The Billionaire’s One-Year Bride

chapter 6

The hum of the server racks seemed to amplify, filling the suffocating silence between them with a steady, mechanical drone.

Evelyn stared at Dante, the photographs on the wall burning into the periphery of her vision. Every instinct she possessed—every survival reflex drilled into her by a life of betrayal—screamed at her to run.

"You've been watching me," she whispered, the words tasting like ash. "For ten years? You've had me spied on since the day my father died?"

"Protected," Dante corrected. His voice was dangerously calm, devoid of any guilt or hesitation. He didn't step back; he leaned against the doorframe, blocking her only exit, his broad shoulders filling the narrow space. "There is a vast difference between surveillance and a security perimeter, Evelyn. After your father's company collapsed, the vultures circled. Some wanted his assets. Some wanted his silence. And a few of them wondered if his daughter knew where the ledger was hidden."

"The ledger?" Evelyn’s voice hitched. "What are you talking about? My father was an engineer, not a criminal!"

"Your father was an honest man surrounded by thieves," Dante said, his amber eyes darkening. He pushed off the doorframe and took a slow step into the room, his gaze locking onto hers with terrifying intensity. "He trusted Marcus. He trusted the board. And when they framed him for embezzlement to cover up their own offshore accounts, they needed him dead so he couldn't talk."

Evelyn felt the room tilt. The images on the wall—herself laughing, crying, planting seeds, existing in a fragile bubble of peace—suddenly looked less like a collection of memories and more like target markers in a war she hadn't known she was fighting.

"If you knew all of this," she breathed, her chest heaving as hot anger surged through her veins to override her shock, "if you knew they framed him... why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you do something ten years ago instead of creeping in the shadows like a ghost?"

Dante stopped inches away from her. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body, could see the tiny, golden flecks in his amber eyes.

"Because a ghost can't be bought, and a shadow can't be killed," Dante said, his voice dropping into a harsh, gravelly whisper. "If I had moved against the syndicate a decade ago when I was a nobody from the docks, they would have crushed me, and they would have finished your family off without a second thought. I had to build an empire of my own first. I had to become untouchable. And to do that, I had to watch from a distance while you grew into the woman who could finally stand beside me without breaking."

"I am not your prize! I am not a piece on your chessboard to be moved when the time is right!" Evelyn’s voice cracked, and she shoved her palms hard against his chest.

He didn't budge an inch. His body was like solid iron. Instead of backing away, his large hand shot out, wrapping securely around her wrist before she could pull back. He didn't squeeze painfully, but his grip was absolute, immovable. He pulled her a fraction closer, caging her between his body and the metal filing cabinets.

"You think you hate me?" Dante murmured, lowering his head until his lips brushed the shell of her ear, sending a violent shiver cascading down her spine. "Good. Use that hatred. Channel it. Because the men who killed your father are still breathing, and they are coming for this greenhouse—and for you. If you want vengeance, Evelyn, you don't fight me. You let me give you the world on a silver platter, and then we watch them burn together."

Before Evelyn could draw breath to reply, the sharp, secure comms device clipped inside Dante’s shirt collar hissed to life.

“Sir, perimeter sensors just tripped on the south balcony. Unidentified signal coming from the lower service elevator,” a clipped, metallic voice reported through the hidden earpiece.

Dante’s jaw tightened into a lethal line. He released her wrist slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Stay in this suite," Dante ordered, his tone shifting instantly from intense intimacy to cold, tactical command. "If you open that front door for anyone other than me tonight, Evelyn, you won't live long enough to regret it."

Without another word, he turned and vanished down the dark hallway, leaving Evelyn alone among the ghosts of her own life, her heart hammering against her ribs like a drumbeat of war.