CHAPTER 4
1005 Words
The city looked different at night. Not darker, just more honest.
Alina stood outside La Rosa Nera, the nightclub that didn’t exist on maps, the one that whispered danger through its red-stained walls. No line. No music spilling out. Just silence, velvet ropes, and a single man guarding the door.
He didn’t ask her name.
He looked at her, blinked once, and stepped aside.
The doors opened like a breath held too long.
She stepped into another world.
Smoke curled in the air like secrets. Red chandeliers flickered above velvet booths. The bass was low, like a heartbeat beneath the skin. Every man in the room wore power like cologne. Every woman looked like a sin Dante would kill for.
But none of them looked at her.
Not like he would.
...
She didn’t know where to go. She didn’t ask.
Somehow, her feet already knew the path. Through the main floor, down a dim hallway, past a black curtain. Deeper. Colder.
Her pulse slowed. Her breath quickened.
And then she saw him.
Standing alone, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of something dark. Black shirt. No tie. The top buttons undone like always. His hair was longer now. Messier. And there was a scar near his cheekbone she didn’t recognize.
But the eyes?
Still the same.
Brown, but dark enough to swallow every light in the room. And the moment they landed on her, the world… stopped.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t move.
He just stared, and for a second, she forgot every reason she had to hate him.
...
“Alina,” he said.
One word. Her name. But it cracked something inside her like glass under heat.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she replied.
“And yet you are.”
He set the glass down, took a step forward. Not fast. Not threatening. Just… controlled.
Calculated.
Deadly.
“You sent your men to my door,” she said. “Slipped warnings under it like death notes.”
“I was being polite.”
“Polite?”
“If I wanted you dead, Alina…”
He stepped closer.
“You’d never hear me knock.”
...
She didn’t move.
Not when he was a step away. Not when she could smell his cologne, dark spice, leather, and danger. Not even when he tilted his head, like he was trying to decide whether to kiss her or kill her.
“What do you want from me, Dante?”
His gaze dropped to her lips for a single breath.
Then rose again.
“I want everything you stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” she whispered.
“No?” His voice dipped lower. “Not even my sleep? My sanity? My f*cking soul?”
She flinched. Not because he yelled, he didn’t. But because it was real. All of it.
He meant every word.
...
“Three years,” he said. “I let you disappear. I told myself if you needed freedom, I’d give it. But now...”
He reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face.
“But now I’m done being merciful.”
She slapped his hand away.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t get angry.
Instead, he did something worse.
He smiled. Slowly. Darkly. Like a man who had already won.
“I see the fire’s still there,” he murmured. “Good. I missed it.”
She hated how her heart reacted to that voice. That tone.
Like it remembered his fingers before her mind allowed it.
...
“I don’t belong to you, Dante.”
His eyes softened.
Just slightly. Just for her.
“No,” he said. “But you will.”
...
She turned away.
He let her.
Because the thing about Dante Moretti?
He never chased what he already owned.
...
She made it to the door.
Almost.
And then he said something that stopped her dead in her tracks.
“I know about the child.”
Her hand froze mid-reach.
Slowly, her head turned.
“What did you say?”
He didn’t blink.
“You were pregnant when you ran.”
Her lips parted. Her voice vanished.
“I had people watching you. Not to harm you. Just… to keep you alive.”
Her knees nearly gave out.
“I lost it,” she said. “Two months in. I lost it.”
The room went still.
Dante didn’t speak.
He just nodded once. Jaw clenched. Eyes burning with something raw. Something worse than rage.
Pain.
Real, brutal pain.
...
“I didn’t tell you,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Because I didn’t want to give you a reason to find me.”
He stepped forward.
His voice cracked for the first time.
“You could’ve told me.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back.
“You’re a monster, Dante.”
“I was.”
He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t say she was wrong.
He just stepped even closer.
“But for you?” he said, voice low. “I would’ve changed.”
“You can’t change.”
He stared at her for a long, long moment.
Then he said:
“Watch me.”
...
Alina didn’t sleep that night. Again.
But it wasn’t fear that kept her up.
It was the memory of his eyes.
The way they looked softer now, just for her. The way his voice broke when he said her name. The way he didn’t threaten her like before.
He was still danger.
Still poison.
But there was something else now.
Something terrifying.
Hope.
...
Dante sat alone at the edge of the balcony overlooking the club. He didn’t smoke anymore. He quit when she left.
“You think she’ll stay this time?” Luca asked behind him.
Dante didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he touched the spot where her fingers had brushed his wrist. Just briefly. Just enough.
“She’ll try to run,” he said quietly. “But she’s already looking back.”
- Writer
