Chapter5-8
1803 Words
CHAPTER FIVE
The Truth Buried Alive
The file landed between them.
Dante opened it slowly.
Inside was a name neither of them expected to see again.
Elias Mercer.
Dante went still.
Aria noticed immediately.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
A long silence followed.
Then Dante looked directly at her.
“I was there the night he betrayed you.”
The room felt colder instantly.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Aria stood abruptly.
Anger surged through her chest.
“No.”
“Aria—”
“No.”
Her voice cracked slightly.
Tiny.
Barely noticeable.
But enough.
Enough for Dante to realise something important.
Behind all her control…
Aria Voss was still wounded.
CHAPTER SIX
Forced Partnership
Aria hated needing people.
The realisation sat heavily in her chest as she watched Dante move around the private strategy room inside Voss Technologies, as he belonged there.
Which he absolutely did not.
The room was dim except for the giant digital screens covering the walls. Streams of encrypted data flickered across the displays while Abuja’s skyline glowed through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind them.
It was nearly midnight.
Aria hadn’t slept properly in days.
Neither had Dante.
But unlike her, he somehow still looked calm.
That irritated her.
“You’re staring again,” he said casually without looking up from the tablet in his hand.
“I’m evaluating a threat.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Comforting.”
Aria ignored the comment.
She crossed her arms and studied the data displayed across the nearest screen.
Encrypted transactions.
Shell corporations.
Missing financial trails.
Everything connected back to the same invisible network.
A syndicate powerful enough to manipulate governments, corporations, and global markets without leaving fingerprints.
And somehow… they wanted her technology.
“Your predictive system scares them,” Dante said quietly.
Aria glanced at him.
“Why?”
“Because it removes uncertainty.”
“That’s the point.”
“No,” he corrected softly. “The point is control.”
The word lingered.
Control.
That had always been Aria’s strength.
And maybe her weakness.
She turned away from the screens and walked toward the bar in the corner of the room.
“Drink?” she asked.
Dante leaned back slightly in his chair.
“You offering peace?”
“I’m offering expensive whiskey. Don’t romanticise it.”
That earned a quiet laugh from him.
The sound hit her unexpectedly.
Warm.
Human.
Dangerous.
She handed him a glass.
Their fingers brushed.
Tiny contact.
Tiny reaction.
But Aria noticed it.
So did he.
Neither acknowledged it.
Instead, Dante took a slow sip before setting the glass down.
“You still don’t trust me.”
“Correct.”
“And yet you’re working with me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
His eyes lifted toward hers.
“It means enough.”
Aria looked away first.
Not because she wanted to.
Because holding eye contact with him too long felt dangerous now.
Like standing too close to fire.
“You said you knew Elias,” she said finally.
Dante’s expression shifted slightly.
Careful now.
Measured.
“We crossed paths years ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting tonight.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“No,” he said calmly. “But I do get to decide when information becomes useful instead of destructive.”
Aria stared at him.
Every instinct inside her wanted to push harder.
Demand answers.
Break through his calm.
But another part of her—the dangerous part—understood something.
Dante wasn’t hiding information to manipulate her.
He was protecting something.
Or someone.
And somehow that unsettled her more.
A sudden alert flashed red across the central monitor.
Both of them reacted instantly.
Dante stood.
Aria moved toward the screen.
Unauthorised access attempt.
External server.
Location masked.
But one thing stood out clearly.
They were trying to breach Aria’s private archives.
The files connected to her original company.
The company Elias destroyed.
Her stomach tightened.
“They’re digging into your past,” Dante said quietly.
“No,” Aria replied, voice turning cold. “They’re hunting for something.”
The room fell silent.
Then Dante looked at her carefully.
“You still don’t know what you built back then, do you?”
Aria slowly turned toward him.
“What does that mean?”
Dante hesitated.
Only for a second.
But she noticed.
And that single moment of hesitation told her everything.
There was still something he wasn’t saying.
Something big.
Something capable of changing everything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Almost Kiss
Rain hammered against the penthouse windows hard enough to blur the city lights into streaks of gold and silver.
Aria stood barefoot in her kitchen at two in the morning, wearing one of Dante’s shirts.
That realisation alone should have alarmed her.
Instead, exhaustion had stripped away enough of her defences that she barely reacted anymore.
The past week had been relentless.
Meetings.
Cyberattacks.
Surveillance.
Threats.
And through all of it, Dante remained beside her.
Steady.
Reliable.
Present.
Which was exactly why she needed to be careful.
Because dependence was dangerous.
Aria poured coffee into two mugs while thunder rolled across the sky.
“You know sleep exists, right?” Dante asked from the living room.
She walked toward him.
“So does peace. Neither seems interested in me.”
He accepted the mug from her.
