Lark
She sat at the vanity in her room and stared at her reflection, hating how expensive misery looked on her.
Diamond earrings glittered against her dark hair.
A silk dress clung to her body like liquid gold.
Her makeup was flawless because one of the house staff had spent an hour making sure of it.
She was the pretty little princess of the Santos syndicate.
Hell, she was property dressed up as royalty.
The sound of heavy footsteps outside her door made her stomach twist. She didn’t even need to look to know who it was—Dante.
He came by every night, like clockwork. The lock clicked open, and her body stiffened instantly.
He filled the doorway in a black suit that looked painted onto his broad shoulders.
His cold eyes always gave too much away when he looked at her—even when he tried to hide it. Especially when he tried to hide it.
“You missed dinner,” he said.
“That’s the second meal you missed today,” he said.
“Maybe I’m dying,” she teased. It might just be easier for her if she had, but her luck wasn’t that good. His jaw ticked, which meant that she was getting to him. She liked it when she got under his skin. It reminded her that she still had some kind of power left.
“You need to eat,” he muttered. “And you need to stop acting like you don’t want to live,” he insisted.
Silence filled the room after that. Lark hated silence because it always made her think too much about the men who used to flirt with her at parties until they realized whose daughter she was.
And about the boy she kissed when she was sixteen, who disappeared three days later.
Even the whispered conversations she wasn’t supposed to hear.
She was being saved for something bigger.
Her father’s voice still echoed in her nightmares sometimes.
“No man touches what belongs to me,” he growled. The sick part was that she didn’t think he meant marriage.
“You should’ve eaten,” Dante said again quietly.
Lark laughed bitterly and stood from the vanity. “You know what’s funny? You always sound guilty when you talk to me.” His eyes snapped to her, and she knew that she had hit a nerve. “Ahh, there’s that look,” she whispered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.
“Bullshit,” she grumbled. She crossed the room slowly, stopping inches from him. Dante immediately went rigid like touching her would kill him. Maybe it would.
“You look at me like you hate this job,” she said softly. “So why do you do it?”
His expression hardened instantly. A mask sliding back into place.
“Because it’s my job.” Lark rolled her eyes and stepped away before she did something stupid, like grab him or kiss him.
Or even worse, ask him to save her. Men like Dante didn’t save women like her—they guarded them or buried them, depending on orders from her father.
Still, she couldn’t stop herself from watching him sometimes.
Lark couldn’t stop noticing the exhaustion in his face or the bruises on his knuckles.
And she couldn’t stop wondering what kind of man willingly chained himself to her father, or what kind of man looked at her like she was both temptation and tragedy.
“I’m not staying here forever,” she said suddenly.
Dante’s posture tightened. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I always have a choice,” she insisted.
“Not according to your father,” he said.
The anger inside her exploded so fast it nearly choked her. “You think I don’t know that?” she snapped. “You think I don’t know exactly what he is?” Dante didn’t answer because they both knew. Hell, everyone in this house knew that her father wasn’t just dangerous; he was evil.
Lark shoved past Dante toward the balcony doors and yanked them open.
Cold Chicago air swept into the room instantly, carrying distant city sounds from beyond the compound walls.
Freedom was right there—so damn close. She gripped the railing tightly and looked down at the massive estate below.
Guards patrolled the grounds with assault rifles like soldiers protecting a dictator. It was a prison disguised as a mansion.
Behind her, Dante quietly shut and locked the bedroom door. The sound nearly broke something inside her. “You know what I think?” she whispered without turning around.
“No,” he breathed.
“I think you’re just as trapped as I am,” she said.
The silence behind her said everything. For one dangerous second, Lark imagined what it would feel like if the two of them stopped pretending.
If Dante admitted he hated this place, and if she admitted she noticed the way his hands shook whenever he locked her door.
Or if they both admitted the tension between them wasn’t hate at all.
But fantasy was useless in this house. Fantasy got people killed.
“You should get some sleep,” Dante said finally.
Lark smiled sadly at the city lights beyond the gates. “I’ll sleep when I’m free.”
Lark woke to raised voices downstairs, and that alone was enough to make her sit upright in bed.
The Santos compound was many things—violent, corrupt, suffocating—but it was never loud unless something had gone wrong.
Men like her father valued control above all else, and yelling meant somebody had lost it. Or somebody was about to die.
She slipped from the bed and crossed the room barefoot, pressing herself against the crack of the bedroom door. The hallway outside was empty, but the voices downstairs carried through the marble halls of the mansion.
