Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
Hannah
I find Dante slumped in the shadows of his study, a rare sight—a man undone. His head is low, shoulders hunched, something in his posture so completely unfamiliar that for a second, I wonder if I’ve stepped into the wrong room. His bare chest, marred by the white-hot gleam of fresh bandages, tells a different story—a gruesome reminder of yesterday’s hellish “test” in the basement. I’ve seen him in every form—cold, ruthless, controlling, even twistedly affectionate in his own warped way—but this…this is something new. Something I never thought I’d see. Vulnerable. Broken. Human. It shatters everything I thought I knew about him.
I take a careful step forward, my growing belly leading the way, one hand pressed against it to soothe our son, who stirs as though he can sense the weirdness in the air. Something’s off, and I don’t know whether to be afraid or to reach out, to walk into the room and confront this fragile version of Dante or to turn around and flee from whatever the hell he’s playing at now.
“Dante?” I say his name as softly as I can, uncertainty clawing at my throat. I’ve learned to tread carefully with him, and I wonder if this…this rawness is just another trap, another mind game he’s spinning in his twisted need for control.
He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes remain fixed on the ground, as though he’s not even aware I’ve entered. No sharp gaze that sees through me like he always does, no command to bend to his will, no simmering heat to remind me of the chains he’s so carefully woven around me. Instead, he’s a mess of tangled emotions, too far gone to acknowledge my presence.
I stop a few feet from him, close enough to feel the tremble in his hands, the weight of his despair pressing down like the thick silence between us. His sharp jaw is clenched so tightly that I can see the muscle working under his skin. I know this man, but right now…this is a stranger.
“What’s wrong?” The question comes from a place I wasn’t expecting—a genuine concern that catches me off guard. I’ve been so focused on surviving, on keeping my distance emotionally, that it feels wrong to care. But there it is. A crack in my defense.
His gaze slowly lifts, and when his eyes meet mine, it’s like staring into a raw wound. Red-rimmed, haunted. They hold no trace of the cold calculation I’ve learned to read like a book. The tears on his face? I can’t even process it. He’s not supposed to be like this.
“Hannah,” he breathes my name like a prayer, ragged and full of something I can’t name. His voice, always so sure, so dominant, is stripped down now, raw and exposed. “You shouldn’t be here. Not now. Not like this.”
The words hit me harder than I want them to. Not like this. He’s never wanted me to see him like this. But it’s not a command this time. It’s almost…an invitation to turn away, to keep my distance. But I don’t. I can’t. It’s like this vulnerability pulls me in, like gravity itself.
“Are you in pain?” I ask. My hand rests on my belly, my son still kicking as if he senses the tension. “The wounds…”
He cuts me off, voice tinged with something deep, something desperate. “Physical pain is nothing.” There’s a sharpness to it, but it fades quickly, leaving behind something softer, something broken. “Nothing compared to what burns inside me every moment since I first saw you.”
I stop in my tracks. I don’t know what to say, what to do. This isn’t the Dante I know—the man who controlled every inch of my life, who bent me to his will, who owned me in ways that twisted my mind. This man? This man is a shattered shell of that monster.
“I don’t understand,” I admit, my voice quieter now, uncertain. And somehow, that admission feels heavier than anything I’ve ever said to him.
Dante laughs—if you can call it that—a jagged, broken sound that’s void of humor or joy. It’s just…pain. “Of course you don’t. How could you?” He presses his hand against his chest, against the bandages, against the mark of my name—our names carved into him like some sick contract neither of us ever agreed to. “How could anyone understand this?”
I inch closer, careful not to cross too many lines, but my heart is hammering, my breath shallow. “Understand what?” I ask, the words heavy with confusion, with fear.
“This,” he says, gesturing vaguely between us. The hunger. The obsession. “This…need. This hunger that doesn’t stop. Doesn’t fade. It only burns brighter the more I claim you, the more I have you. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.”
His voice shakes, a tremor that shouldn’t be there. Dante never trembles. Never.
He stands up suddenly, his movements sharp and jerky, but instead of coming toward me, he turns, pacing to the window like a man trying to escape the very thing that consumes him. The Dante I know would never show his back. Never put himself in a position of vulnerability. But this Dante…this man? He’s breaking.
“I thought it would be enough,” he mutters, his back still to me. “The taking. The claiming. The possession. I thought that would satisfy it. That it would calm me down, make it stop. But it just gets worse. Every single day.”
I can’t breathe. His words…They claw at my chest, my insides twisting with something I don’t know how to name.
