I'M HIS ALONE

CHAPTER 9

PUNISHMENT

After the escape attempt, something shifted between them.

Dante didn't lock her in her room or increase security around her. Instead, he gave her more freedom—access to the entire estate without restriction, permission to use the phone to call Elena, even a laptop with internet access (though she suspected her activity was monitored). It was as if her attempt to run had made him more determined to win her over, to make her choose to stay rather than forcing her compliance.

But there was a new tension between them too. A charge in the air whenever they were in the same room, an awareness that hadn't been there before. Dante looked at her differently now—not just with desire, but with a kind of desperate hunger that made her skin flush and her heart race.

It was on the fifth night after her escape attempt that everything changed.

Dinner had been tense, filled with loaded silences and glances that lasted too long. Dante had drunk more wine than usual, his eyes never leaving her face, his fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the tablecloth. When dessert was served—a decadent chocolate torte that Bella barely touched—he finally spoke.

"Come to my study after dinner. There's something I want to show you."

"What?"

"Something important." His eyes darkened. "Please, Bella. Don't make me beg."

She went. Curiosity, she told herself. Nothing more.

His study was exactly as she imagined it—dark wood and leather, shelves of books and files, a massive desk that dominated the room. But tonight, the desk was clear except for a single file folder. Dante stood beside it, looking more nervous than she had ever seen him.

"What is this?" Bella asked.

"Your father's debt. The full accounting." Dante opened the folder, revealing pages of figures, dates, names. "Two million, three hundred forty-seven thousand, and change. Gambling debts, loan interest, penalties for late payment."

Bella stared at the numbers, her stomach sinking. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because I want you to understand exactly what your father owes. What he got himself into." Dante's voice was hard. "He's not just a gambler, Bella. He's an addict. He's been borrowing from multiple sources—my family, the Benedettis, independent bookies. He's in over his head, and he would have been dead months ago if I hadn't been... lenient."

"Lenient?" Bella laughed bitterly. "You call kidnapping his daughter lenient?"

"I call not killing him lenient," Dante shot back. "Do you know what the Benedettis would have done? What the independent lenders would do? They wouldn't have taken you, Bella. They would have broken his legs first. Then his arms. Then they would have killed him slowly, in front of his family, as a message to anyone else who thought they could skip out on their debts."

Bella felt sick. "You're lying."

"I'm not." Dante pulled out another document—a photograph, actually—and slid it across the desk.

Bella looked at it and felt the blood drain from her face. It was a crime scene photo, graphic and horrifying, showing a man who had been... she couldn't even process what she was seeing. The violence, the cruelty, the inhumanity of it.

"This was Marco Ferrante," Dante said quietly. "He owed fifty thousand to a bookie connected to the Benedettis. He couldn't pay. This is what they did to him. And Bella—" He leaned forward, his eyes intense. "Your father owes forty times that amount. If I hadn't intervened, if I hadn't decided to... claim you instead of punishing him... this would have been Giovanni. Or worse."

Bella's hands were shaking. She set the photo down, her eyes burning with tears she refused to shed. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to understand that I'm not the worst monster in this story." Dante moved around the desk, standing before her, close enough that she could feel his body heat. "I'm not a good man, Bella. I've never claimed to be. But compared to the alternatives, I'm the devil you know. The devil who wants to protect you, cherish you, give you everything. The devil who would burn the world rather than see you hurt."

He reached out, his fingers tracing her cheek, and this time she didn't pull away. She was too shaken, too overwhelmed, too confused by the conflicting emotions warring in her chest.

"I'm going to kiss you now, Bella," Dante said softly. "I'm going to kiss you, and you're going to let me, because we've been dancing around this since the moment we met. Because I can't go another second without tasting you. Because—"

"Then do it," Bella whispered, shocking herself. "Stop talking and do it."

His eyes flared with dark fire, and then his mouth was on hers, and the world disappeared.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't tentative. It was a claiming, a brand, a statement of possession that left no room for doubt. Dante's lips were hot and demanding, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with a confidence that made her knees weak. His hands gripped her waist, pulling her against him, and she felt the hard length of his arousal press against her stomach, evidence of how much he wanted her.

Bella should have pushed him away. Should have remembered that she was his captive, that this was wrong, that every principle she had screamed against surrendering to her kidnapper. But her body betrayed her, responding to his touch with a hunger that matched his own. She moaned into his mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer, deeper, harder.

Dante growled—a low, animal sound that vibrated through her chest—and lifted her onto the desk, clearing the file folder with one sweep of his arm. Papers scattered everywhere, forgotten, as he stepped between her legs, his hands roaming her body with desperate urgency. He kissed her neck, her jaw, the hollow of her throat, each touch leaving fire in its wake.

"Bella," he groaned against her skin. "God, Bella. I've wanted this—wanted you—since the second I saw you."

"Dante," she gasped, her head falling back as his lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear. "We shouldn't—this is wrong—"

"It feels wrong to stop," he countered, his hand sliding up her thigh, pushing her skirt higher. "It feels wrong to deny this. Us. What we could be."

His fingers found the edge of her panties, and Bella froze. Not because she wanted him to stop, but because she knew that if she let him continue, there would be no going back. She would cross a line from which there was no return—from captive to willing participant, from victim to lover.

"Dante," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I can't. Not yet. I'm not... I'm not ready."

He went still against her, his breathing ragged, his body tense with the effort of restraint. For a long moment, he didn't move, didn't speak, didn't do anything but hold her, his forehead pressed against her shoulder. Then, slowly, carefully, he withdrew his hand and stepped back.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice rough. "I shouldn't have—I got carried away. I shouldn't have pushed you."

Bella slid off the desk, her legs unsteady, her lips swollen from his kisses. "It's not that I don't want you," she admitted, the words surprising her. "It's that I don't trust myself. I don't trust what I'm feeling."

"What are you feeling?" Dante asked, his eyes searching hers.

Bella looked at him—the man who had kidnapped her, who had turned her life upside down, who had just kissed her senseless against his desk—and told him the truth.

"I don't know."

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