Chapter 4
Julietta
Iwoke to darkness.
Not the darkness of a bedroom at night—the kind you could navigate with your eyes closed, the kind that held the familiar shapes of your own furniture. This was absolute. Suffocating. The kind that pressed against your eyelids even when they were open.
My hands found silk. Cool, expensive, sliding against my skin. I pushed upright, heart hammering, and that's when the panic hit.
Where the fuck was I?
The last thing I remembered was the SUV I’d been dragged into—hands grabbing me, chloroform-soaked cloth over my mouth, the world tilting sideways.
I'd fought. I knew I'd fought. There were marks on my wrists where they'd restrained me, red crescents from my own fingernails digging into my palms as I'd thrashed.
The previous night came back to me all at once–Miguel’s murder, his blood on my dress, showering at the hotel.
And then the next morning, my father directing the drivers to bring me home…
the three-car blockade that brought us to a stop…
My hands swept across the wall, finally hitting a panel.
Soft golden light bloomed from recessed fixtures, and the room materialized around me like something from a magazine spread.
It came back to me in pieces, as if the chloroform was slowly releasing it’s hold on me.
I remembered this, now, too–arriving, arguing with someone, being left alone.
Someone must have removed my restraints when I finally passed out from exhaustion.
The bedroom was massive. Pristine. Everything in shades of cream and gold, with dark wood accents that probably cost more than my mother's entire house.
A sitting area with a velvet chaise. Doors leading to what I assumed was a bathroom and closet.
Paintings on the walls—original art, not prints—depicting abstract landscapes in blues and blacks.
No windows.
That detail caught and held. I moved to the far wall where curtains hung floor to ceiling in heavy damask fabric. I pulled them back expecting glass, finding only solid wall beneath.
My chest tightened.
I crossed to the main door, twisting the handle. Locked. Not just locked—locked from the outside. I could feel the deadbolt mechanism, the kind that required a keycard or manual unlock from the hall. Vaguely, I recalled trying this same thing last night… looking for a way out…
I was trapped.
The drawers in the nightstands held nothing useful—a phone that had no signal, decorative trays with nothing in them. The closet was stocked with clothes in my size. All expensive. All new. All waiting for someone who'd been planned for.
That meant that not only had Miguel’s murder been planned–so had my kidnapping.
I was running my fingers along the rack of hanging dresses when the door clicked open behind me.
I spun, my body bracing for impact.
The man who walked in was tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of controlled grace that suggested he'd trained to kill.
Deep icy blue eyes swept across me with the detached precision of someone assessing inventory.
Flashes of memory came back; his shadowed face in the tinted SUV.
His tall figure in this place last night.
"Where am I?" My voice came out sharper than I felt, all edges and no tremor. Good.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he moved deeper into the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click that felt like a lock turning inside a coffin.
"The penthouse," he said finally. "My penthouse."
"I don't know you. You can't just—"
"I can do whatever I want." His voice was quiet. Conversational. That somehow made it more terrifying than if he'd shouted. "You're safe here. That's what matters."
"Safe?" I laughed, the sound brittle in the enclosed space. "You kidnapped me. That's not safe—that's a crime. That's—"
"You're leverage."
The word hit like a slap. Not precious. Not protected. Leverage.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" He moved to the sitting area, gesturing to the chaise as if we were at a cocktail party instead of a gilded prison.
"Your father built his empire on strategic alliances.
The Altieri-Suarez marriage was supposed to cement his power in the southern territories.
But I killed Miguel. That alliance died with him. "
My stomach twisted. "So you took me to—what? Punish him?"
"To pressure him." He settled into the chair across from the chaise, even though I remained standing, his body language deliberately relaxed.
It only made him more threatening. "Lorenzo's been expanding into my territory for months.
The northern distribution routes. He thinks I won't push back because starting a war would be bad for business. "
"And kidnapping his daughter is good for business?"
His smile was cold. "It's a statement. Lorenzo Altieri can't even protect his own blood. When word gets out—and it will—his rivals will smell weakness. His empire will fracture. And when he comes begging for your safe return, I'll have everything I want."
"The routes."
"The routes," he confirmed. "And his acknowledgment that I own this city, not him."
I pressed my back against the closet door, my mind spinning through what he was saying, searching for the lie in it. But somewhere in my chest, something recognized the truth. I was a tool. A bargaining chip. My father had raised me for three years not as a daughter, but as an asset.
And now I'd been stolen by another man who saw me exactly the same way.
"This is kidnapping," I said flatly.
"Yes."
At least he didn't lie about it.
"You can't keep me here."
"Watch me."
His eyes held mine with the kind of intensity that made my skin prickle.
I'd seen that look before—in boardrooms where deals were made, in my father's office when he discussed "problems" that needed solving. This was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted and keeping it. He wasn’t any better than the other men in my life.
"My father will find me," I said.
"Your father can try." He stood, and I watched his hands carefully, tracking them the way I'd learned to track every threat in my life. Empty. Controlled. "But he won't succeed. Not here. Not with me."
"You're treating me like property." The accusation came out fierce, all the impotent rage I'd been swallowing since my eighteenth birthday suddenly finding a target. "I'm not a possession. I'm not an asset. I'm not—"
"You're a woman your own father was willing to sacrifice for territorial expansion." He moved closer, and my body tensed, every muscle coiled to fight or flee. "You're smart enough to recognize that. You're strong enough to survive it. But you're not strong enough to survive him alone."
"I don't need your help."
"No. You need your freedom." He stepped closer, and I couldn't back away without leaving the closet wall. "I'm offering you that."
"In a locked suite with no windows?" The words dripped with acid.
"In a place where he can't reach you." His voice dropped lower, and something in the timbre of it made my breath catch. "Where no one can reach you except me. You want freedom? This is what freedom looks like when you're born into a war."
I was pressed against the closet door now, his body close enough that I could smell him—something citrus, spicy, with a depth to it like dark leather My heart was hammering against my ribs, and I couldn't tell if it was fear or something else entirely.
"I don't even know your name," I whispered.
"Dante."
Just one word. A name that somehow made everything feel more real and more impossible at the same time.
"Dante what?"
He didn't answer. Instead, his hand came up, and I flinched, but he only tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was almost gentle, almost caring, which somehow terrified me more than violence would have.
"You're going to stay here," he said quietly. "You're going to eat what I provide. You're going to rest. And you're going to stop fighting me, because fighting is exhausting, and you're going to need your strength."
"For what?"
His eyes searched mine, and for a moment I saw something in them that wasn't calculation. Something raw. Something almost like hunger.
"To decide what comes next," he said.
He stepped back, and I realized I'd been holding my breath. I forced myself to breathe, my eyes tracking him as he moved toward the door.
"I can't keep you locked in here forever," he continued, his hand on the door handle. "Eventually, I'll have to let you out. Eventually, you'll have choices. But right now? Right now you stay here until you understand one thing."
"What?"
"You're safer here. With me. Than anywhere else in this city."
He left before I could respond, the door locking behind him with a soft, final click.
I slid down the closet door and sat on the marble floor, the dress I’d thrown on quickly after waking pooling around me like I was drowning on dry land.
My hands were shaking. My mind was racing.
And somewhere underneath the fear and rage and disbelief, something I didn't want to acknowledge was stirring to life.
Curiosity.
He'd known my name before I knew his. He'd been watching me long enough to anticipate my father's plans.
He'd killed my fiancé and extracted me from danger in what must have been a coordinated operation.
And he was keeping me locked in a beautiful room in the sky, cutting me off from everyone and everything I'd ever known.
I should have been terrified.
And I was.
But I was also, against every rational thought my brain could produce, wondering what came next.