Chapter 2 : The Cage

The only sound in the massive master bedroom was the frantic, traitorous thud of my heart against my ribs, and the violent way the rain clawed at the floor-to-ceiling glass like it wanted in.

Below me, the entire city stretched out in a glittering sea of red and gold, beautiful and utterly unreachable. A million people down there, and not a single one of them could hear me scream.

I was trapped on the top floor of Dante Alighieri’s fortress. A gilded cage with a view.

My mind wouldn’t stop replaying it. The way his scarred fingers had locked around my jaw in the office. The low, amused chuckle when I threatened him. He didn’t want my compliance. Dante wanted my complete, humiliating submission. He wanted to break the daughter of the man who had dared to cross the Outfit and lived.

_Click._

The sharp, metallic sound of the electronic lock disengaging echoed from the front foyer and cut through the room like a blade.

Every muscle in my body went rigid. A cold wave of adrenaline flooded my veins, making my fingertips tingle with a sudden, panicked urge to run, to fight, to do anything but stand here and wait to be claimed.

He was home.

Heavy, deliberate footsteps sounded against the dark marble of the hallway, growing closer with each second. Each thud felt like a countdown. I squared my shoulders, shoved my trembling hands behind my back, and faced the double doors. I would not let him see me cower. I would not look like the victim he wanted.

The doors swung open.

Dante stepped into the room, and the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

He had discarded his charcoal suit jacket somewhere between the elevator and here. His white silk dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the top few buttons undone to reveal the heavy, coiling ink of the snake tattoo at his throat and the sharp cut of his collarbone. He looked less like the calculated Don from the office and more like a dangerous animal that had finally been let out of its leash.

He paused in the doorway, his stormy grey eyes locking onto me with terrifying precision. His gaze dragged over me, slow and deliberate, cataloging every inch, before a dark, unreadable expression settled over his impossibly handsome features.

“Still standing by the window,” Dante murmured, his deep baritone vibrating through the sudden quiet. He stepped inside and closed the heavy doors behind him with a soft, definitive click that sounded like a cell door shutting. “Hoping for a way out, Elena?”

“A person doesn’t stop looking for an exit just because they’re in a cage, Mr. Alighieri,” I replied. My voice came out remarkably steady, even as terror clawed its way up my throat.

Dante let out a low, dangerous chuckle and walked toward the sleek dark-wood dresser across the room. He poured himself two fingers of amber liquid from a crystal decanter, the ice clinking softly against the glass.

“It’s Dante,” he said without turning around. “We are married now, little bird. It’s time you started using my name.”

“A piece of paper signed under duress doesn’t make us a couple,” I snapped, taking an instinctive step back as he turned, the amber liquid catching the dim, moody light of the penthouse.

“No,” Dante agreed, his eyes darkening as he took a slow, unhurried sip. “The paper makes you my property. What happens next is what makes us a couple.”

He set the glass down with a soft _clink_ and began to walk toward me. The sheer, suffocating aura of absolute dominance radiating off him made the air in the room feel instantly too thin to breathe. Every single instinct I possessed screamed at me to run, but there was nowhere to go. If I backed up any further I would be pinned against the cold glass.

When he stopped, he was mere inches away. The scent of him completely enveloped me — expensive tobacco, rich cedarwood, and the clean, crisp scent of rain that still clung to his shirt. He was massive, his broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the room, casting a long shadow over me that felt like a shroud.

“You look terrified,” he whispered, reaching out. His long, scarred fingers brushed a stray lock of dark hair away from my cheek with a gentleness that was more frightening than a slap. “Where did all that fire from my office go?”

“It’s still here,” I breathed, forcing my hazel eyes to stay locked on his as I tilted my chin up in defiance. “I’m just waiting to see exactly how much of a monster you really are.”

A slow, wicked smile spread across Dante’s lips, and it was a terrifyingly beautiful sight. “A monster? No, Elena. If I were a monster, your brother would already be at the bottom of the East River, and I wouldn’t have bothered giving you a gilded cage to live in while you mourned him.”

His hand shifted, his thumb pressing firmly against the center of my lower lip, parting them slightly. A violent jolt of electricity shot straight down my spine and pooled low in my stomach. My breath hitched. My body betrayed me instantly, my core tightening as a traitorous, unwelcome warmth bloomed beneath his touch. I hated him. I hated everything he stood for. So why did his touch make my knees feel weak?

“I brought you here to punish your family’s sins,” Dante purred, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate whisper as he leaned down. His lips brushed against the shell of my ear, his hot breath sending a violent shiver through my veins. “But looking at you now... I think your punishment is going to be an absolute pleasure.”

“Don’t,” I choked out, trying to jerk away, but his other hand flew to my waist, his grip tightening like a steel vice and pinning me flush against his hard, muscular chest.

“Don’t what?” Dante murmured, his silver eyes burning with a dark, primal hunger as they locked onto mine. “Don’t touch my wife? Don’t claim what I bought and paid for?”

