28.
Isolde wasn't meant to find the door.
It was behind the east library shelf, tucked behind books with no titles spines cracked, dusted in a silence too intentional.
She wasn't looking to escape. She wasn't even trying to rebel. Not today.
She just needed... space.
And the library was the only place in the estate where the cameras were slower, less omnipresent.
Where Dante allowed her more stillness-as if some twisted part of him respected books the way he didn't respect people.
The shelf groaned as she pressed on the edges.
A soft click. A breath of cool air. Then, darkness beyond. She slipped through.
The hallway was narrow, lined in velvet. No lights. No windows. Only a single door at the end with a carved rose on it.
The same rose tattooed on Dante's back.
She opened it.
And the world stilled. It wasn't a room. It was a shrine. Lit by candlelight. Warm and suffocating.
The scent familiar perfume, roses, and something floral, soft, wrong.
It was her scent.
At the center of the room stood a low marble altar draped in silk. Upon it-photos. Hundreds. Some from the estate.
Some... not. Old ones. From before. Her working the café register. Sitting alone in the park.
Walking home barefoot from school graduation.
There were drawings, too. Pencil sketches of her sleeping. Crying. Smiling. Naked.
Clothes hers-folded on a nearby bench. Her apron. Her perfume bottle.
Even a locket she thought she'd lost years ago.
And one single bloodied silk scarf. The one her aunt used to wear.
Isolde stumbled back, hand pressed to her mouth, bile rising.
That's when she heard the voice.
"I wondered how long it would take you to find it."
She spun around. Dante stood in the doorway, coat open, sleeves rolled, collar loose.
The shadows played across his face like firelight. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
His eyes were... calm. Too calm. "Why... why would you do this?"
His expression didn't change. "I built this long before I touched you."
Her breath caught.
"I knew you existed before you did. I bought the café to watch you. Had men follow you. You were art long before you became mine."
She backed toward the altar, gripping the edge like it might hold her up.
"You're insane." Dante smiled faintly. "I'm faithful."
He stepped closer. She flinched.
"You've made shrines before. But this... this is obsession-"
"Yes," he whispered. "It is."
He grabbed her wrist. She tried to pull away-but he spun her into the altar, trapping her between his body and the silk-covered stone.
"Do you know what I did the first time I watched you sleep?"
"Stop-"
"I sat there," he murmured, brushing her hair behind her ear, "for four hours. Not touching. Just memorizing. You breathed like music."
Her heart slammed in her chest.
He touched her chin. "You breathed like music," he murmured again.
His hand slid down her throat, pressing gently-not choking, not yet. Just a reminder. "You shouldn't have tried to run."
"I didn't-"
"You did." His voice lowered. "I felt it in my chest. The night you packed that little red luggage. The second you handed over the key to the safehouse, I knew. And still... I let you go."
Her lips parted in disbelief.
"I let you think you could leave me. So you'd understand how hollow freedom feels." His mouth hovered near hers-hot breath against her trembling lips.
"Dante-"
He crushed his lips to hers, devouring her like punishment.
His kiss wasn't gentle. It was possessive, punishing. He bit her lower lip, drawing blood, and licked it clean as she gasped.
Then he lifted her in one brutal motion, sweeping everything off the altar with a crash. Candles fell.
Wax hissed on the stone. Photos scattered.
She kicked at him, but he caught both her ankles-forcing her legs apart.
"You don't get to say no," he growled. "Not here. Not in the place I built for you."
He tore at the lace of her nightgown, the fabric giving way under his fists.
Her breasts bared to the cold air and candlelight.
"You know why this is sacred?" he said, voice thick with lust and wrath. "Because this is where I dreamed of taking you. Every night. While you smiled at boys like Lucien. While you laughed like your joy didn't belong to me."
She whimpered as he bit her neck hard enough to bruise.
Then-
He unbuckled his belt. The sound made her blood freeze.
"Dante-please-"
But he didn't listen. He never did. The Room Became Fire.
He took her on the altar like a man punishing a sin he carved into her soul.
It was raw, dark, twisted. Her hands tied in red silk from the shrine. Her legs over his shoulders, body trembling under each brutal, deep thrust.
"You wanted to leave me," he whispered in her ear, fangs grazing skin. "You wanted to run."
He thrust harder. Her cry echoed off the stone.
"Say you belong to me."
"I-"
He bit her shoulder.
"SAY IT."
"I-I belong to you-"
He moaned, one hand wrapping around her throat again, the other clutching her hip.
"You're mine. You bleed for me. You breathe because I allow it. And if I tell the world to stop spinning for you-it will."
The altar was streaked in wax, sweat, and the crimson remnants of his worship.
She came undone with a cry that wasn't pleasure.
It was surrender. And he kissed her through it.
AFTER.
She lay on the marble, wrists raw, dress in tatters, tears drying on her cheeks.
And he held her like something holy.
"Don't ever run from me again, Isolde," he whispered into her hair. "Because next time-I won't give you back your voice."
She didn't reply. Couldn't.
Her voice had been taken with her will.
And in the flickering shrine, surrounded by proof of his madness, she knew one thing with soul-breaking clarity.
This wasn't love. This was worship.
And worship, in Dante's world, always required sacrifice.