Chapter 12: Resonance of Guilt

DANTE

Darkness cloaked the mansion in early morning stillness. Its grandeur was drowned in shadow. A weight pressed against my chest, fractured dreams clinging like cobwebs. I threw off the covers and headed for the shower.

Hot water pummeled my skin, steam wrapping around me, heavy and suffocating. It burned away sleep but didn’t touch the storm in my head.

Marisol wasn’t just a complication. She was a reminder. A trigger I hadn’t seen coming.

The image struck again. Precise as a blade. Her in the bathroom. Glass trembling in her blood-slick hand. The edge was already cutting into her skin...

It hadn’t left me. Not for a second. I saw it when I closed my eyes. Heard the silence when I breathed.

I’d already gone over this. Too many times. But no matter how I tried to push it away, it kept coming back.

Because it should.

I did that. I put the glass in her hand.

I’d seen death. Caused it. But that moment was too familiar.

My father had looked the same. Pale. Still. Lost in a silence too thick to pull him back from.

And now Marisol. Driven there by my own damn hand.

Balancing her safety with the danger she carried had always felt like a razor’s edge. But now I see the cost.

She saw no way out. And I was the reason for that.

By the time I dressed, my course was set. The bastards at the office who bullied her would learn what it meant to cross me. They’d feel it. Hard.

In my home office, I dropped into the chair and pulled up the surveillance feed. Marisol slept in the guesthouse, sprawled across the bed in rare stillness.

Something twisted in my gut.

She lay on her stomach, hair spilled across the pillow, lips parted. For once, the war inside her had gone quiet.

But I remembered the fire in her eyes at the company event. The way she twisted out of my grip and drove me back into the wall, fury crackling through every inch of her. She hadn’t flinched. Not when I taunted her. Not even when she realized how close we were.

She had me pinned. Me. And for a second, I let her. Then I turned it. Had her pinned instead, my body flush against hers, the heat of her rage bleeding into something else.

She looked up at me like she might spit venom. And then she looked down. She felt it. Saw it.

The shift in her was instant. Not fear. Not exactly. Just stunned. Innocent. Like no one had ever reacted to her like that before, and she didn’t know what to do with it.

She’d flushed. Stammered. Tried to shove me away. And when she couldn’t, she ran. And I let her go.

But the look in her eyes when she realized what she did to me... that had never let go of me.

Even now, watching her sleep, that memory scraped at something raw. Because not long after, she looked me in the eye and said the one thing I hadn’t expected to hear.

I belong to me.

Her voice echoed through me, sharp and unyielding. At the time, I’d felt nothing. Dismissed her pain as dramatics. Ignored the way her eyes begged me to see her.

Now, shame burned. Every breath scraped like gravel.

I’d done what I was taught. Rule with control. Punish disrespect. But she wasn’t like the others.

She was young. Cornered. Terrified. And still, she’d tried to fight me.

That wasn’t weakness. It was survival.

And I’d sworn I’d never become the kind of man who drove someone to despair. But I broke that vow the moment I threatened to send her back to the monsters who carved those scars into her.

I hadn’t pulled the trigger. But I might as well have loaded the gun.

What the hell kind of man have I become?

Rage had twisted into cruelty. Now guilt wrapped around me, tight as chains. The hunger for her still simmered underneath, but that I could manage.

Love was something else. Love was chaos. And I’d learned early that chaos only ever led to ruin.

But this wasn’t about feelings anymore. It was about redemption.

I couldn’t save my father. But maybe I could save her.

I exhaled hard, eyes locked on the screen. The blanket had slipped, her camisole riding low across her back.

My stomach turned.

Pale marks poked out from beneath the thin fabric, a brutal map of the life she’d survived. Pain that should’ve never touched her.

Every mark on her skin told a story, not of pain, but of resistance. And that quiet strength held me in place.

Heat surged in my chest. Her father’s betrayal. Marcos’s threats. The monsters who carved into her and called it discipline. My teeth clenched tight, jaw aching.

I failed her too. Cornered her. Wounded her with my threats. I let her spiral too close to the edge.

But buried under the anger, something else stirred.

Awe.

She had survived.

This wasn’t love. It was possession dressed up as loyalty, guilt twisted into something that almost looked like care. But keeping her safe wasn’t a choice. It was instinct. I owed her that much.

I raked a hand through my hair, dragging it back, like I could pull myself into focus.

On the screen, Marisol stirred, a soft sigh escaping her lips. The sound barely registered, but it tore through me anyway.

I’d promised myself I’d do better. Be better. But the truth sat heavy in the pit of my stomach.

She will never get the man she deserves.

I had already crossed the line. Threatened her. Watched her bleed. And still, I told myself I would protect her.

I wanted her, but that didn’t make me worthy.

I’d decided for her before she ever had a choice. Not out of cruelty, but instinct. She needed someone who would guard her, not own her. And I didn’t know the difference.

The world didn’t know what to do with someone like her. Too soft in the places that mattered. Too scarred to be left unguarded. And maybe too good for men like me.

I stood abruptly, grabbed my phone, and hit dial.

"Thompson," I said. "I want a full background check on Marisol Franco. Family, connections, movements. Don’t miss a thing."

The call ended. I turned back to the screen. My fingers hovered above the monitor, hesitating before brushing a strand of hair from her temple.

Even through the screen, I could feel the ghost of her skin. Warm. Real. Breakable.

And now, claimed. Not because she’d agreed to anything, but because I’d decided it.

She was mine to protect. Whether or not she ever accepted that.

I wanted more than her body. I craved her trust, her fire. The kind of spark that could burn everything down.

But getting close was a risk I couldn’t afford. The closer I got, the more likely I’d destroy everything.

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, tension bleeding into every muscle.

Every instinct told me to stay detached. Stay sharp. Let someone else bleed for her.

Protecting her meant stepping into a mess I didn’t want. Not because I couldn’t handle the fallout. I could. I was the one they feared, the one the other cartels watched from a distance, weighing their chances and deciding not to take them.

But if I moved for her, it wouldn’t just be my enemies who paid the price. It would be my men. My time. My empire. I didn’t have room for chaos. Not again.

Worse than the power plays and bloodshed was what she stirred in me.

She made me want something I couldn’t afford. Something that would unmake me from the inside out.

I had learned the lesson early. Loving someone meant meeting your end. It was the surest way to die.

Protect myself or protect her?

The question had lodged deep inside me. And every time I asked it, the answer felt further away.

I looked at her one last time, the screen casting its faint glow across the room.

"I’ll keep you safe, Marisol," I whispered. "Even if it destroys me."