“I thought…that once I had you—completely—that the hunger would go away.” His voice cracks, and the weight of his vulnerability crushes me. “But it only grows. And I can’t stop it, Hannah. I can’t control it. It’s like I’m drowning in it, and I’m dying because you’re all I can think about. All I need.”
He turns, his eyes wild, raw. And I can’t look away.
“Every day, I cut myself,” he says, and the words fall like a confession from a man who’s lost all his power, all his control. “To feel something different. To feel anything but this…this emptiness inside me, the gnawing hunger for you that never ends.”
I don’t know what to do with this. With him. With the man standing before me, broken and desperate, craving the one thing I’m not sure I can give him anymore.
He steps toward me, then stops, the motion stuttering, halted by the sheer effort of restraint, as if the very act of closing the distance between us takes all the control he’s fought so hard to maintain. For the first time, I feel the weight of a boundary—his acknowledgment of it, of my space, a tremor of self-control so rare, it practically burns.
"It didn’t work," he says, his voice lowering to a near whisper, demanding my attention, pulling me in so tightly with just sound that I forget how to breathe for a second. I have to focus on his words—force myself to. I’m used to detaching, zoning out to survive. But now? It’s like his confession slices through my armor, leaving me exposed. "The pain…it’s nothing. It’s the fear that eats at me. The fear that no matter what I do, no matter how tight I hold onto you, one day…you’ll slip through my fingers. That I might lose you."
His words strike me hard—fear. I’ve only ever seen certainty in him. Certainty in his control, in his obsession, in the way he claimed me. I press my hand over my belly, feeling the restless stir of our child, the unbreakable chain binding me to this man—this man who owns me, body and soul.
"You can’t lose me," I say before I can stop myself, the words spilling out before I can even think. It’s honest. Too honest. But it feels real. "You’ve made sure of it, haven’t you? The chip, the security, the tattoos, the baby—all designed to make me yours. To make it impossible for me to ever leave."
He shakes his head, frustration rippling through him like a storm he can’t control, his eyes darkening as if I still don’t get it. "You still don’t understand," he says, and I feel a cold shiver of dread slip down my spine. "I’m not afraid of losing you physically, not entirely. It’s what terrifies me…what burns inside me…is that part of you is still unreachable. Still untouched. Still yours. Despite everything. Despite all I’ve done to make sure you’re mine—all of you."
His words land with the force of a blow. He knows. He knows there’s a piece of me that’s still mine. Still free. And he’s terrified of it. That piece—the one thing I’ve clung to, protected, buried deep down inside me like a secret—could be the very thing that ruins us.
"I don’t know what you want me to say," I whisper, the words coming from somewhere I can’t quite place. It’s raw. Real. And it’s breaking me apart in ways I never thought possible. "I’ve…kept parts of me to myself. No matter what you do, what you’ve tried, there are thoughts I keep. Feelings that are mine. Mine, not yours."
I brace myself for the rage, for the punishment. It’s always followed by the smallest hint of resistance. Always. But instead, I see something in his eyes—resignation. He accepts it. A sharp pain twists in my chest. "Of course you do," he says quietly, as if it were always inevitable. "You’re human. You think. You feel. And I can’t control that, no matter how much I want to. No matter how many walls I’ve built around you."
His voice cracks on the last part, and I feel it—the vulnerability that’s been hiding in him this whole time. The truth that he’s always needed something more from me than just obedience. He needed me—all of me. But I’m not sure he can handle it.
"What terrifies me," he continues, his voice breaking again, a dark confession creeping through, "is that you’ll never feel for me what I feel for you. That you’ll never truly belong to me. Not in the way I need. I’ve built this world around us. A world where nothing exists but you and me. But if part of you is still…free…what does that mean for us?"
It’s a confession I never expected. A crack in the armor. He—the one who’s obsessed with owning me—fears being owned by me. By my feelings, my emotions. It’s twisted. It’s terrifying. But it’s real. And it’s pulling me into a place I don’t want to go.
I don’t have the words. My chest tightens, my thoughts scatter, and then…"I feel something," I whisper, barely hearing the words even as they leave my mouth. It’s the truth, and it stings with a force I don’t understand. "But it’s not…simple. I don’t know what it is. I can’t explain it. Not after everything."
He pulls me close then, his hands cupping my face with a possessiveness that’s both tender and terrifying. He looks at me like I’ve given him everything he’s ever wanted, like my confession is the key to something I’m too afraid to face.
