Chapter 6
Julietta
The ceiling was perfect. Not a crack. Not a water stain or imperfection marring the smooth plaster. I stared at it for what felt like hours, counting heartbeats instead of sheep, my skin still burning from where Dante had touched me.
When I finally kiss you.
Not if. When.
Like it was inevitable. Like I was inevitable.
I pressed my palms against my face and tried to steady my breathing.
My pulse hammered beneath my jaw—right where his mouth had been.
Where his teeth had grazed. The memory of it sent heat pooling low in my belly, and I hated that.
Hated how my body responded to a man who'd stolen me.
Who kept me locked in a penthouse like a bird in a gilded cage.
Except birds didn't feel like this, didn't lie awake replaying every word, every touch, every moment of almost.
I rolled onto my side and punched the pillow into submission.
The silk sheets whispered against my skin—expensive, soft, chosen specifically for me.
Just like the clothes in the closet. Just like the toiletries in the bathroom.
Everything calibrated to my preferences, as if Dante had been watching me for months.
He had been watching me for months.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear.
"God, what's wrong with me?" I muttered into the darkness. Was I so starved for love, or even just attention, that I was willing to throw it all away at one look from my kidnapper?
Miguel was dead. Shot through the head three days ago. I should be mourning. Should be plotting escape. Should be doing anything except lying here remembering the way Dante's voice had dropped to gravel when he'd said my name.
Julietta.
Not Jules. Not princess—well, he called me that, but differently. Not like I was fragile or precious, the sarcastic way my father used it. Dante said it like I was something worth claiming.
I sat up and scrubbed my hands through my hair.
The digital clock on the nightstand read 2:47 a.m. in glowing red numbers.
Dinner had been hours ago—a tense, charged affair where Dante sat across from me and we'd barely spoken.
Just looked at each other. Just breathed the same air and pretended we weren't both thinking about that moment in the bathroom doorway.
The moment he'd walked away.
Because you're not ready, he'd said.
Rage flared hot in my chest. How dare he tell me what I was ready for? How dare he touch me like that and then retreat behind some twisted sense of honor?
I threw back the covers and paced to the window.
The city sprawled below, lights twinkling like fallen stars.
Somewhere out there, my father was searching for me.
Offering money for my return. Probably spinning the narrative to his associates—his daughter, kidnapped by enemies.
His property, stolen. He wasn’t wrong, but… could Dante be right, too?
That's all I'd ever been to Lorenzo. A tool. A bargaining chip to cement his alliance with the Suarez cartel. And when that alliance no longer served him, I was expendable.
The thought settled like ice in my veins.
Dante had saved my life.
No—Dante had stolen me before my father could murder me.
The distinction mattered less than it should have.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes. A memory surfaced, unbidden.
Ten years old. The Bennett's pristine kitchen, all marble countertops and gleaming appliances. I'd asked my mother—the woman who raised me—why we never talked about where I came from. Why there were no baby pictures of me in the family albums.
"Julietta Grace Bennett." Her voice had been sharp enough to cut. "We do not ask questions we don't want answered."
"But I just want to know—"
"You want to know nothing." She'd set down her coffee mug with deliberate precision. "Good girls don't pry. Good girls are grateful for what they have. Are you grateful, Julietta?"
The weight of her disapproval had crushed the curiosity right out of me. I'd nodded. Murmured the right words. Let myself be molded into the shape they needed.
Obedience equals survival.
That was the lesson. That was always the lesson.
I opened my eyes and stared at my reflection ghosted in the window glass–hours ago, Dante had typed in some kind of code, and sections of wall came down to reveal the city.
But now I recognized myself–barely. Auburn hair tangled from hours of restless turning.
Eyes shadowed. There was something else there now.
Something that hadn't existed three days ago.
Fire.
I turned away from the window and paced the length of the room. My bare feet made no sound on the plush carpet. Everything in this space was designed for comfort, for containment. For keeping me docile and controlled.
But I wasn't docile anymore.
The memory of Miguel's blood had washed down the hotel shower drain, but it had left something behind. A stain on my soul, maybe. Or an awakening.
I'd stood in that ballroom and watched my fiancé die, and all I'd felt was... relief. Not horror. Not grief. Just a vast, echoing relief that I wouldn't have to marry him. Wouldn't have to let him touch me. Wouldn't have to smile and play the perfect cartel bride while dying inside.
