Dante doesn't come back to my room that night.
But sleep still doesn't find me.
The velvet collar around my neck itches like it's made of thorns. It's not tight. Not heavy. But it feels like a chain all the same—an invisible leash that connects me to him, even when he's not in the room.
And that's the part that terrifies me the most. The connection.
It's morning when I finally rise, muscles aching, my body heavy from everything it's endured. I shower, hoping the water will wash away the memory of his breath on my neck, his voice in my ear.
But nothing can erase the way he looked at me.
Like I already belonged to him.
---
I find Dante in the dining room again, dressed in all black—like always. Shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled up, exposing forearms inked with secrets I dare not ask about.
He doesn't speak right away. Just gestures to the chair across from him.
Breakfast is laid out in perfect precision—eggs, toast, fruit, black coffee. I don't touch it.
"I'm not hungry," I say quietly.
"You will be," he replies. "Starving yourself doesn't buy you freedom, Aria. It buys you weakness. And in my world, weakness is fatal."
I meet his eyes across the table. "Is that what this is? A lesson in how to survive your world?"
"No," he says. "This is a warning."
---
He rises from his chair and walks to the window, gazing out over the skyline like he owns it.
And maybe he does.
"I run everything from this penthouse," he says. "Deals, threats, orders, deaths. All of it starts and ends here."
I wrap my arms around myself. "And what do you expect me to do in your empire? Stand beside you? Or kneel?"
His jaw ticks.
"You think this is about dominance," he says. "But it's not."
I raise an eyebrow. "It's not?"
"No," he replies. "It's about trust."
I almost laugh. "You bought me. There's no trust in that."
He turns then, slowly, and walks back toward me.
"I didn't say you should trust me," he says. "I said I need to trust you."
---
Those words stop me cold.
I wasn't expecting them. Not from him. Not from the man the world fears like a storm.
"Why?" I ask.
He crouches beside my chair, eye-level with me. "Because one day, Aria… you might need to lie for me. Kill for me. Or take a bullet meant for my back."
My breath hitches. "And you think I'd do that?"
His lips brush a cold smile. "Not yet. But I will make you loyal. It's just a matter of how."
It's the way he says it—with such confidence, such certainty—that chills me more than the threat itself.
---
Later, he brings me into a different room.
It's not a bedroom. Not an office. It looks like a library, but the shelves are full of files, weapons, maps, and ledgers.
"This is the War Room," Dante says. "Where empires are built and burned."
My eyes catch on a bloodstained dagger displayed on one of the glass cases.
He notices. "That belonged to my father. He slit a man's throat in this room the night I turned twelve."
My stomach twists. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you need to understand what you're part of now," he says. "You wear my collar, you carry my name—you're a target, Aria. People will come for you. Enemies. Rivals. Even people I once trusted."
"So I'm just bait?" I whisper.
He steps closer. "No. You're the line they can't cross. The moment someone touches you... I burn everything."
---
I don't know if that should make me feel safe.
Or hunted.
I sit down at the long steel table in the center of the room. The chair feels cold, like the ones in interrogation rooms.
"What are the rules?" I ask.
He leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching me with sharp green eyes.
"Rule one," he says. "You don't lie. To anyone. If you don't know what to say—say nothing. Silence is safer than dishonesty."
I nod slowly.
"Rule two. You don't leave this building alone. Ever."
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
"Not even to the balcony. You're not ready yet."
Not ready for what?
"Rule three. If I give an order, you follow it. No hesitation."
"And if I don't?" I ask.
He smiles—but there's no warmth in it. "Then I show you why no one disobeys me twice."
---
He pushes a file toward me. I glance at it.
A name. A face. A bio.
"What is this?"
"Your first test."
My heart skips. "Test?"
"Memorize everything about her," he says. "She'll come to you pretending to be a maid. She's not. She's a plant from the Salvatore family. Sent to spy."
"Why tell me this? Why not handle it yourself?"
His gaze hardens. "Because I need to know if you'll protect what's mine."
"And what happens if I fail?" I whisper.
His voice drops to a deadly murmur.
"Then she dies. And so do you."
---
That night, I sit in the War Room long after Dante's gone. The file in my lap. The collar tight around my throat. The lights dim.
I don't sleep.
I study.
I memorize.
And somewhere deep inside, I realize the sickest part of all of this.
I want to survive.
Not for freedom.
But to prove him wrong.
To prove that even when owned, I can still be dangerous.
I stare at the woman's photo again. Her name is Celeste DeRosa. Early twenties. Fluent in three languages. Former stewardess. No criminal record. But her smile is too perfect. Her background too clean.
No one this beautiful and unbothered ends up as a maid in a penthouse run by a man like Dante Moretti.
The game has already begun—and I've barely learned the rules.
I close the file and press my fingers to my temples. My heart thunders inside my chest, but my mind is sharpening. Faster than I thought it could. I was raised in fear. I know how to read danger. I can feel it moving in the air like a predator on the prowl.
I've survived worse than a pretty spy in heels.
But what I don't know is what Dante will expect me to do after I catch her.
Expose her?
Trap her?
Or bleed her?
The thought unsettles me—but the more terrifying part is how steady my hands feel. I haven't flinched since he gave me the order.
Am I already changing?
Or was this always inside me—this cold, calculating girl with the collar and the quiet rage?
I look into the mirror beside the bookshelves. I barely recognize my own reflection.
And for the first time in days, I don't look away.