Between Loyalty and You

Chapter 16 (Sofia's POV)

We didn’t waste the two hours.

Dante pulled me back down onto the bed the moment the words left my mouth, mouth claiming mine in a kiss that tasted like urgency and the end of something neither of us wanted to name. There was no slow build this time. He rolled me beneath him, shoved the sheets aside, and pushed inside me in one deep thrust that forced a broken sound from my throat. I was still wet from his mouth and my own orgasm; he slid in to the hilt with almost no resistance.

“Look at me,” he ordered, voice rough.

I did. His eyes were dark and intense, locked on mine as he f****d me in long, powerful strokes that rocked the bed. One hand braced beside my head. The other gripped my thigh and pushed it higher, opening me wider so he could sink even deeper. Every thrust felt like a claim he was trying to burn into my body before the world took me away from him.

“You’re going to feel me for days,” he muttered against my mouth. “Every time you sit down at your father’s table, every time you walk through that house, you’re going to remember exactly who had you last.”

“I won’t forget,” I gasped.

He shifted the angle, hitting the place that made my vision spark, and I came again with a sharp cry, clenching around him. He followed a few strokes later, burying himself deep and spilling inside me with a low, guttural groan. We stayed locked together afterward, breathing hard, his forehead pressed to mine, neither of us willing to separate just yet.

Eventually he pulled out and rolled onto his back, drawing me with him so I was draped across his chest. His fingers traced idle patterns along my spine.

“We need to be smart,” he said quietly. “No reckless visits. No messages that can be traced. If I need to see you, I’ll find a way that doesn’t put a target on either of us. You do the same. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“And if anything feels off—if your father starts asking questions, if anyone on his side gets suspicious—you tell me immediately. I don’t care how small it seems.”

I nodded against his chest. The reality of what we were walking into sat heavy between us. The penthouse had been a sealed world. The estate would be the opposite—watched, staffed, full of people loyal to my father who noticed everything.

We showered together in silence. He washed me with the same careful attention he had shown in the bath the night before, though the mood was different now. Less aftercare, more farewell. When we stepped out he handed me the clothes that had been packed for my return—simple jeans, a soft sweater, things that belonged to the version of me who lived under my father’s roof. Putting them on felt like shedding a skin I wasn’t ready to lose.

The bag I had never fully unpacked waited by the door. Dante carried it himself.

The elevator ride down was quiet. His hand rested on the small of my back the entire time, a possessive pressure that would have to disappear the moment we stepped into public view. In the private garage a black SUV idled, one of my father’s drivers behind the wheel and two of Dante’s men standing at a respectful distance. They nodded to their don and carefully avoided looking at me too long.

Dante opened the rear door for me. Before I could climb in he leaned down, voice low enough that only I could hear.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “It’s just harder. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t.”

His hand brushed mine—brief, hidden by the door—and then he stepped back. The mask of the don slid into place so completely that even I almost believed the last two weeks had never happened. I settled into the back seat. The door closed with a solid thud. Through the tinted window I watched him stand there as the SUV pulled away, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable, until the ramp curved and took him out of sight.

The drive to the estate felt longer than it should have.

When the gates opened and the house came into view, everything looked the same—manicured grounds, stone façade, the quiet luxury of a place that had always been fortress as much as home. But two men were dead somewhere in the recent memory of these walls, and I was returning with Dante’s c*m still inside me and the faint pink marks of his cuffs still fading on my wrists.

My father was waiting at the top of the steps.

He pulled me into a careful hug the moment I stepped out of the car, hands on my shoulders as he looked me over. “You look better. Stronger. Dante took good care of you.”

“He did,” I said, and the words tasted like both truth and omission.

We walked inside together. Staff moved efficiently around us. Security was visibly tighter than before—extra men at the doors, new cameras I didn’t recognize. My father talked as we went, updating me on the cleaned-up threat, the funeral arrangements for the two men who had died, the extra precautions he expected me to follow without argument. I nodded in the right places and tried not to think about the fact that the man who had flogged me, restrained me, and f****d me through multiple orgasms only hours ago was now once again simply “Dante,” my father’s most trusted friend.

My old bedroom felt foreign.

I set the bag down and stood in the center of the room, listening to the familiar sounds of the house. Everything was exactly as I had left it. Nothing was the same.

My phone vibrated once in my pocket. A single message from a number I didn’t recognize, though I knew exactly who it belonged to.

*Made it back safely?*

I typed back quickly.

*Yes. Already feels like a different world.*

The reply came almost immediately.

*Different world. Same rules. Be careful. I’ll find a way.*

I stared at the screen for a long moment before deleting the thread and setting the phone aside.

Outside my window the estate stretched quiet and heavily guarded. Somewhere across the city Dante was returning to the life that did not include me in his bed or his playroom. The bubble we had lived in was gone. What remained would be stolen hours, careful lies, and the constant risk that the man who loved us both would one day look too closely and see the truth.

I sat on the edge of my childhood bed, still aching in the places Dante had claimed, and accepted the new shape of things.

We had two weeks of almost everything.

Now we would have to learn how to survive on almost nothing.