Chapter 6

The city woke between us, not realizing that my world ended last night. The cleaners were gone, but gunpowder hung in the air. Even the air was wrong — harsh, sterile as it sliced through the penthouse as if with a scalpel. Sunlight flooded through the new glass windows.

The broken windows were replaced by someone else: The new panes glittered too cleanly, acting as if nothing ever happened. The stale odor of bleach made an impact on the air in the space, and there were bloody stings in the grout between the marble tiles. It was a chemical effort to delete blood, smoke and terror.

But the memory was void of smell and clung to him anyway. I sat by the window with a blanket about my shoulders, although it wasn’t the warmth I needed. It was evidence that I was still very much a solid me, and that the floor would never again open underfoot.

Below the city pulsed its constant beats, the city beneath humming along the same familiar rhythm-horns, sirens and life going on in slow motion as mine stuttered. Dante became the sound of the voice through the night. It was low, and unyielded as ordering men who rarely questioned him with commands “Clean it. No traces.”

That phrase clung in my head like a curse. It was the calmness of it that scared me worst — the way he stood among broken glasses and corpses and seemed to confirm a supper. He was at the end of the room and was staring at his phone quietly.

It was a black shirt, with its sleeves turned to the elbows and muscles and bruises banding the forearms. The comparison made him appear darker than he ever had — not man, myth.

“……..no leaks, no witnesses. Ensure that the family learns the news.”, he continued, before hanging up. The sound of his voice sounded like it could knock a stone out of a stone. I don’t know,” he said.

As though sensing my gaze upon me, he turned. “You didn’t sleep.”

‘Should I have?’

There was a pause. His eyes flicked over my bare feet, oversized shirt, coffee mug I've been clutching for an hour without a drink.

He said smoothly, “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to be.”He crossed the room. I could feel before I saw him really — he was gravitational pulling at every nerve. When he paused next to me, I found a faint whiff of smoke and cedar. There was dried blood on his wrist and a barely smudge he must’ve overlooked. I pointed at it. “That’s not yours.”

Down he looked, then he returned my gaze. “No it’s not.”

He spoke it as a fact rather than an apology. He carried that very violence with such ease it seems as if it were an integral part his anatomy.

Looking at him long and weary, my head tilted again, I asked, “You even care that someone tried to murder me?" He stopped for one heartbeat in my words. I felt as if he might give me something human. But his response was strong-blooded. “I care that they failed.”

Before I could say anything more, he left me. And with him I was left only with the sound of his words, and the silence that I could not bear in that second.

An ache carved a quiet division in me. I’d like to throw the coffee mug I had with me into his hand as he walked off, to make him bleed his own blood like my own.

But the fury dissipated before it spread across my extremities. I knew he meant it, because of the shock. He didn’t care because he was cold; he cared because he couldn’t afford to feel.

***********

The dining room looked like something from a magazine. It smelled of burnt toast and expensive coffee. It had a pristine setting with polished wood where two plates sat untouched on the dining table.

Sunlight fractured by the new window as two people pretended to be civilized after chaos. The world looked ordinary again which felt obscene.

Dante sat at the far end of the table, scrolling through his phone. His forearms rested on the table with his sleeves rolled up, and veins pronounced as well. A guard lingered near the door as I took the seat opposite him, more out of defiance than appetite.

“Do you expect me to act like nothing happened?” I asked.

He didn’t glance up, “I expect you to recover.”

“By locking me up?”

“By keeping you alive.” His tone left no space for arguments.

I pushed my plate away. “You make it sound like a favor.”

He looked up. “You think I enjoy this?"

He sat his phone down, eyes hard as flint. “Every second you're in my line of sight, I'm calculating exits, weapons, threats. That's not controlling Isidora. That's obsession dressed as protection.”

The words landed somewhere between command and confession.

“You'll have security details from now on.” He went on to say without looking up. “Two guards minimum. You don't leave the penthouse without clearance.”

“Clearance”, I echoed. “That's what you call permission now?”

He finally lifted his gaze. His eyes were gunmetal calm. “Call it what you want. You’re not walking into another ambush because of pride.”

“I’m not your prisoner.”

He leaned back, with his expression unreadable. “You’re under my protection.”

His confession landed like a slap and a caress all at once.

My breath stuttered. “ Then let me leave.”

His tone was low and humorless.”You wouldn’t even last for an hour.”

I pushed my chair back, the sound made one of the guards at the door shift. “You don’t get to decide what’s safe for me.”

He rose slowly, with every moment deliberate. When he finally rounded the table, my body suddenly forgot how to move. He stopped behind my hair, close enough that I could feel his breath stir up the hairs on my neck.

“You think I enjoy this?” He said quietly. “You think I want you here, under my roof, under my eyes, and reminding me every second that if I blink, someone could take you?”

The air thickened. His reflection glinted in the window glass, all black, solid and dangerous.

“Eat”, he murmured, stepping away at last. “You’ll need strength.”

He walked away before I could even answer, and only then I exhaled. The coffee had gone cold, but my voice burned when his voice touched it.

The silence felt electrically dangerous after he left. Every word he spoke carried both threat and tenderness , as if he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

***********

By the very afternoon I was pushing the limits of his presumed protection. The elevator would not operate without permission, and the stairwell was coded.