One voice belonged to her father, and the other was unfamiliar.
“You’re asking for too much,” her father growled.
“I’m asking for what was promised,” the man said. Lark’s pulse quickened. Nobody spoke to Rafael Santos like that and lived long enough to regret it.
Curiosity got the better of her. Carefully, she unlocked the bedroom door.
Dante normally locked it from the outside every night, but she’d figured out weeks ago how to trip the old mechanism with a tiny metal nail file she’d stolen from one of the maids.
It was one small rebellion and one tiny piece of freedom.
The hallway was empty as she slipped out, moving silently toward the staircase overlooking the grand foyer below.
The second she looked down, her breath caught.
The stranger standing in the middle of her father’s office looked dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with guns or size.
He wore a dark suit that fit his tall frame perfectly, but there was something too calm about him—too controlled.
He seemed almost predatory. His dark blond hair brushed the collar of his jacket, and a scar cut through one eyebrow.
His expression never changed as her father paced furiously in front of him.
“You’ll get your money,” Rafael snapped.
“This was never about money.” The stranger’s voice was smooth and cold.
Lark leaned closer against the railing, trying to hear more, but then Dante appeared from the opposite hallway.
Her stomach dropped when his eyes found her instantly.
Fuck. Dante’s entire body tensed as he stalked toward the stairs.
Lark hurried backward, but it was too late.
He grabbed her arm the second she reached the hallway.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
Lark jerked away from him. “I was trying to listen to their conversation.”
“You’re not supposed to be out of your room,” he snapped.
“And yet here I am,” she sassed, holding her arms wide as though trying to prove her point.
His jaw clenched so tightly she thought his teeth might crack. “If your father sees you?—”
“What?” she whispered harshly. “He’ll lock me up tighter? Beat me? Sell me off to some psycho?” Dante flinched—actually flinched, and that terrified her more than anything else, because it meant she’d guessed too close to the truth.
Lark stared at him. “What does he want with me?”
“You need to go back to your room,” Dante insisted.
“Just answer the question, Dante,” she whispered. His silence said everything, and it felt as though ice had spread through her chest. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “He really is planning something like that, isn’t he?”
Dante dragged a hand through his dark hair and looked toward the staircase like he was running out of time.
“Lark—” The office doors downstairs suddenly opened, and heavy footsteps echoed through the foyer.
Dante cursed under his breath and shoved her backward into the nearest empty room before slamming the door shut behind them.
Lark stumbled into the darkness of the storage room. Shelves lined the walls, and the air smelled like whiskey and expensive cigars. Dante stood directly in front of her, his chest rising hard beneath his black dress shirt. He was standing too close—way too close.
“You need to stay quiet,” he ordered. Lark barely heard him because all she could focus on was the heat radiating off his body and the way his hand was still wrapped around her wrist. The only thing she noticed was the way he looked at her, like he was fighting himself every second that they were alone together.
Voices passed outside the door, and she heard her father laugh darkly. “You’ll have what you want soon enough.” The stranger answered something too low for her to hear, and Lark’s skin crawled. Dante slowly released her wrist, but neither of them moved. The tiny room suddenly felt suffocating.
“You’re scared,” she whispered.
Dante looked away immediately. “No, I’m not,” he said.
“You are,” she insisted.
“I’m scared for you, Lark,” he admitted.
The words hit her like a punch to her gut as silence crashed between them.
Lark’s heart pounded so hard she could hear it.
Dante seemed to realize what he’d said a second too late.
His expression hardened instantly as he stepped back, but the damage was already done.
“You care about me,” she whispered.
“No, I don’t care about you,” he spat.
“You’re lying,” she insisted.
His eyes flashed dangerously. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Then tell me.” Her voice softened. “Tell me why you look miserable every time you lock my door.”
Dante stared at her for a long moment before laughing bitterly under his breath. “You think I’m the villain here?” he asked quietly.
“Aren’t you?” she asked. “You’re the one locking me in my room every night.”
Pain flickered across his face so quickly she almost missed it. “You should hate me,” he said.
“I do,” she hissed. That was another lie, and they both heard it as soon as the words left her mouth.
The air between them shifted, and Lark’s breath caught when Dante stepped toward her again—slow and careful, like he was approaching something explosive.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and everything inside her screamed to move. Instead, she stayed perfectly still.
“You need to stop looking at me like that,” he murmured.
“Like what?” she whispered.
“Like you want me to save you,” he said. Lark swallowed hard because maybe she did. Maybe that was the most dangerous part of all, because she was starting to think Dante needed saving too.