CHAPTER 4
1713 Words
ARIA'S POV
I don’t know what time it is when Dante comes back.
The light outside the window has softened. Afternoon, maybe. Or evening pretending to be afternoon. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, picking at a loose thread on the blanket, when the door opens. He just stands there for a moment, like he’s deciding whether to cross a line he’s been avoiding.
“You should eat,” he says finally.
“I did.”
He nods, accepting that without question.
“Lucas came to see me,” I say quietly.
His gaze sharpens. “When?”
“Not today,” I add quickly. “I mean… I saw him. On the news. Yesterday.”
“He’s looking for you,” Dante says.
“I know.”
Then there was a pause.
“You don’t trust me,” he says, not accusing. Just stating a fact. I hesitate.
“I don’t know you,” I correct softly.
“That’s fair.”
He steps into the room but stays near the door, hands loose at his sides. He looks tired again. Like a man who’s been carrying weight for too long and finally feels it pressing down.
“You asked the right question yesterday,” he says. “About Sebastian.”
I nod, my throat tight.
“So I’m going to answer it,” he continues. “But once I start, there’s no unknowing it.”
“I already can’t unknow things,” I whisper.
He watches me for a long moment, then turns toward the desk and opens a drawer. He doesn’t pull out a gun. Thankfully.
He pulls out a folder. It was worn, thick, not too full.
He places it on the bed between us, then steps back.
“Those are copies,” he says. “Not originals.”
I didn’t touch it right away.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Threat assessments,” he replies. “Incident reports. Surveillance summaries.”
“On who?”
His jaw tightens.
“On you.”
“I never authorized that,” I say faintly.
“I know.”
I finally reach for the folder. My fingers tremble as I open it. The first page is a timeline with dates and locations.
Aria Vale — potential exposure.
I flip the page and there's a photo of my apartment building. Another of my favorite coffee shop.
Another of me, crossing a street, my face turned away from the camera. I feel suddenly, horribly naked.
“You watched me,” I whisper.
“I protected you,” he corrects immediately.
“I didn’t know I needed protecting.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
My hands shake as I keep turning pages.
A police report that was filed and closed, suspicious individual observed near residence.
I remember that night.
I’d laughed it off. Told my mother she worried too much. My stomach twists.
Another page.
Security breach prevented. Subject detained.
I don’t remember that one.
I wouldn’t have.
Dante speaks again, quietly, carefully.
“You started getting followed two years ago,” he says. “Not consistently. Just enough to test your routines.”
Two years?
That’s before Sebastian proposed.
Before I said yes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is low.
“Because fear changes people,” he says. “And I didn’t want to be the reason you looked over your shoulder.”
Tears blur my vision. The honesty hurts worse than excuses.
I flip to the last section.
Sebastian’s name.
Repeated.
Highlighted. My hands go numb.
“This is… this is stalking,” I whisper. “This is obsession.”
“Yes,” Dante says simply. “On his part.”
I look up at him, my chest aching.
“And you?” I ask. “What is this for you?”
Something shifts in his expression. “This,” he says quietly, “is me failing to stop it soon enough.”
“All this time,” I murmur. “You were there.”
“Yes.”
“And I never knew.”
“No.”
I laugh weakly. “I smiled at him. I planned a wedding.”
Dante steps closer — not looming, just closer enough that his presence steadies the air around me.
“You lived,” he says. “That mattered more.” I wipe at my eyes, feeling so frustrated with myself.
“You don’t get credit for saving someone who didn’t know they were drowning,” I say.
“I know.”
“Why me?” I ask finally. “Out of everyone in the world.”
He looks away.
“You don’t want that answer yet,” he says.
I believe him. I closed the folder slowly and set it aside.
My voice comes out small. “What happens now?”
Dante meets my gaze.
“Now,” he says, “you decide what you want to know next.”
He didn’t step into my life the night he took me. He’d been standing at the edges of it for years. That makes everything more complicated.
----
I think the worst part is how ordinary it all looks.
