Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Dante
I can’t sleep. The fresh tattoo on my chest throbs with every beat of my heart, Hannah’s name pulsing against my skin like a second heartbeat. But the pain is nothing—irrelevant compared to the compulsion that keeps me awake, keeps me watching, keeps me locked onto the surveillance monitors where Hannah sleeps in our bed.
Her pregnant belly rises and falls with each breath, her hand resting protectively over our son, even in sleep. Twenty-four weeks. The tracking app shows she hasn’t moved in three hours and seventeen minutes. Exactly where she should be. Exactly where I need her to be. And yet, I can’t look away. Can’t blink. Can’t risk missing a single breath, a single movement, a single second of her existence.
What if I look away and something changes? What if I blink and someone takes her? What if I sleep and she stops being mine?
The security room hums softly, screens flickering with a constant feed from every corner of the mansion. But my focus never wavers from Hannah—the four monitors dedicated solely to her, to our bed, to the woman who carries my child and my obsession in equal measure.
She shifts slightly, her hair slipping across her face. My fingers twitch with the need to brush it back, to touch her, to feel the warmth of her skin and confirm that she’s real—not just pixels on a screen. I zoom in, tracking the flutter of her eyelids. What does she dream about? Me? Us? Our future? Or escape? Freedom? A life beyond the walls I built for her?
The uncertainty burns through me. I need to know. Need to see. Need to understand every thought behind those closed eyes. The tattoo on my chest throbs again, her name etched into my skin just as she’s etched into my mind—an ache that never fades.
Three hours, twenty-one minutes of stillness. Just the gentle rhythm of her breathing, the occasional shift, the subtle flutter beneath her skin where our son grows. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.
I rewind the footage, scanning through the hours I wasn’t physically there. I watch her read by the window—twenty-seven pages in two hours, forty-three minutes. She touched her belly fifty-three times. Spoke aloud twice—once to the doctor, once to me.
Not enough data. Not enough details. Not enough of her.
I keep going back, analyzing every movement, tracking the way pregnancy is slowing her steps, the way she lingers longer by the window. What does she think about when she stares outside? What does she want? Does she feel trapped? Or is she finally settling into the life I created for her?
The uncertainty drives me out of my chair. I need to see her. To confirm, with my own eyes, my own hands, that she’s still here, still mine.
The hallways are silent as I make my way to her suite. The biometric lock clicks open at my touch, granting me access to the world I built for her. The room is dark, save for the soft glow of moonlight filtering through the reinforced windows.
She’s exactly as she was on the monitor—lying on her side, her hand resting on her stomach. I sit on the edge of the bed, close enough to feel her warmth, to breathe her in. My hand hovers over her face, trembling with the need to touch her, to claim her.
When my fingers finally graze her skin, relief washes over me so strong it’s almost painful. She’s real. She’s here. She’s mine.
My hand drifts lower, over the curve of her throat, feeling the steady pulse beneath my fingertips. Life. Proof. Possession. It soothes something primal inside me, knowing she’s still within my grasp.
I trail my hand down, over her collarbone, lower still, resting against the swell of her belly. The place where my son grows. The ultimate proof of my claim on her.
She stirs, shifting slightly beneath my touch. Even in sleep, she responds to me. And that…that is everything.
"Mine," I whisper. The word is both a promise and a vow. A devotion and a possession. A love so twisted it barely resembles the word at all.
And it will never be enough.