Their fingers touched again.
And again, that tiny spark shot through her.
Annoying.
Very annoying.
Dante sat on the couch reviewing files while soft jazz played quietly from somewhere in the penthouse.
The atmosphere felt strangely intimate.
Normal.
Aria wasn’t used to normal anymore.
“You ever think about stopping?” Dante asked suddenly.
“Stopping what?”
“The constant war.”
Aria leaned against the kitchen counter.
“I wouldn’t know how.”
His eyes lifted toward hers.
“That’s not healthy.”
“Neither is trusting people.”
The comment slipped out sharper than intended.
Silence followed.
Then Dante set his coffee down.
“He really hurt you.”
Aria’s expression hardened immediately.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not him.”
“That’s not the point.”
Her pulse had started rising.
She hated conversations like this.
Hated vulnerability.
Hated how easily Dante seemed to see through her.
“You know what the problem is?” she asked quietly.
Dante watched her carefully.
“You think because you understand pain, it gives you access to mine.”
His gaze softened slightly.
“No,” he said. “I think pain recognises itself.”
The room suddenly felt too small.
Too warm.
Aria looked away first.
Big mistake.
Because the second she looked away, Dante stood.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Giving her every opportunity to step back.
She didn’t.
He moved closer.
Close enough that she could smell rain and whiskey and something distinctly him.
Her heartbeat stumbled.
Dangerous.
This was dangerous.
“You should stop looking at me like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you already know me.”
“Maybe I’m trying to.”
Her breath caught.
Dante reached up slowly.
His fingers brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
The touch was impossibly gentle.
And somehow that affected her more than anything else.
Aria’s pulse pounded now.
His eyes dropped briefly to her lips.
Then back to her eyes.
A question.
A warning.
A choice.
She should have stepped away.
Instead, she leaned closer.
Barely.
But enough.
Their breaths mixed.
The world narrowed.
And right before their lips touched—
Every security alarm in the penthouse exploded.
Aria jerked back instantly.
Dante swore under his breath.
The main security screen lit up bright red.
BREACH DETECTED.
VOSS TECHNOLOGIES MAIN SERVER UNDER ATTACK.
The moment shattered.
Just like that.
Aria forced her breathing steady.
Professional.
Controlled.
But the look they exchanged afterwards carried unfinished tension.
Because both of them knew something now.
This wasn’t just an attraction anymore.
It was becoming personal.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blood on Glass
By the time they reached Voss Technologies, smoke curled into the night sky.
Police lights flashed across the building in violent bursts of blue and red.
Employees gathered outside in panic while emergency responders rushed through shattered glass doors.
Aria froze for exactly one second.
Then the anger hit.
Cold.
Precise.
Deadly.
“They bombed my servers,” one of her security officers said urgently as she approached.
“Casualties?”
“Three injured. One critical.”
Aria’s jaw tightened.
The lobby looked like a war zone.
Glass covered the floor.
Smoke darkened the ceilings.
One side of the building was still burned.
And suddenly this wasn’t about business anymore.
This was personal.
Dante walked beside her silently as they entered the destroyed server room.
Burned equipment filled the air with the sharp scent of melted plastic and chemicals.
Aria stared at the wreckage.
“They wanted to scare you,” Dante said.
“No.”
Her voice came out frighteningly calm.
“They wanted to send a message.”
She crouched beside a damaged terminal.
There.
A symbol burned into the metal casing.
A small black circle crossed through the center with a single silver line.
Dante went still.
“You recognize it,” Aria said immediately.
His expression darkened.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“The organization behind Elias.”
Aria slowly stood.
“You’re telling me the man who destroyed my life was working for them?”
“He was trying to protect you from them.”
The words hit hard.
Aria laughed once.
Sharp.
Humorless.
“That’s the excuse we’re using now?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Truth?” she snapped, turning toward him fully. “Do you have any idea what that man did to me?”
Dante held her gaze.
“Yes.”
That single word drained some of the fury from her.
Because he sounded sincere.
Not defensive.
Not manipulative.
Just… sad.
Aria looked away quickly.
She hated pity.
And she especially hated when Dante looked at her like she was more fragile than she wanted to admit.
One of her employees approached nervously.
“Ms Voss? The press is already outside.”
Of course they were.
The scandal attracted attention.
Power attracted vultures.
Aria straightened immediately.
The softness vanished from her face.
The billionaire returned.
“Prepare a statement,” she ordered. “Nobody speaks without my approval.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The employee hurried away.
Dante watched her quietly.
“You switch fast.”
“I survive fast.”
A long silence passed.
Then Dante stepped closer.
“You don’t always have to carry everything alone.”
Aria met his eyes.
And for one terrifying second…
She wanted to believe him.
- Writer
