just begun to soak up the fires, the lies of a man she was coming to know nothing about and now look where she was-thrown into this life that she had promised to leave behind.
Her fingers clasped the windowsill.
She did not belong.
She would never belong.
Never.
The knock came an hour later. Three soft raps, followed by a voice she already hated.
"Dinner."
Luna turned. "I am not hungry."
The door opened anyway. Dante stood there in a dark shirt and slacks; sleeves rolled to his forearms. The first few buttons of his shirt were undone, casual in a way that felt planned.
"You'll eat," he said.
She frowned her face. "You do not have the right to command me."
Dante appeared, and the room was suddenly a close space.
He said, "You have to follow whatever I tell you now." "You are in my home."
"This is a prison, not a home."
He smiled coldly, uninterested. "A jail with silk blankets and good wine." You should thank me."
Luna's eyes flashed. "You burned my store down."
"I let it burn," he replied. Because that store was a fantasy. This is your reality now."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Nobody gets to choose who they were born to," he said to her. "But they do get to choose what to do with it."
She crossed her arms. "And what am I meant to do, pray tell? Sit at your table like some obedient pawn while you parade me about as proof of a debt settled?
Dante moved a step closer, and she didn't step back. Now they stood inches apart, and she felt the crackling tension vibrating between them like live wire.
"I don't need pawns," he said to her. I require leverage. And your name, your blood, is the one thing that can keep warlike clans at bay."
"So that's it? I'm a human shield?"
His voice dropped, low and soft. "You're a symbol. Of loyalty. Of heritage. But don't for a second think, Luna. I don't work with symbols who can't play well."
She laughed, cold and bitter. "You seriously believe threatening me will intimidate me into acting?"
"I believe," Dante moved past her to the far bar of the room, "that you're intelligent enough to understand you have no options."
"I had a life."
"You had a cover."
He poured glasses of wine and offered her one. She did not take it.
"Your loss," he said, taking a sip from his own.
Luna moved back, gazing over the city again. "You'll never get anything from me, Dante. I will not pretend to be loyal to a man who drags people into his world."
Dante's voice was soft, almost calming. "I won't have to pretend to you."
She stood in front of him. "Why are you trying to bother me with what you want from me?"
He stood and regarded her for what seemed an eternity. "To see what you turn out when you stop hiding."
They stood in the heavy silence.
Luna could feel it again, deep, smoldering in her chest. Not hate. Not fear. Something heavier. Something that tasted like having been drawn too close to a blaze you vowed to never stand in front of again.
"Never will I be like my father," she said.
"Good," Dante replied. He was a coward in the end. He begged on his deathbed.
Luna's swift as well as forceful slap bounced off the chilly stone walls.
Dante didn't flinch. He stood there, a flushed spot on his cheek, his eyes burning like winter steel.
Luna was trying to catch her breath. "You will never speak of him to me again."
He let out a slow breath, jaw tightening, but not with rage. Controlled. Measured. Always.
"Watched," he said eventually. "But the next time you touch me, it won't go unremarked."
"Do your worst," she snarled.
Dante moved in once more, but more deliberately and slowly this time. He spoke almost in a whisper.
"Luna, do you prefer me to be the bad guy? I can do it. But watch what you wish for. You might find yourself liking the villain better instead of the man you are defending.
And with that, he turned around and walked away and closed the door softly behind him.
That evening, Luna slept not in a too comfortable bed, her eyes looking at the ceiling.
. She could not help but wonder how he'd looked at her, intimidation on his face that he intended to overcome, not ropes and pain, but pressure. Patience.
She'd grown up familiar with men like him as a child. Dangerous. Ambitious. Smooth.
None of them, however, had ever hurt or bruised her heart at the same time.
She hated him.
And worse,
She didn't.
- Writer
