Chapter 33 Lia
LIA
The cold is the first thing I feel.
It’s not the kind that brushes against your skin and fades. It sinks into my bones, waking me up like a needle dragged up my spine. I try to lift my head and open my eyes, but a dull and splitting pain weighs me down.
The air smells… sterile, like a mixture of bleach and something faintly metallic. It doesn’t match the smell of blood and smoke I remember. I inhale again, slower this time, trying to piece the fragments together.
That is when the memory hits me all at once: the hand around my mouth, the cloth soaked in chemical, the panic that clawed up my throat as the world faded away…
My eyes snap open, and I jerk up too fast. Dizziness claws at me, my heart hammering as I scramble against the wall behind me.
The next thing I feel is pain.
It pulses under my skin like a second heartbeat, raw and persistent. My feet throb and the skin of my knees feels split and ragged. My palms sting when I shift against the hard mattress, as if every nerve has been exposed and dipped in salt.
My breath hitches as I take in my surroundings.
The room is small. There’s barely enough space for the steel bed I’m on and the narrow table shoved against the opposite wall, with a hard-backed chair resting beside it.
The ceiling is cracked, with off-white plaster peeling around the corners.
A single flickering bulb hangs above me, humming with electricity and casting thin, sickly shadows across the gray concrete floor.
There are no windows. Just one door—heavy, industrial, and reinforced with iron—sealed with a thick lock.
I press my back to the wall, arms tightening protectively over my stomach as I fight the wave of nausea climbing up from my gut. The instinct to scream is there, raw and animalistic, but I choke it down. I don’t know exactly where I am or if anyone’s even out there.
I try to stand, but my feet scream beneath me the second I apply pressure. I stumble and land right back on the mattress. The metal spring bed creaks under my weight as I rest my back against the wall. Every movement I make hurts.
I’m a wreck. A bruised, burnt, exhausted wreck.
And I’ve been kidnapped by someone who probably wants me dead.
The third thing I feel is panic.
It is slow at first. It comes with each breath I take, tightening the air in my lungs, tightening the band around my ribs.
I don’t need to ask why I’m here or who ordered for my kidnap.
I know it’s the Society.
They couldn’t let me live after what I did. After rejecting Marco in front of everyone.
The thought coils in my gut, tight and sick. I should’ve run when I had the chance, when I was strong enough.
The doorknob turns.
I stiffen, and my heart thunders as the door creaks open.
My stomach turns to ice as I see who my captor is.
Dante Romano.
Of all the monsters I braced for, he’s the one I never expected. Not because he’s incapable. But because I stupidly thought I saw something human in him the other day. A flicker of decency. A moment of truce.
“I should’ve known it was you.” My chuckle comes out in a dry croak.
I was stupid enough to think that he was a different man who didn’t want me dead because we talked the other day.
He walks in slowly, his hands relaxed at his sides, dressed in his usual pristine black suit with every line sharp and every detail calculated. No need for weapons when your whole life is one.
“You drugged me.” My voice hardens. “What about the baby?”
He exhales through his nose. Not guilty. Just like he’s annoyed by the accusation.
“I’m not a fucking animal, Rosalia. I used propofol in a controlled dose monitored by a private physician.
It was administered in just the right amount to put you under without crossing the placental barrier.
” He adjusts the cufflink on his sleeve like this is just another business transaction.
“You slept through the worst of it. The baby’s fine. I assure you.”
I blink at him, deadpan. “Oh, well, as long as you drugged me ethically, that makes it all fine. You should have just shot me while I was unconscious so I wouldn’t have to deal with this.”
Dante raises a brow. “If I wanted you dead, Lia, you wouldn’t be breathing or glaring at me right now.”
My throat tightens because I know he’s right.
My mind brings up flashes of that particular memory I wish to forget.
I remember the blood… how it spread across our living room floor, the way my father’s life disappeared from his eyes, and the way Dante pointed that gun at me next.
He would have killed me if Francesco hadn’t walked in and stopped him.
“You’ve always wanted me dead,” I whisper. “You would’ve killed me too, if your son hadn’t walked in. So why now? What changed?” I pause when it hits me. “Or you’re the one your Society sent because I refused to go by their archaic rules and properly complete the stupid ritual?”
His expression flickers, just slightly. A shift behind the usual mask he has over his face. He takes another step closer, but he stops, like he’s careful not to get too close.
“You think the La Mano Nera ordered your death,” he says, his tone flat. “You’re right. They did.”
“So this is it?” I whisper. “You’re here to finish up the job?”
A cold chill seeps into my chest
“You think the Society will let you live just because you survived the fire?” He scoffs. “You spat on their laws. You humiliated their heir. And now you’re carrying something they can’t control.”
His voice drops lower.
“If the Elders have their way, they’ll take the baby—and then they’ll kill you. Clean. Quiet. Like you never existed. But I’m sure they’ll wait long enough for you to give birth first. So no, I’m here because I didn’t let them take you.”
I stare at him, not comprehending. “What?”
I scoff bitterly. “You expect me to believe that?”
“You don’t have to believe it,” he says simply.
“I was just a girl when you pointed a gun at me with no hesitation. You were going to put a bullet in my skull like it was nothing. Don’t you dare stand here and expect me to believe that you’re a changed man now.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t deny it.
“So why now?” I continue, my voice shaking with rage and disbelief.
There’s a pause. A long, heavy one. And when Dante speaks, his voice is quieter than I expect, but no less sharp.
“Two years ago, I killed Adriano because I believed it was necessary. I did what I believed was right. I thought he was a threat to the balance I thought we had. But I was wrong.”
He takes another step toward me.
“I was wrong about him,” he says. “And I was wrong about you.”
I swallow hard, fury and confusion colliding in my chest. “You despise me.”
“I did, yes, but I’ve had time to think,” Dante continues. “And to see what the Society really is. The Elders don’t enforce order or balance. It’s power. And fear.”
I don’t respond. I don’t know how. The room feels too small, too cold. The pain in my body suddenly blurs with the ache in my chest.
I don’t trust him. Not even a little.
But I’m listening.
“So why exactly did you save me? What difference does that make for you?”
“You’re not a symbol of destruction, Lia,” he says. “You’re a symbol of rebirth. That child inside you might either be their salvation or ruin. And since we’ve been able to convince them to use the baby for their benefit, they might stop at nothing to get it.”
I stare down at the floor, letting his words settle over me like ash. They don’t absolve him or undo everything he’s done. But they feel real.
Dante’s eyes drop to my legs, then my hands.
“You’re in pain,” he says.
“You don’t say.”
He steps forward, kneels beside the bed without asking, and reaches for my ankle.
I recoil. “Don’t touch me.”
He doesn’t flinch or pull away, just studies the burns on the soles of my feet, still red and blistered from the coals. His voice is low when he speaks again.
“We’ll need to take care of these if you want to move again without tearing open the skin.”
“You care about my skin now?”
His eyes flick up to meet mine.
“I care about what happens to you. You are injured and weak. That makes you vulnerable.”
Dante lets go of me and rises to his feet.
“You don’t have to trust me,” he says. “I wouldn’t if I were you. But I’m not your enemy anymore.”
He turns to go, and I stop him with one last question.
“What happens now?”
He looks hesitant, like he doesn’t want to say anything. That makes me even more curious.
“I can’t just stay here for god-knows-how-long without knowing what will happen to me next.”
He sighs before walking to grab the metal chair resting against the table. He positions the seat right before me and lowers himself onto it with a serious expression on his face.
“You have had the wrong idea about me for a long time,” he starts, leaning slightly forward on his elbows. “It’s time to change that.”