Security sensors applied even to the balcony. I gave them every try, out perhaps more of spite than hope. Every failure tightened a knot in my chest.

Two guards shadowed my every movement. “Mr Romano’s orders,” one told me when I asked for an explanation.

His tone was measured, formal and factual, as though I were a matter of logistics, and not a human being.

When I retreated into my room, I slammed the door hard enough to make them flinch. Small victory. I paced the length of the suite. The walls were white, and the air quiet.

I followed after my reflection, across polished surfaces that mirrored me. Even my face was foreign: pale and hollow-eyed and thin as metal.

I opened the balcony door for a breath, opening to see the black SUV parked beneath, gleaming like a predator sitting up, ready for a meal. And he had made the penthouse a fortress. A luxury-looking cage.

I tried to imagine walking back out into the city — crowded streets and, sound of the streets anonymous, sunlight on my skin. But even that picture felt unreal. So much anger in me became the truth: I felt a bit safer with him. I hated that thought.

I hated the warmth it brought me and the twisted comfort. By the time the wind ruffled my hair, I shut my eyes, and pictured him in his office across the hall — hair bent over a phone, his voice low. That sound last night, and those clipped orders had engraved themselves in me.

I hated that that memory was comforting and my body understood his authority as protection. My hands went to the door between us.

From the wood I could almost feel his voice vibrating. “You’re losing yourself,” I whispered. “And I’m letting you.” That was as honest as a confession.

***********

Dusk fell, and it came with that strange half light that turned the city into gold and shadow. I was curled up on the couch when the door opened. He didn’t knock. He never did.

“Dinner”, Dante said simply.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Still lying”, he murmured.

He set the tray down, but didn’t leave. His presence filled the space and silence. I glanced at him—tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, exhaustion barely veiled beneath control.

There was a fresh bruise along his jaw, and for some reason, that small imperfection made him human.

“You should rest”, I said.

He gave a short humorless laugh. “ I can’t. Not while you’re here.”

“Then why keep me here?”

His eyes darkened. “Because every time you walk out of that door, I hear the sound of gunfire again. You think this is a punishment?”

“Isn’t it?”

His jaw flexed. “I'm doing this because I watched you freeze when the shooting started. Because I was too far to stop the first bullet. I won't make the same mistake twice.”

There was something rough under the calm voice–an echo of fear. He stepped closer, and I backed up until my legs hit the couch. He lifted his hands, hesitated, then brushed a loose strand of hair from cheek.

The touch was barely there but it sent a tremor through me that no weapon could.

“I don't know what this is”,he said softly. “But it's ruining me.”

I exhaled shakily. “Then maybe we're both ruined.”

For a heartbeat, we hovered in that space between restraint and surrender. His breath brushed against my skin; the room hummed with everything we weren't saying.

“You can't protect me from everything.” I whispered.

He leaned in, his voice was rasp. “Watch me.”

For a suspended second, the distance between us disappeared. Hear threaded through the space like current—our breaths mingled and heat threaded through the space like current. My heart stumbled. And then just as suddenly, he stepped back. “Eat, get rest and sleep.”

The door closed behind him as he walked out leaving my pulse thrummed heartbeat as I sunk onto the couch.

************

Night again. The world outside glowed faintly blue, as the city lights blurred through the new glass. I lay awake in bed, eyes tracing the ceiling shadows, unable to stop listening for footsteps.

Somewhere through the corridor, Dante’s voice carried through the walls—Italian, smooth and low.

Orders, threats, and vows.

Every syllable vibrated through the floor, and I felt it on my chest like a heartbeat. I should be afraid. I should have resented him. But the truth was cruel. I felt safer knowing he was still awake, still guarding, still dangerous.

Maybe that’s what he’s done to me—rewired my fear into dependence. I pulled my sheets up to my chin, and watched the city lights flicker across the ceiling like ghosts.

The memory of his touch lingered where his fingers touched my skin. It was a phantom warmth I couldn’t shake. “I don’t feel safe unless you’re near,”

I whispered into the dark. Eventually, I gave up on sleep and slipped into the hallway. It was dim, quiet. His office door stood ajar, light spilling into the corridor.

I should turn back. But I didn’t. Inside, Dante sat behind his desk, his tie gone, and his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He stared at a map on the wall—red pins, black lines, strategy incarnate. He didn’t notice me at first.

Or maybe he did but he let me think he didn’t. He finally spoke without warning.

“You shouldn’t be out of your room.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” His gaze lifted to mine. Something passed between us—recognition, exhaustion, want. He exhaled slowly.

“Neither could I.” For a long time, we just stood there—two people trapped by the same fear, pretending it was duty.

Then softly he said, “Go back to bed, Isidora.” I nodded, though neither of us moved.

When I finally turned to leave, his voice followed, quieter than I had ever heard it. “You’re safe now.”

I looked back. “Am I?”

He didn’t answer and I walked back to my room. Inside, the room stayed silent, but the footsteps paused outside my door—just one, soft, certain, then it faded away.

Sleep came in fragments, as in every dream he was there—he stood between the shadows and with his expression unreadable and eyes the color of the night itself.