Chapter 12:Taken
1533 Words
The night before everything went wrong, Sophie couldn’t sleep.
There was a heaviness in her chest, a strange unsettled feeling, like her lungs weren’t expanding fully. It wasn’t fear… it was instinct. A whisper she had learned never to ignore. One that had saved her life once.
She turned on her side in the massive bed Danta gave her, staring out at the moonlight pouring through the tall glass windows. The mansion was quiet. Too quiet. She could hear the faint sounds of guards patrolling, the distant hum of security systems, but underneath it all was something else.
A silence that felt wrong.
She tried telling herself it was nothing, maybe she was just tired from training. Marco had pushed her today — harder than before — after witnessing her reflexes. Her speed. Her surprising strength. He had watched her like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
Everyone seemed to be watching her lately.
•
Early the next morning, Sophie got up before dawn and headed to the training hall alone. Her knuckles still ached from the punching bag, but she welcomed the pain. It grounded her. It reminded her she was alive. It reminded her she was changing.
She threw one last punch and let out a shaky breath.
“You’re up early.”
Marco appeared from behind the doorway, arms folded over his chest, eyes narrowed with suspicion mixed with admiration.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Sophie admitted, wiping sweat from her forehead.
He studied her a moment longer. “You’ve been off since yesterday. Something wrong?”
Sophie hesitated. “Do you ever… feel something bad coming before it happens?”
Marco stiffened. “Why?”
She shook her head. “Forget it. Probably nothing.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Let me walk you back,” he said.
Sophie laughed lightly, trying to dissolve the tension. “Marco, you act like someone’s waiting to kill me.”
His jaw flexed.
“Sometimes people are targeted exactly when they think they’re safe.”
His tone made her pause.
Something flickered in Sophie’s eyes. A flash of the life she had run from.
The life she never told anyone about.
But she didn’t answer. She simply followed him back down the hallway.
•
By the time they reached her room, the uneasy feeling in her chest had grown sharper.
Marco stood by the door, still alert. “Text me if you need anything.”
Sophie nodded. “Thanks.”
She stepped into her room—and paused.
The window curtains were slightly parted.
She had closed them earlier.
A chill rolled down her spine.
Before she could open her mouth—
A gloved hand shot out of the dark behind her and clamped over her face.
Her sharp gasp was cut off instantly.
Another arm wrapped around her torso, yanking her back with inhuman strength.
Her scream was buried in the man’s palm.
Her nails dug into his arm but he didn’t flinch. A cold needle pressed into her neck. Her vision blurred instantly.
“No—” she tried to choke out, but her body was already shutting down.
The last thing she saw was her bedroom fading into blackness.
And the silver necklace Danta gave her falling from her neck and hitting the marble floor.
⸻
Marco returned two minutes later.
He had forgotten to ask her something trivial—something stupid he couldn’t even remember anymore—because the second he saw the open door his instincts screamed.
“Sophie?”
Silence.
He stepped inside slowly, hand already reaching for his gun.
“Sophie?”
The room was empty.
His eyes scanned the floor.
Then he saw it.
The necklace.
Danta’s necklace.
His heart dropped.
No.
No no no—
He sprinted through the hallway, shouting her name.
Guards appeared instantly, weapons drawn.
“Lock every entrance! Shut the gates! Sophie is missing!”
The alarm erupted through the mansion like thunder.
Lights flashed red.
Guards swarmed every corridor.
But she was gone.
Taken without a sound.
⸻
Danta was in a meeting room on a private call when Marco burst in without knocking.
“Boss—”
Danta didn’t need to hear the rest.
He saw Marco’s face.
He saw the dead look in his eyes.
He saw the fear.
And then Marco held out the necklace.
Danta’s world cracked.
“What happened?” His voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry. It was quiet—scarier than any scream.
“S—she was in her room. I walked her there. She was fine. I left for two minutes and then—”
Marco swallowed hard.