"That’s enough," he murmurs, and his lips crash against mine. The kiss is different this time—not cold, not calculating, but desperate. Vulnerable. There’s no control. Just us. And in that moment, I realize, as much as I want to fight it, I’m already his. Every twisted, dangerous part of me.
And I don’t know what comes over me, but I want to ease his pain the only way I know how.
So, I drop to my knees in front of him and reach for his belt.
He stills, holding his breath as he watches me incredulously. I’ve never iniated sexual contact between us and I’ve certainly never done this before.
But I want to try. For him. For reasons that I don’t even understand myself yet.
His belt buckle clinks beneath my trembling fingers. I hesitate, unsure of my own boldness, but something in his eyes—that flicker of raw need—propels me forward. I've never done this, never even considered it until this moment, but I'm driven by an instinct I didn't know I possessed.
"Hannah," he breathes, my name a broken sound on his lips.
I free him from his constraints, my breath catching at the sight of him. He's imposing in every way, and for a moment, doubt clouds my determination. But then his fingers thread through my hair, not forcing, just touching—as if he can't believe I'm really here, on my knees, by choice.
I take him into my mouth tentatively at first, exploring this new intimacy between us. His sharp intake of breath emboldens me. I follow instinct, recalling how his mouth moves against mine when he kisses me deeply, how his tongue traces patterns that make me forget to breathe. I mirror those movements, learning him in this new way.
"Fuck," he hisses, his grip tightening in my hair.
I look up at him through my lashes, and the sight of Dante Severino—always so controlled, so calculated—coming undone above me stirs something primal inside me. I take him deeper, encouraged by the sounds escaping his throat, sounds he'd never allow anyone else to hear.
Suddenly, his hand jerks my head back, forcing my eyes to his. Gone is the vulnerability, replaced by something darker, more dangerous.
"Where did you learn to do that?" he demands, voice like gravel. His eyes, usually cold and assessing, burn with jealousy and rage.
I blink up at him, confusion and fear mingling with the lingering desire. "I—nowhere. I've never?—"
"Don't lie to me," he snarls, his grip tightening painfully.
"I'm not," I whisper, my voice steady despite my racing heart. "I've never done this before. I just...I thought if I kissed you there the way you kiss me there..." I swallow hard. "The way your tongue moves against mine when we kiss. I was trying to do the same."
Something shifts in his expression—the rage still there but softening around the edges as he searches my face for truth. I hold his gaze, letting him see my honesty, my inexperience.
"You're mine," he says finally, his thumb brushing across my bottom lip, tender yet possessive. "Only mine."
"I know," I whisper.
He pulls me to my feet with surprising gentleness, his hands cupping my face. There's something different in his eyes now—that vulnerability returning, cracking through his armor.
"Kiss me," he says, and it's not a command but almost a plea. "Not because I'm forcing you. Because you want to."
The vulnerability in his voice catches me off guard. This man who commands an empire with an iron fist, who takes what he wants without question—he's asking me. Not demanding. Asking.
I rise to my tiptoes and press my lips against his. Slowly, deliberately. This is my choice. The realization sends a thrill through me that I don't want to examine too closely.
His arms encircle me, lifting me against him as if I weigh nothing. He carries me to the bed—our bed, as he constantly reminds me—and lays me down with unexpected care. His body covers mine, but he holds himself above me, searching my face.
"Tell me you want this," he says, his voice rough with restraint. "Say the words, Hannah."
The moonlight filtering through the windows casts half his face in shadow, but I can still see the war raging behind his eyes. Control battling desperation. Possession fighting with something that almost looks like fear.
"I want this," I whisper, and the truth of it terrifies me. "I want you."
Something feral flashes across his features before he claims my mouth again, harder this time, hungrier. His hands are everywhere, leaving trails of fire across my skin as he removes my clothes with practiced efficiency. But there's an urgency to his movements that wasn't there before, as if he's afraid I'll change my mind.
"Mine," he growls against my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. "Say it."
"Yours," I breathe, arching into him. And in this moment, with his weight pressing me into the mattress and his scent enveloping me, I believe it. "I'm yours, Dante."
He stills above me, and I realize it's the first time I've said his name during our intimate moments without him forcing me to. Always before, I've been silent or defiant, calling him nothing at all unless he asked. The sound of his name on my lips willingly seems to break something loose inside him.
His movements become gentler, almost reverent, as he explores my body with his mouth and hands. He worships me in a way that feels like surrender, though I know better than to mistake it for weakness. This is just another facet of his possession—learning every part of me that responds to his touch, cataloging my gasps and sighs like weapons he'll use against me later.
