CHAPTER 6 The Safe House He Built for Her #2
Dante considered.
“Bear.”
Matteo frowned.
Sofia laughed.
“That is terrible.”
“It’s accurate.”
“Try again.”
Dante looked at the stuffed animal as though facing a strategic problem.
“Bruno.”
Matteo smiled.
“Bruno.”
Dante looked strangely satisfied.
Sofia watched him.
It was dangerous.
Not because he was violent.
Because every small interaction was making it harder to remember why loving him had once terrified her.
Eventually, Luca turned onto a narrow road lined with tall cypress trees.
No signs.
No streetlights.
Only darkness.
A house appeared beyond a stone wall.
Small by Moretti standards.
Beautiful by anyone else’s.
Two stories.
Old cream-colored stone.
Blue shutters.
A garden overgrown at the edges.
Sofia stared.
“This?”
Dante nodded.
“This.”
“I expected a bunker.”
“There is one.”
She sighed.
“Of course there is.”
They entered through a manual gate.
Luca checked the property first.
Then waved them forward.
Dante stepped out.
Sofia followed with Matteo sleeping against her shoulder.
The air smelled like wet earth and rosemary.
No city noise.
No guards.
No cameras visible.
It felt impossible.
Normal.
Dante unlocked the front door.
Inside, the house was dark.
He switched on a lamp.
Warm light filled the room.
Sofia stopped.
Something about the space felt wrong.
Not threatening.
Familiar.
She looked around.
Bookshelves.
A fireplace.
A deep sofa.
A dining table beside the kitchen.
Nothing extravagant.
Then she saw the piano.
Her breath caught.
A black upright piano stood against the far wall.
“You play?”
Dante asked.
Sofia did not look at him.
“You know I play.”
“Yes.”
She approached it.
Her fingers touched the wood.
“I haven’t played in years.”
“I know.”
She turned.
“How?”
Dante said nothing.
Sofia looked around again.
Books.
She walked to the shelves.
Authors she loved.
Old editions.
Poetry.
Mystery novels.
A cookbook she had once mentioned at dinner.
Her pulse increased.
“No.”
Dante remained near the door.
“What?”
“This house.”
She turned toward him.
“You furnished it for me.”
Silence.
Sofia felt suddenly unable to breathe.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the wedding.”
She looked toward the kitchen.
There was a ceramic sugar bowl shaped like a lemon.
Her grandmother had owned one.
Sofia had once told Dante she wanted something similar because it reminded her of childhood summers.
She had forgotten that conversation.
He had not.
She turned slowly.
“What was this supposed to be?”
Dante’s face was unreadable.
“A choice.”
“What choice?”
“If you decided you couldn’t live at the estate.”
Her throat tightened.
“You were going to bring me here?”
“Yes.”
“After the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Whatever you wanted.”
She laughed softly, but there was no humor.
“You were going to let the future Don hide in the countryside because his wife didn’t like the mansion?”
“If necessary.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“You would have abandoned the empire?”
Dante hesitated.
Sofia saw the answer.
Her eyes widened.
“You would have.”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
His expression tightened.
“Because I was tired.”
That was not what she expected.
“Tired of what?”
“Everything.”
The word carried years.
Dante removed his gun and placed it safely on a high shelf.
Then he sat.
For the first time that night, he looked exhausted.
Not physically.
Older.
“I became heir because my brother died.”
Sofia knew that.
Everyone did.
Marco Moretti had been killed when Dante was twenty-four.
But the Moretti family never discussed details.
“You never wanted it?”
she asked.
“No.”
“You’re good at it.”
“That doesn’t mean I wanted it.”
He looked toward the dark window.
“Marco wanted it.”
“And after he died?”
“There was no one else.”
“Your father.”
“Expected obedience.”
Sofia sat opposite him with Matteo asleep against her.
“And you gave it.”
Dante smiled without humor.
“For a while.”
“Until me?”
His eyes lifted.
“Until I started wanting something that had nothing to do with Moretti.”
Her breath caught.
He did not need to say her name.
“You were going to leave?”
“I thought about it.”
“How seriously?”
Dante nodded toward the house.
“Seriously enough to buy this.”
Sofia looked around.
The piano.
The books.
The kitchen.
A life that had never happened.
Her chest hurt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to choose me without being forced.”
Silence.
Sofia looked at him.
