Bound By Vengeance

My heart was still racing long after Dante walked away. Not from fear. I refused to admit that. No man—least of all him—would ever make me cower. But the way he looked at me… like he could peel me apart with just his eyes, like he could taste every secret I’d buried deep… it made my pulse misbehave. And I hated him more for it. I pressed my back against the wall, trying to slow my breathing. “You’ll be mine either way,” he had said. The arrogance. The certainty. No. He might own the ring, the vows, the territory. But he would never own me. I returned to the dining hall, my steps steady even though my insides felt like a storm. Eyes followed me, whispers trailing in my wake. They’d seen Dante pull me away, seen me return without him. And in their world, whispers were weapons. “Everything alright, Selena?” my father asked too sweetly, though the sharpness in his tone warned me what my answer had to be. I smiled with all the sweetness of poison. “Perfect, Papá.” Later, in

His grip on me was iron, his breath hot against my temple as he dragged me back through the corridor. My heels scraped the floor, my body thrashing against his like a wild thing refusing the leash.But Dante Moretti didn’t flinch. Didn’t slow. Didn’t care that I clawed his chest hard enough to draw blood. He carried me as though I weighed nothing, like I was already his—body and soul.Humiliation scorched through me. Not because I’d failed. No, I could live with failure. I’d live and try again. What I couldn’t stomach was the way he looked at me when he ripped the knife from my hand. Like he knew me. Like he had already won.He pushed open the door to our suite and shoved me inside. I stumbled forward, catching myself on the edge of the bed before spinning around to face him. My chest heaved, my hair tumbled wild, but my eyes burned like coals.“You think you can keep me?” I spat. “You think a ring and your arrogance make me yours?”He shut the door behind him with a quiet click. That

I was suffocating. Days blurred together inside Dante’s fortress, every hour a reminder of the cage I couldn’t escape. The walls pressed closer with each sunrise, each night when I felt his shadow move beside me in the dark. But suffocation could breed either despair—or defiance. And I was done suffocating. That night, at dinner, I made my move. The long table stretched between us, covered in silver and crystal, like a stage set for war. He sat at the head, king of his empire, while I sat to his right—the queen he had stolen, not crowned. I lifted my glass, letting the red wine stain my lips. “Tell me something, husband,” I said, my voice sweet enough to poison. “Do all your women live in cages, or am I special?” The room froze. Guards at the wall stiffened. Even the servers pretended to busy themselves with plates, but their ears were sharp. Dante’s gaze flicked to me, dark and unreadable. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he cut his steak with surgical precision, ev

He wanted me to run.The bastard actually wanted it.As I lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling while shadows danced across the walls, his words replayed in my mind with maddening persistence. If I put the keys in your hand—would you run? The way he had looked at me when I said yes—calm, controlled, yet hungry—made something coil low in my stomach, something both dangerous and thrilling. Not anger. Not betrayal. Hunger.Dante Moretti wasn’t just a jailer. He was a predator, a hunter. And to him, I wasn’t just a challenge. I was prey worth chasing.The thought made my chest twist. Part of me wanted to scream, to fling the keys at him if he actually had dared hand them over, to defy him with raw fury. Part of me wanted to prove him wrong, to remind him that I wasn’t so easily caught. And a reckless, shameful part of me—one I barely admitted to myself—wanted to know exactly how far he would follow.I slipped out of bed, bare feet cold against the floor, and paced toward the balcon

The speedometer needle climbed higher, the engine screaming under my grip, every gear shift sending a jolt through my arms. My hands ached, knuckles white against the wheel. My breath came in sharp bursts, shallow and fast, but I didn’t dare slow down—not for a second.Headlights stayed glued to me in the mirror. One car. Then another. Their formation wasn’t random—it was deliberate, choreographed. Wolves. Dante’s wolves. Circling, herding, her eyes on the prey.Panic clawed at my throat, gnawing at my chest, but I forced it down, swallowed it whole. I couldn’t afford panic. Not now. Not when every instinct screamed that my life, my freedom, depended on staying ahead.I veered off the main road, tires screaming as I took a sharp, desperate turn into a narrow, twisting street. Old warehouses rose like skeletal monuments around me, their shattered windows reflecting faint glimmers of light. Shadows pooled in every alley, every doorway, creating a maze I prayed would shield me for even a