5.
The other day....
The perfume sat on her dresser.
Isolde hadn't worn it. Not yet. But she'd uncapped it again last night, just to inhale.
To let it settle into her bones like a story she didn't understand but craved all the same.
She's freaked out after what happened that night. It wasn't normal. Or was it her imagination?
But she does feel watched....
A flicker of something at her back when she swept the café floor, or when she locked the door and turned toward the empty street.
It was the feeling of air thickening. The hairs on her neck rising. The awareness of being... seen.
And somewhere above the crooked rooftops, Dante Valencourt watched.
He sat in the darkened study of his penthouse flat, surrounded by thick velvet curtains and gleaming antique mahogany.
The room smelled of old leather, firewood, and ash his scent.
The only light came from the monitors lining the wall before him.
Each screen fed from a different angle one captured the café's entrance, another her bedroom window, and yet another followed her walk to the market every Sunday morning.
Her world unfolded in pixels and silence. And Dante consumed it.
He leaned forward, fingertips steepled beneath his chin, sharp pale blue eyes narrowed in interest as Isolde angelic and unaware tied her apron behind her back.
"Such a Good girl," he murmured.
He had memorized her schedule down to the minute.
He knew the name of her landlord, the brand of soap she used, the rhythm of her footsteps on the café floor.
He knew that she watered the one potted plant in her room at precisely 9:04 every morning, and that she spoke aloud to it like it could hear her.
Dante loved that.
Not because it was sweet.
But because it was fragile.
He didn't love like normal men. He consumed. Broke. Transformed.
Kindness didn't inspire mercy in him it inspired hunger. He wanted to taste her innocence, twist it into something unrecognizable.
She was all softness and warmth. He craved them.
Dante Valencourt had never been gentle.
He was bred of shadows and rot the bastard son of a French drug dealer who'd taught him that pain was the only universal language.
He had killed his first man at fifteen. Not cleanly. Not quickly.
And now, as a billionaire cloaked in power and myth, he didn't need to bloody his hands often.
But with her...for her-he would. Again and again.
He'd already begun.
Isolde didn't know her café manager had been paid to cut her hours next week, or that the landlord was being pressured to raise the rent.
But Dante knew. Because he orchestrated all of it.
He didn't want her comfortable. He wanted her desperate. Dependent. Aching for a savior with no face.
And then... he'd give her one.
Downstairs in the café, Isolde dropped a spoon.
It clattered against the tile and echoed louder than it should have. She flinched, heart racing. It wasn't just nerves. Not anymore.
She felt him.
Even if she didn't know it yet.
He had left another note this morning. Folded into the pocket of her coat. No name. Just a line that made her throat go tight.
You are more beautiful when you're afraid. - D
She didn't know anyone named with D
And that scared her.
But still... she had tucked the note into her bag instead of throwing it away.
Because something about it thrilled her. A pull she couldn't name.
He knew it would.
She was beginning to respond.
To the uncertainty. The game.
Dante stood from the desk and moved to the window.
He watched as she stepped outside to sweep the front step, hair catching the light, lashes brushing down like shy wings.
He adjusted the cuff of his black dress shirt, revealing the faintest hint of the tattoo inked into his wrist a bleeding crown.
The mark of the Valencourt legacy. One earned through cruelty, not inheritance.
He pressed a button on his earpiece.
"Is it done?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," came the voice. "The boy's been warned."
"Not warned," Dante corrected softly. "Broken. He never speaks to her again. I want his spine broken ."
"Yes, sir."
The boy in question a university student who had spoken to Isolde after her shift two nights ago had no idea what he'd done wrong.
But by morning, he'd have a broken nose, a fractured wrist, and a restraining order filed against him for harassing a girl he barely knew.
Dante didn't tolerate competition.
She wasn't his yet. But she would be.
She had to learn that no one else could touch her without permission.
And eventually, even she wouldn't move without it.
Back in her tiny room, Isolde clutched the latest note in her hand and stared out the window.
The city looked the same.
But it wasn't.
Somewhere out there, someone watched her.
Someone who knew too much.
Someone who made her skin crawl with heat and unease.
He watched her hesitate.
Her fingers brushed the perfume bottle.
The choker still left in the drawer, not sure what to do with it.
He smiled.
Soon.
She would wear his scent. Speak his name. Cry in his bed. Beg through broken sobs while wrapped in his silk sheets.
But not yet.
He was patient.