What did that make me?
My adoptive parents had raised me to be quiet. Polished. Decorative. A daughter who reflected well on the Bennett name. Who asked no questions and caused no trouble. Who accepted her role with grace and gratitude.
Lorenzo had claimed me on my eighteenth birthday and immediately began grooming me for a different role. Mafia princess. Alliance builder. A living contract between criminal empires. Still decorative. Still silent. Still owned.
And now Dante.
I stopped pacing and caught my reflection in the full-length mirror beside the closet. The nightgown I wore was modest—long-sleeved, high-necked—but the fabric clung to curves I'd been taught to hide. To minimize. To never acknowledge.
Dante had acknowledged them. Had traced the line of my spine with his eyes and touched me like I was something valuable. Something worth keeping.
Mine, his entire being had proclaimed in that bathroom doorway.
The possessiveness should have repulsed me. Instead, it had ignited something I didn't have a name for.
I moved closer to the mirror, studying the woman looking back at me. She didn't look like Julietta Bennett anymore—that girl had died in a hotel shower, washing blood from her skin. She didn't look like Julietta Altieri either—Lorenzo's carefully crafted political asset.
This woman was someone new. Someone I didn't recognize.
Someone who'd felt power thrumming beneath her skin when Dante had crowded her against the doorframe. Who'd wanted to fist her hands in his shirt and pull him closer instead of pushing him away. Who'd felt alive for the first time in twenty-three years.
"I don't want this," I whispered to my reflection.
But the woman in the mirror called me a liar.
Because the truth was more complicated, more dangerous. The truth was that some part of me—some dark, hungry part I'd kept buried for years—had been waiting for this. For someone who saw me as more than an obedient daughter. More than a political pawn.
Someone who looked at me and saw an equal. A partner. A queen instead of a captive.
What if she could belong to herself and still be powerful?
The thought bloomed in my chest like blood in water.
All my life, I'd been handed from one man to another. The Bennetts to Lorenzo. Lorenzo to Miguel. Each transaction had come with rules. Expectations. A clearly defined role I was meant to play.
But Dante had broken the pattern. Had torn me from the path that had been laid out since before I could walk. And yes, he'd locked me in this penthouse. Yes, he'd stolen my freedom.
But for the first time, no one was telling me who to be.
I returned to the window and pressed my palm against the glass. The city pulsed with life below—dangerous, beautiful, raw. Somewhere out there, deals were being made. Blood was being spilled. Empires were rising and falling.
And I was trapped in a tower, watching it all happen.
Or was I?
My hand curled into a fist against the window.
Dante said I wasn't ready. Said he wanted me to choose him. Choose this. Whatever this was.
But he'd misunderstood something fundamental.
I didn't want to choose him. I didn't want to choose anyone.
I wanted to choose myself.
The anger I'd been suppressing for days—for years—surged through me like electricity. Hot and bright and clarifying. I was angry at my adoptive parents for raising me to be silent. Angry at Lorenzo for claiming me like property. Angry at Miguel for accepting me as payment.
And I was angry at Dante.
Not for kidnapping me. Not even for the possessive way he'd touched me.
I was angry because he'd awakened something in me I couldn't put back to sleep. He'd shown me a glimpse of what power felt like, and now I wanted more.
I wanted everything.
My reflection stared back at me, eyes bright with fury and hunger and something that looked almost like hope. The storm building inside my chest wasn't fear. Wasn't shame.
It was possibility.
For twenty-three years, I'd been whatever everyone else needed me to be. Obedient daughter. Grateful adoptee. Mafia princess. Cartel bride.
But those versions of me were gone. Burned away in the heat of Dante's touch and the clarity of Miguel's death.
I didn't know who I was becoming. Didn't have a roadmap for this new territory.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I was done belonging to anyone but myself.
And if Dante Taviani thought he could cage me—even in silk and luxury—he was about to learn exactly how dangerous a mafia princess could be when she finally stopped playing nice.
I smiled at my reflection. It wasn't a gentle smile. Wasn't the practiced, demure expression I'd perfected over years of training.
It was feral. Wild. Free.
The city lights glittered below like promises. Like possibilities.
And for the first time in my life, I felt powerful enough to reach out and take them.