Yet I can't bring myself to care, not when he's touching me like this, making me feel things I never thought possible. Not when he's looking at me like I'm both his salvation and his damnation wrapped in one.
"I've waited so long," he murmurs against my inner thigh, his breath hot against my skin. "So long for you to come to me willingly."
The pleasure builds as his mouth finds me, and I lose myself in sensation, in the skilled movements of his tongue and fingers. My release crashes over me in waves, his name a broken cry from my lips as my body shudders beneath him.
He doesn't give me time to recover. Dante moves up my body like a predator, eyes gleaming with dark satisfaction at my undoing. My breath still comes in ragged gasps, my mind hazy with pleasure, when I feel him positioning himself between my thighs.
"Look at me," he demands, one hand cupping my jaw. "I want to see your eyes when I take what's mine."
I obey, meeting his gaze as he pushes into me slowly, deliberately. The stretch and fullness make me gasp, my fingers digging into his shoulders. There's something different about this time—a connection that terrifies me more than his cruelty ever did.
"That's it," he murmurs, his voice strained with restraint. "Take all of me."
When he's fully seated inside me, he pauses, his forehead dropping to mine. For a moment, we just breathe together, connected in the most intimate way. I can feel his heartbeat thundering through his chest, matching my own frantic rhythm.
"Tell me again," he whispers against my lips.
I know what he wants to hear. What scares me is how much I want to say it.
"I'm yours."
Something flashes in his eyes—triumph, possession, and something deeper I can't name. He begins to move then, his thrusts measured and deep. Each one pulls sounds from me I never knew I could make.
"Never forget this moment," he says, his voice rough with emotion. "When you chose me. When you surrendered."
Part of me wants to argue—to remind him of the circumstances that brought me here, of all the choices he's taken from me. But another part, the part currently burning under his touch, knows there's truth in his words. I did choose this moment. I did surrender.
And God help me, it feels like freedom.
His pace increases, his control slipping as pleasure builds between us. One hand slides beneath me, angling my hips to take him deeper, and stars explode behind my eyes.
"Dante," I cry out, my body tightening around him.
"Again," he growls. "Say it again."
"Dante, please?—"
He captures my mouth in a bruising kiss as my second release crashes through me, more intense than the first. Seconds later, he follows, my name a broken curse on his lips as he empties himself inside me.
Afterward, he doesn't immediately pull away as he usually does. Instead, he gathers me against his chest, one hand stroking through my hair. I can hear his heartbeat gradually slowing beneath my ear.
"Why did you do that?" he asks finally, his voice unusually quiet in the darkness.
I know he's referring to my unexpected initiative earlier. I trace patterns on his chest, avoiding the tattoo of his name that marks him as permanently as he's marked my life.
"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I saw something in
I saw something in your eyes. Something broken." My voice is barely a whisper against his skin. "I wanted to fix it, even just for a moment."
His body tenses beneath mine. For several heartbeats, there's only silence, his fingers frozen in my hair. I've said too much, revealed too much of what I saw in him. Vulnerability is dangerous with Dante—both his and mine.
"You can't fix me, Hannah." His voice is hard again, that brief tenderness receding like the tide. "Don't mistake what just happened for something it's not."
But even as he says it, his arms tighten around me, contradicting his words. His body tells a different story than his mouth, something I'm slowly learning to read.
"I know what you are," I say carefully. "I'm not trying to change you."
He shifts suddenly, rolling me beneath him, his weight pinning me to the mattress. In the moonlight, his face is all sharp angles and shadows, his eyes bottomless and searching.
"What am I, then?" he challenges, one hand wrapping loosely around my throat—not squeezing, just reminding me of his power. "Tell me what you see when you look at me."
I swallow against his palm, choosing my words with care. "I see someone who takes what he wants. Someone dangerous." I pause, gathering courage. "Someone who's afraid of needing anything he can't control."
His nostrils flare, jaw tightening. For a moment, I think he'll punish me for my honesty, but instead, his thumb strokes along my pulse point.
"And yet here you are," he murmurs, "offering yourself to me. Knowing what I am."
"Here I am," I agree, the truth of it settling heavily between us.
He studies me for what feels like an eternity, as if trying to solve a puzzle. Then he releases my throat, rolling onto his back and pulling me against his side.
"Sleep," he commands, but his voice lacks its usual edge.
And as I’m falling asleep, I hear him whisper, so softly I almost don’t hear it. “You still can’t see that I’m the man who would die for you.”