The Billionaire’s One-Year Bride

chapter 7

The heavy steel door of the master suite clicked shut, throwing an audible, airtight deadbolt into place.

Evelyn stood in the center of the archive room, her chest heaving as the adrenaline crashed through her system, leaving a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth. She looked up at the wall of photographs—hundreds of stolen moments, freezing her life into a curated timeline managed by the man who had just locked her in like a prized prisoner.

If you open that front door for anyone other than me tonight, Evelyn, you won't live long enough to regret it.

His warning echoed in her ears, cold and absolute. But staying put, waiting like a helpless bystander while unseen enemies breached the building, went against every fiber of her survival instinct.

She turned away from the corkboard and walked quickly out of the archive room, navigating the dim, charcoal-toned hallway until she reached the main living area. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows offered a sweeping, panoramic view of the storm-drenched city skyline. Below, in the private subterranean alleyway reserved for the Moretti estate, the strobing flash of silent red security lights cut through the rain.

Someone was down there.

Evelyn crept toward the kitchen island, her eyes scanning the sleek, minimalist surfaces for anything useful. Her fingers brushed against a heavy, stainless-steel knife block, but she bypassed the blades and instead pulled out a small, heavy ceramic pestle from a baking alcove—a tool meant for grinding dried lavender, but solid enough to c***k a skull if necessary.

A muffled crash echoed from the service foyer near the eastern elevators.

Clang.

It sounded like heavy metal hitting tile. Followed by a sharp, electronic hiss—the sound of a security panel being short-circuited.

Evelyn’s breath hitched. She ducked low, pressing her back against the cool marble of the kitchen counter, gripping the ceramic pestle with white-knuckled intensity. The security system Dante bragged about wasn't impenetrable. Someone was inside the penthouse.

Footsteps padded softly down the hallway. They weren't the heavy, decisive strides of Dante Moretti. These steps were cautious, rhythmic, dragging slightly on the right side as if carrying an injured limb or heavy hardware.

"Dante?" Evelyn called out, her voice pitching slightly higher than she intended, a test to see if the intruder would respond.

The footsteps stopped instantly.

A shadow fell across the threshold of the kitchen. A tall figure stepped into the dim light of the open-plan living space, dripping wet, clad in dark tactical gear with a balaclava pulled down past the nose. In their right hand, they held a suppressed pistol, the barrel pointed directly toward the floor.

The intruder froze, locking eyes with Evelyn across the island.

"Well, well," a smooth, gravelly voice rasped from beneath the mask, laced with dark amusement. "The little gardener wasn't locked away in her cage after all. Big bad Dante forgot to clip your wings."

Evelyn’s grip tightened on the pestle. "Who are you? If you take one step closer—"

"I'm the guy who’s about to shorten your lease on life," the intruder interrupted, snapping the pistol up, the muzzle aligning dead-center with her chest.

Before Evelyn could swing the ceramic tool, a deafening c***k split the air.

It wasn't a gunshot. It was the sound of the reinforced structural glass on the opposite side of the penthouse exploding inward in a cascade of a thousand diamond shards.

A dark mass plummeted through the shattered window frame straight from the balcony above, tackling the intruder mid-air before a bullet could leave the barrel. The two men hit the Italian marble floor with bone-shattering force, sliding across the polished stone until they crashed into the wet bar.

Glass shattered. Crystal decanters smashed into splinters, raining amber whiskey and crystal shards across the floor.

Evelyn screamed, stumbling back against the counter as a brutal, silent brawl unfolded in the shadows.

It was a blur of savage, calculated violence. Dante was a dark hurricane, his movements too fast to track. He didn't hesitate, didn't posture; every strike was designed to neutralize. With a sickening crunch, he disarmed the intruder, wrenching the pistol away and slamming the man’s head hard against the marble base of the bar until the figure went completely limp.

Heavy silence rushed back into the room, broken only by the sound of the rain pouring through the shattered window, soaking the expensive rugs.

Dante slowly stood up.

He was breathing hard, his black shirt torn across the shoulder, exposing a dark smudge of blood and soot. He didn't look at the unconscious intruder bleeding on the floor. His amber eyes snapped directly to Evelyn, burning with a terrifying, unhinged fury that made the breath catch in her throat.

"I told you," Dante whispered, his voice trembling with suppressed rage as he took a slow, deliberate step toward her across the broken glass, "to stay in the suite."