“But I was forced.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you accepted because the alliance benefited you.”
“It did.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
Dante leaned forward.
“Because every time I tried to get close to you, you reminded me that you hated the arrangement.”
“I hated not having a choice.”
“I know that now.”
“And then you ordered everything.”
“Yes.”
“You told me where we would live.”
“Yes.”
“What events I would attend.”
“Yes.”
“What security I would have.”
“Yes.”
She stared.
“You were terrible at making me feel chosen.”
Dante looked almost offended.
“I bought you a house.”
“You did not tell me about the house.”
“Point taken.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
Then the laughter faded.
“So the night before the wedding…”
Dante looked at her.
“What?”
“Were you going to tell me?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Her heart stopped.
“What?”
“I had the papers in my study.”
“What papers?”
He stood.
Without explanation, he crossed toward a locked cabinet beside the fireplace.
He opened it with another old key.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
Yellowed slightly with age.
He handed it to her.
Sofia stared at her name.
Her handwriting?
No.
Dante’s.
**SOFIA**
Her fingers trembled.
“What is this?”
“Open it.”
She did.
Inside was a property deed.
The house.
Her name was listed beside his.
Co-owner.
Sofia stopped breathing.
Below it was another document.
A trust.
Enough money to live comfortably for years.
In her name.
Independent from Moretti accounts.
“What…”
Her voice failed.
Dante watched her.
“If you married me and then decided you wanted out, that was yours.”
She stared.
“You prepared an escape from yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So you would never stay because you had no choice.”
The irony almost broke her.
She had run because she believed marriage to Dante would trap her.
Meanwhile, Dante had been preparing a way for her to leave.
“You never told me.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“The morning after the wedding.”
Sofia laughed through sudden tears.
“That was terrible timing.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her face angrily.
“Why after?”
“Because I wanted one day.”
She looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“One day where you were my wife before I gave you permission to leave.”
Her heart twisted.
“That is still possessive.”
“I know.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Yes.”
“Arrogant.”
“Yes.”
“Romantic.”
Dante went still.
Sofia did too.
Neither spoke.
She looked down at the papers.
Three years ago, she had fled believing she was escaping a cage.
But perhaps the cage had never been Dante.
Perhaps it had been everyone around them.
Their fathers.
The Circle.
The expectations.
The secrets.
And perhaps they had both been trying to escape in different directions.
Matteo stirred against her.
Sofia kissed his hair.
Then she noticed another paper inside the envelope.
A letter.
She pulled it out.
Dante moved immediately.
“Don’t.”
Too late.
Sofia unfolded it.
One page.
Handwritten.
She read the first line.
**Sofia, if you are reading this, then I was too much of a coward to say it properly.**
She looked up.
Dante’s face had become dangerously expressionless.
“What is this?”
“Old.”
“You wrote me a letter?”
“Obviously.”
She looked back down.
Dante stepped closer.
“You do not need to read it.”
“That guarantees I am reading it.”
“Sofia.”
She continued.
**I have spent my life being told that wanting something makes it a weakness. I believed that until you.**
Her throat tightened.
Dante turned away.
She read silently now.
The words were not poetic.
That made them more powerful.
Dante had written about seeing her at nineteen.
About remembering her laugh.
About arranging excuses to attend Bellini events.
About hating the engagement because he knew she would think she had been traded.
About wanting to tell her the truth but fearing she would reject him more completely if she knew how long he had wanted her.
Then the final paragraph.
Sofia’s vision blurred.
**If you decide tomorrow that you cannot live in my world, I will leave it with you. I don’t know whether that makes me weak. I only know that for the first time in my life, there is something I want more than power. You.**
Sofia slowly lowered the letter.
Dante stood near the window.
His back to her.
“You loved me.”
“I already told you.”
“No.”
She stood carefully and placed Matteo on the sofa with a blanket.
Then she walked toward Dante.
“You loved me enough to leave.”
He did not turn.
“Yes.”
Her chest ached.
“And I ran.”
“Yes.”
“Because I thought you would never choose me over the Morettis.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
All that lost time.
All because neither had spoken.
“I’m sorry.”
Dante turned.
“No.”
“I am.”
“You had reasons.”
“I should have trusted you.”
“You didn’t know enough to trust me.”
“That was partly your fault.”
“Yes.”
She blinked.
“You’re agreeing with me a lot tonight.”
“Exhaustion.”