“They took her.”
Danta stared at the necklace glinting in his hand.
Something inside him turned black.
“She trusted us,” he whispered.
Marco lowered his head. “Boss, I—”
“Find. Her.”
Danta’s voice dropped to a deadly rumble.
“Every second we waste… someone hurts her.”
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t panic.
He simply changed.
His eyes dimmed into the eyes of the monster the underworld feared.
Danta walked out of the room calmly, rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and holstered his guns.
“Where’s the van?” he asked.
“We tracked it leaving the east gate. We’re following the signal.”
“Good.”
He loaded a weapon with the steady hands of a man preparing for war.
“Marco,” he said quietly. “There will be no negotiations today.”
Marco nodded.
“No survivors,” Danta finished.
“Yes, Boss.”
⸻
The abandoned industrial zone was crawling with armed men.
Danta stepped out of the SUV alone.
Marco tried to follow, but Danta stopped him with one raised hand.
“No. They took her from my home.”
His voice was low.
“They die by my hands.”
The guards outside spotted him.
Five men. Machine guns ready.
One called out, “Drop the weapon or—”
Danta shot him between the eyes before he finished the sentence.
The gunfire exploded instantly.
Bullets flew around him.
But Danta moved like death incarnate—smooth, precise, terrifyingly calm.
He fired once—another man collapsed.
He spun behind a pillar, shot again—another fell.
He ran out of bullets.
He didn’t pause.
He grabbed a knife off the fallen guard and hurled it straight into another man’s throat.
Blood sprayed across the concrete.
The last guard tried to run.
Danta caught him, slammed him against a metal crate, and snapped his neck mercilessly.
The crack echoed in the empty yard.
Danta didn’t blink.
He walked into the warehouse.
Inside were nine more men.
One aimed a gun at him—
Danta shot the man clean through the forehead.
The others rushed him.
Danta dropped his gun, took a metal pipe from the floor, and swung it into the first man’s jaw so hard it shattered on impact.
He kicked another’s knee backward until it bent the wrong way.
He slammed a man’s face into a steel column until blood covered the metal.
He took a knife off the ground, spun, and stabbed the last man through the ribs.
His chest rose and fell once.
Not from exhaustion.
From cold fury.
Danta finally stopped killing when the warehouse grew silent.
Bodies littered the floor.
Blood smeared the walls.
The smell of gunpowder and fear choked the room.
He looked around.
“Sophie!” he shouted, voice breaking for the first time.
No answer.
He searched the building.
A rope on the floor.
A chair knocked over.
A phone left on a box — deliberately.
Danta picked it up.
A message flashed onto the screen instantly.
“If you want the girl back, Demon King…
Let’s see how far your rage goes.”
Danta’s eyes burned with something darker than rage.
He slammed his fist onto the table beside him.
The metal dented from the force.
“She’s mine,” he whispered.
“And I will burn the world to get her back.”
⸻
Sophie woke slowly.
Her head throbbed.
Her arms were tied behind her.
Her mouth was dry.
She blinked until the room became clear.
A warehouse?
No.
A basement.
Damp air.
Concrete walls.
Men arguing nearby.
“You i***t, she’s dangerous!”
“She’s just a girl!”
“Not when you know who her father was.”
Sophie’s blood froze.
Her father.
Her past.
The identity she buried.
The reason she spent years running.
“Do you realize who she is?” one man said. “She’s the daughter of the Phantom King!”
Sophie’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Her breath caught.
No.
No, no—
Not this.
They knew.
They finally knew.
She clenched her teeth.
Danta didn’t know.
Marco didn’t know.
No one here knew.
And now… someone wanted her because of it.
She lifted her head weakly.
“I won’t let history repeat,” she whispered to herself.
She closed her eyes.
Somewhere out there, she knew Danta was coming.
She didn’t know how she knew.
But she felt it in her bones.
The Demon King was coming.
And the world wasn’t ready.
- Writer
