CHAPTER 3
1013 Words
The knocking stopped, but the silence that followed was somehow louder.
Alina’s hand hovered above the doorknob, trembling just enough to betray the calm she tried to wear like armor. Her heart wasn’t beating, it was pounding. Like fists on a locked door.
She didn’t breathe as she listened.
One second. Two. Three.
Nothing.
She forced herself to look through the peephole.
A man in black stood alone in the hallway. Tall. No expression. Black gloves. A tailored coat. His eyes were blank, not soulless, just… trained. A soldier. Not a messenger. Not a stranger.
A man who only moved when someone darker told him to.
Her skin prickled.
She didn't open the door.
Instead, she spoke through it, low and sharp. “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer.
He slipped a small envelope through the crack beneath the door and walked away without a word.
No threat. No noise. Just the echo of boots fading down the hall.
She didn’t move until she heard the stairwell door shut.
Only then did she kneel slowly, fingers brushing the envelope like it might explode.
Her name wasn’t written on it. There was only a small ink-pressed mark, a black rose. A symbol she'd seen once, years ago, tattooed on the wrist of a man begging for mercy at Dante Moretti’s feet.
She opened it.
There were only four words:
“Run now. Or bleed later.”
No signature. No warning. No lie.
She dropped the letter like it burned her.
...
She didn’t run.
She sat down. Back against the wall. Hands in her lap.
He was playing with her. A warning, but not a demand. He wanted her to remember, what it felt like to be hunted, to be watched, to be his.
And the worst part?
She did remember.
...
Flashback | Four Years Ago
Rome, the underground poker club that breathed sin.
The air had smelled like money and blood.
Alina wasn’t supposed to be there.
She was just covering for a sick friend, a waitress, one of the invisible ones who walked carefully and never looked too long into any man’s eyes.
She’d been warned about the VIP room in the back. She wasn’t to enter unless summoned. Unless he called.
She didn’t believe the rumors.
Not until she felt his eyes on her.
She was balancing a tray of bourbon when the room went still. A whisper, a shuffle. Then a pause so sharp it cut through the smoky laughter and clinking glass.
And then a man’s voice: smooth, low, Italian—soft, yet commanding.
“You. Come here.”
She looked up.
He was sitting at the center table like he owned the building. Black shirt. Top buttons undone. Hair mussed like sin. A half-smile on his lips as he leaned back in his chair, a poker chip spinning between his fingers.
Dante Moretti.
She had heard the name whispered like a curse. The youngest heir of the Moretti crime family. Too beautiful to be real, too dangerous to survive.
And now, he was looking at her.
No, through her.
Everyone else in the room faded. Alina stepped forward, legs made of glass, heart trying to escape her chest. She stood before him, lowering the tray to offer the drink.
His fingers brushed hers as he took the glass.
“Be careful, bella,” he said, not looking away.
“Pretty things don’t last long in places like this.”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
He tilted his head and smiled just a little, something darker curling in his gaze.
“What’s your name?”
“Alina,” she whispered.
“Alina,” he repeated, like tasting it. “Too soft a name for a girl with fire in her eyes.”
She didn’t remember how the night ended. Only that he didn’t touch her, didn’t ask her to stay, but from that moment on, she was marked. Watched. Protected. Possessed.
And he didn’t let her go.
...
Present Day
Alina pressed her forehead to the wall, eyes shut, that memory clinging like smoke.
Why now? After all these years?
Why had he waited this long?
And then the answer came, cruel and uninvited.
Because he never forgot her.
He just waited until she forgot how to breathe without him.
...
Miles away, Dante stood at the edge of his private balcony, staring at the night.
The city looked peaceful. It always did before it burned.
Luca approached quietly, holding a phone in his gloved hand. “She got the letter.”
Dante didn’t turn around. “Did she run?”
“No.”
A silence passed. Cold. Heavy.
Then Dante spoke, voice sharp like steel drawn from a sheath.
“She remembers.”
...
Alina didn’t sleep. Again.
She stared at the ceiling, the lights off, every creak in the walls a threat. But more than fear… was the ache. The burn of memory. The echo of a voice that haunted her even in silence.
Back then, she told herself he wasn’t real. That no one could be that intense, that consuming. That no one could care and control all at once.
But Dante wasn’t like anyone else.
He didn’t fall in love. He took it.
And what he took, he kept.
Even her.
Especially her.
...
By morning, she was dressed.
All black. Hoodie. Boots. A bag half-packed. But she didn’t leave yet.
Something was holding her here.
Maybe it was the warning. Maybe it was pride.
Or maybe... just maybe... it was the part of her that still wondered if he ever truly loved her… or just owned her.
Her phone buzzed again.
No name. Just a location.
La Rosa Nera. 11:00 PM.
She knew that name.
The Black Rose. A nightclub. High-end. Hidden. Owned by ghosts and fueled by danger.
And it belonged to him.
...
She should have deleted the message.
Instead, she stared at it.
And whispered to herself the truth no one else would understand:
“I ran once. He let me.
I run again… he won’t.”
- Writer