No blood. No weapons. No dramatic confessions.
Just a damn paper.
Dante doesn’t push the information at me. He doesn’t even bring it up again after leaving the folder with me. Hours pass before he returns, and when he does, it’s with another stack of files and a laptop he sets on the desk without a word.
“You don’t have to,” he says quietly. “Not today.”
“I do,” I reply.
Because if I don’t, I’ll start pretending again.
He nods once and leaves the room.
The door stays unlocked. He hasn't tried to lock me up since my escape attempt failed.
I sit at the desk, my hands folded in my lap, and stare at the laptop like it might bite.
When I finally open it, the first thing that appears is a network map.
Sebastian Crowe at the center. Lines branching outward like veins. Company names I recognize — investment firms he talked about at dinner parties, the foundation he donated to in my name, the logistics company he said moved medical supplies overseas.
I click one.
A new window opens. Flags. Alerts. Red markers.
Suspected illegal arms routing.
My stomach clenches.
“No,” I whisper.
I click another.
Shell company linked to missing persons investigation.
My breath stutters.
Another.
Financial conduit flagged by Interpol. What's going on here? Each click feels it's peeling my skin.
I stop.
Close my eyes.
I remember Sebastian’s hands at my waist, guiding me through dances I never liked. His voice in my ear, reassuring, smooth.
You worry too much, Aria.
I scroll. There are transcripts, emails and calls.
I don’t read them all. I can’t, but one catches my eye.
A message time stamped three days before the wedding.
Move the asset within 72 hours of acquisition. New identity prepared.
Asset? My fingers go cold.
I stare at the screen until the words blur.
“That’s not… that can’t be about me,” I say out loud.
But there’s a subfolder attached.
A.V.
My initials.
I push back from the desk so hard the chair scrapes against the floor. I stand, pacing, breathing shallowly.
He was really going to move me. Erase me. That b*****d. I think of how insistent he’d been about postponing my work, about simplifying my life, about moving “somewhere quieter.” How he’d laughed when I said I wanted to keep my last name. I sit back down slowly. There’s a video file. Like this couldn't get any worse. I hover over it, dread coiling tight in my chest.
I click.
Sebastian appears on the screen, sitting in a sleek office I recognize. He’s speaking to someone off-camera, his voice low, irritated.
“She’s compliant,” he says. “But fragile. Keep the transition clean.” I slam the laptop shut. My heart is racing so hard it hurts. I press my palm to my chest, trying to steady myself.
Compliant.
Fragile.
I feel sick.
The door opens quietly. Dante steps inside. He doesn’t ask what I saw. He just looks at my face.
“That bad?” he asks gently.
I nod.
“He was talking about me like I wasn’t a person,” I whisper. Dante’s jaw tightens. I laugh weakly, the sound breaking. “I was choosing flowers. And he was… planning logistics."
He doesn’t say anything at all. He crosses the room and crouches in front of me, close enough that I can see the faint scar along his jaw, the exhaustion in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. The apology catches me off guard.
“For what?” I ask.
“For every moment you spent loving someone who didn’t deserve it,” he replies. “And for the fact that knowing this will hurt longer than not knowing ever did.”
Tears slip down my cheeks before I can stop them.
“I feel stupid,” I whisper.
He shakes his head immediately. “No.”
“I ignored things,” I say. “The way he got angry when I disagreed. The way he monitored my schedule. I thought that was concern.”
“That’s how control survives,” Dante says. “By wearing the mask of care.”
I wipe at my face.
“I almost married him,” I say, my voice breaking.
“But you didn’t,” Dante replies.
I look at him. The man who watched from the shadows. The man who stole me from my own life.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
“Not yet,” he says. “I got you out. That’s not the same thing.”
I nod slowly. Well, he’s right. Sebastian is still out there.
And now he knows he’s lost me. I close the laptop.
“What happens now?” I ask again.
Dante stands, offering me a hand, after a moment of hesitation, I take it.
“Now,” he says, “we make sure he never gets close to you again.”
- Writer
