Chapter 16:The Night Before War
872 Words
The mansion did not sleep. Not tonight.
Guards whispered into radios. Black-suited men moved like shadows across the halls. Marco stood at the center of the command room, barking quiet orders. The entire estate vibrated with the same truth:
Something was coming.
Something big.
Something meant for Sophie.
And every instinct inside the walls reacted with the same response—
Protect the boss’s wife at all costs.
Even if no one dared call her that out loud.
Sophie sensed the shift before anyone told her. She stood in the indoor garden, barefoot on the warm stone floor, fingers gently brushing the leaves of a climbing vine. Her breathing had become tense, shallow, as though she could feel danger creeping up the glass walls.
Her father used to tell her, “When the world gets too quiet, hija… that’s when it’s hunting.”
Tonight, everything was quiet.
The water from the fountain trickled softly, but even that sound felt nervous.
“What’s happening?” she asked when Marco appeared at the doorway.
He looked like a man who slept in danger and woke up with a gun in his hand. “We’re handling it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Marco exhaled. She impressed him more every day — not with force, but with clarity. She didn’t scare easily. She didn’t panic. She didn’t cry. She simply demanded the truth.
“Someone made a move earlier,” he said. “We intercepted it before it got close.”
Sophie froze.
“A move… like kidnapping?”
Marco’s silence answered for him.
Her chest tightened. “Is it the same people from the highway?”
“Possibly,” he said. “But there’s something bigger. Something… coordinated.”
Sophie’s hands curled into fists. She felt it again — that dangerous instinct inside her, the one she tried to bury for years. Her father’s blood. Her instinct for survival.
“Where is Dante?” she asked.
Marco hesitated. Not because he didn’t want to tell her, but because he wasn’t sure if telling her would terrify her.
“He’s preparing.”
That wasn’t enough.
“Marco… please. I need to know.”
Marco’s jaw flexed.
“He’s calling in hunters, Sophie.”
Her stomach dropped.
Her father used to say, “If a man calls hunters… it means he’s already at war.”
⸻
Dante didn’t knock when he entered the garden. Storms never knock. They just arrive.
His dark suit was unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled up, veins tense beneath his skin. His eyes were sharp, scanning her body first—checking for injury—before meeting her face.
The possessiveness was silent but obvious.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded once, but tension radiated off him in waves. His hand twitched like he wanted to pull her into him, shield her with his body, but he forced himself still.
“We have a problem,” he said. “Someone is trying to reach you again.”
Sophie swallowed. “Why?”
Dante’s eyes darkened.
“Because of who you are.”
Her heart froze.
He knew.
Or he suspected.
His gaze never wavered. “Your father… Hector Hernandez. The Phantom King.”
She stiffened. Her vision tunneled for a second, breath catching in her throat.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“I didn’t plan to bring it up yet. But the men coming after you—they’re not petty criminals. They’re old enemies of your father. People who’ve been waiting years for a chance.”
Sophie’s chest cracked open. “Does that mean… my mother is also in danger?”
“Yes.”
Her breath broke. She grabbed the edge of the fountain to steady herself. “We have to move her. We have to—”
“We already did,” Dante interrupted quietly.
She looked up, shocked.
He continued, “She’s in one of my private clinics. Guarded. Safe.”
Emotion swept through her so fast it hurt. “You moved her… without telling me?”
“I wasn’t going to risk them reaching her before you knew the truth.”
She stared at him — the cold, ruthless man who killed without blinking — yet she saw the truth in his eyes:
He had protected her. Again. Automatically. Without hesitation.
“Why are you doing all this?” she whispered.
His jaw clenched.
His voice was low, dangerous, intimate.
“Because you are mine to protect.”
Her breath hitched.
But before anything else could be said, Marco appeared behind him.
“Boss. They’re moving. We have ten minutes.”
Dante’s entire body hardened.
War-mode activated.
He turned to Sophie.
“You stay in this garden. Don’t move unless Marco comes for you.”
“You expect me to just—”
“Yes.”
His voice cut like steel.
“And if anyone steps inside here… scream once.”
“Why?”
“So I know who to kill,” he said simply.
Sophie shivered.
Not from fear.
But from the terrifying truth that this man — this cold, brutal king — had placed her at the center of his wrath.
And whoever came for her tonight…
would not survive.
- Writer