“I am not an object!” The words tore out of me, fueled by fury and fear. I brought my hands up and shoved hard against his chest, trying to create even an inch of distance between us. “You bought a contract, Dante. You didn’t buy my heart, and you will never break my pride.”

“I don’t care about your heart, Elena,” he whispered, his grip on my waist tightening until it lifted me slightly off my feet, forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist to keep from falling. “And your pride is exactly what I plan to break first.”

Before I could scream, before I could even think to protest, his mouth slammed down onto mine.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It wasn’t even human. It was a declaration of total, brutal ownership — fierce, dominant, and demanding. He tasted like expensive scotch and pure, unadulterated danger. I made a sound low in my throat, intending to bite him, intending to draw blood and fight him off, but the moment his tongue swept into my mouth, my entire defense system crumbled to ash.

A gasp escaped me, and my fingers, traitorous and desperate, tangled into his thick, dark hair and pulled him closer. The hatred between us ignited, turning the kiss into a breathless, explicit war of dominance. He groaned deep in his throat, a rough, predatory sound that vibrated straight through my chest and into my bones.

Dante walked forward, carrying my weight as if I weighed nothing, until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the massive, king-sized bed. He threw us both down onto the cool charcoal silk sheets, his heavy, muscular frame pinning me flat against the mattress, his body a cage of its own.

He pulled back just an inch, his chest heaving, his silver eyes wild with a mixture of shock and sheer, consuming obsession. He looked down at me, his fingers pinning my wrists above my head into the mattress, holding me there.

“You’re a little witch,” Dante growled, his voice thick and rough with desire, his gaze fixed on my swollen lips. “You hate me, yet you taste like absolute heaven.”

“I do hate you,” I panted, my chest rising and falling rapidly against his. My body was on fire, every nerve ending alight everywhere his skin met mine. “And I will never stop hating you.”

“Good,” Dante whispered, a dark, dangerous promise in his eyes as he leaned down to press his lips against the sensitive skin of my throat, making me arch into him against my will. “Keep hating me, Elena. It only makes this sweeter.”

His hands began to slide down my sides, finding the zipper of my dress.

_Thud._

The sound cut through the heavy, lust-filled atmosphere of the room like a gunshot.

Dante froze instantly. The dark haze of passion in his eyes vanished in a split second, replaced by a cold, lethal sharpness that made my blood run cold. He rolled off me in one fluid, silent motion, his hand immediately reaching toward the waistband of his trousers and pulling out a sleek, black silenced pistol that I hadn’t even realized he was carrying.

My heart stopped. The sudden, violent shift from intense passion to life-or-death danger made my head spin. I sat up quickly, clutching the front of my loosened dress to my chest, my breath coming in short, terrified gasps.

Dante kept his eyes fixed on the glass balcony doors, moving across the dark rug with the silent, deadly grace of a shadow. The storm outside was still raging, and through the rain-slicked glass, a dark silhouette was visible, crouched low against the railing.

My breath caught in my throat as the silhouette shifted, the dim light catching the familiar cut of a jacket, the familiar shape of a face I knew better than my own.

_Julian._

Oh my God. It was Julian. He had actually followed me. He had found the Alighieri penthouse, and he was hiding right outside the window, one wrong move from death.

If Dante opened that door with a gun in his hand, Julian wouldn’t survive the next ten seconds. Dante would kill him without a second thought, viewing him as an assassin, an intruder, a threat to what was his.

“Stay back, Elena,” Dante ordered in a chillingly calm, deadly whisper, his hand wrapping around the cold handle of the balcony door.

I had seconds. I had to distract him. I had to keep his eyes on me and his gun pointed anywhere but at that glass, or Julian was a dead man.

I scrambled to the edge of the bed, my mind racing through a dozen lies and discarding them all. “Dante, wait!” I cried out, forcing my voice to shake with a sudden, desperate panic.

Dante stopped, his head snapping back to look at me, his brow furrowed in deep suspicion. “What is it?”

I swallowed hard, channeling every ounce of acting ability I possessed. I let the dress slip slightly from my shoulders, exposing the smooth skin of my collarbone, and forced a shaky, breathless laugh. “It’s... it’s just the storm. The wind always knocks the loose planters against the railing on this side of the building. My dad told me about it when he visited this complex years ago.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed, his gaze darting between me and the window. The gun remained raised. He didn’t buy it. He was far too smart, far too cautious for something so simple.

“I’m going to check it anyway,” he said coldly, turning back to the lock.

Desperation seized me. I stood up from the bed, the silk sheets pooling around my bare feet, and took three quick steps forward. I threw myself directly into his path, my hands coming up to grip his rigid, unyielding shoulders.

“Look at me,” I pleaded, forcing a layer of false, intense desire into my hazel eyes as I looked up at him. “Forget the window. Forget the storm. You said you wanted to claim your investment tonight... so claim it.”

Dante went completely still. His silver eyes locked onto mine, searching my face for any sign of deception, any crack in the facade. The tension in the room was suffocating, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Right outside the glass, Julian was one shadow away from a bullet, and the monster in front of me held all the cards.