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A Kiss Meant for War
Data de publicação:
2026-09-03 00:14:56Isabella POV
Dante led me up the staircase without a word. His presence filled the narrow hallway, his shoulders nearly brushing the walls as he guided me toward a room on the second floor. “Michael left clothes for you on the bed,” he said quietly as he opened the door. He didn’t step inside or wait.
He simply turned away, dismissing me as if the conversation were already over and my confusion only deepened. “I thought you were planning to kill me.”
He paused, turning slowly. He was still shirtless his shirt and jacket had been soaked through with his own blood even injured, he looked carved from something stronger than stone.
He was massive, tall enough to feel like a wall and dangerous enough to make the air feel charged.
The only soft part of him was his eyes those unreal blue eyes. They didn’t match the violence in his posture or the cruelty in his voice.
They were too warm, too beautiful, far too gentle to belong to a man built on vengeance. Maybe he got them from his mother and his father didn’t deserve them.
He lifted a brow. “Looking forward to it?”
“I just want to know what’s happening.”
A part of me small, desperate still hoped he would change his mind. I was twenty-three. I wasn’t supposed to die yet and my parents… they’d already endured enough. Losing their only daughter might break them beyond repair.
His voice was ice. “A perfect death takes planning.”
Dante turned and walked away, the muscles in his back shifting beneath his skin like living armor. The spine down the center of his back was framed by sculpted muscle on both sides, moving with dangerous grace.
Despite everything the kiss in the van, the bruises on my wrists he hadn’t forced himself on me. If he intended to, he would have done it already.
I stepped inside the room and closed the door. It didn’t lock not even a useless latch. Clearly, this was where his prisoners stayed. The room was bare except for a bed, a nightstand, and a single window.
Just a reminder that even if I ran, I’d freeze or disappear into the black wilderness long before I found help.
I folded onto the bed, dragging my knees to my chest. With no one watching, the tears finally stung. Mama…
The truth about her past had hit me like a punch to the ribs.
My mother had been taken, violated, kept prisoner and brutalized just as my aunt had been. She must have suffered endlessly until my father saved her. They had always been secretive about where they met, their history shadowed in silence.
Now I knew why and now I was here, history threatening to repeat itself.
If Dante killed me, it would hollow them out the way his family had once been hollowed.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Dante Moretti was a man who followed through. His reasons for murdering me were twisted, unfair but real to him. He wanted me to suffer because pain was currency in this world and killing me quickly? Was too fast.
He would make it slow and I thought about that kiss in the van the one that came after I shot him. It made no sense. I’d aimed for his heart, and he answered with his mouth on mine, like violence aroused him maybe it did and seducing him was the only card I had left.
Sex was sex. I wasn’t a virgin. If giving him my body meant walking out of this mountain alive, I could swallow the shame. Protect my mind, protect my future, protect my parents.
Darkness crawled across the window as the night dragged on. I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep. I kept my eyes open, watching the door like prey expecting the predator.
If he came to kill me I needed to be awake.
If he came to fuck me I needed to be awake too but nothing happened until the morning came.
Dante opened the door without knocking. He stepped in like he owned the air itself. His gaze slid over me still sitting upright against the headboard, wearing the same clothes, my hair a tangled mess, no sleep in my eyes.
Dante was dressed now in dark jeans and a black shirt that stretched across his chest. His bright eyes made the rest of him look even more dangerous. “You stayed up all night?” he asked.
I folded my arms, meeting his stare. “The door doesn’t lock.”
“And you think a lock would stop me?” He crossed his arms, head tipping just slightly to the side. “It would at least warn me.”
“And if I walked in here with a knife, you’d fight me off?”
I straightened. “I’d fight like hell.”
For a second just a second his eyes softened, the way they always did when something about me amused him.
“I respect that,” he said quietly. “If you weren’t a Conti, I might actually like you.”
“If you weren’t Moretti’s son, I’d still hate you.”
His lips curved. “You’ve got a sharp mouth. I liked kissing it.”
I wasn’t going to lie not to myself, not to him. I’d enjoyed it too. That didn’t mean I wanted him. It meant he was dangerous in a way that got under skin, even when I didn’t want him there.
“I’m surprised you didn’t force yourself on me last night,” I said.
His head tilted farther, expression unreadable. “Did you want me to?”
My voice snapped like a whip. “No. But you kissed me, so I assumed that was next.”
“It was just a kiss, Isabella. Don’t overthink it.” He stepped closer, jaw freshly shaved, smelling faintly of clean soap and smoke. If I met him anywhere else, if I didn’t know his name, his bloodline, his intentions my body would have reacted before my mind did. I’d have wanted him.
I wanted him badly but this wasn’t that world and he wasn’t that man.
“Why did you kiss me?” I asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“I shot you. I expected rage and not that.”
He stood so close the mattress dipped under his weight. “I thought it was hot. Most women flinch at guns. You didn’t. You pulled the trigger without blinking. You wanted me dead.” His voice dropped lower. “And I want a woman who wants to kill me. I respect it.”
“I still want you dead,” I said evenly.
His smile deepened. “And that… I like even more.”
Dante gaze swept down my body slow, deliberate and down my neck, across my chest, lower to my bare thighs. Every second he watched me made the air grow thicker, charged with something I wasn’t ready to name.
He was waiting. Almost like he wanted me to choose.
“You’re not going to rape me,” I whispered.
His eyes sharpened, a flicker of something unreadable passing through them.
“Why?” I pressed. “Why won’t you?”
He didn’t answer. Just turned away, hand on the door. “I’ll be back for you in an hour.”
And then he was gone.
Último capítulo
Desire And Revenge Brother Advice
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Isabella POVAdrian and Varos both turned to me at the same time. Varos glared at me, and Adrian seemed genuinely bewildered. “You’re just going to invite him to eat with us when you know nothing about him?”I asked in shock. “You don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a rapist or something.”Adrian lowered his hand, and instead of being offended, he smiled. “Uh…I’m not a rapist. Just so everyone knows…”Varos continued to glare at me. “Knock it off, Isabella. I’d like to meet your friend.”“You’ve never cared about any of my other friends before,” I snapped.“You never made an effort to....”“Isabella, be quiet.” Varos threatened me with his hostile gaze. “You’re overreacting.”The only reason why my brother was being so polite was because he wanted me to forget about Dante but if Adrian were just some random guy, he would have growled at him like a watchdog. Adrian picked up on the tension. “I’m going to grab a coffee. I’ll be right back.”He headed to the counter so we cou
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Isabella POVA week passed, and I didn’t see Adrian. He seemed to give me the space I needed. I was in the gallery when my family surprised me. Varos and his wife stopped by, along with Victoria. “Wow, it looks so nice in here,”Mirabel said. “You’ve got paintings on every wall, and they’re all new.”“I make a few paintings every week to keep the walls stocked,” I said.“I’ve actually been selling paintings pretty consistently and I started an email list, so old clients come back and buy new paintings. I just ship them out.”“That’s awesome,” Varos said.“It sounds like your gallery is a success.”“Yeah, it is.” Thanks to one special person who made all of this possible. My father could have done the same for me, but I never would have accepted it. He’d done so much for me already. “How was the honeymoon?”“Beautiful,” Mirabel said with excitement. “I loved it there. We were right by the harbor with all the ships…and the food…I could go on and on about the food.”“Pregnancy will do th
Desire And Revenge Just Friends
Isabella POVI could do this forever too, and that’s what scared me. I liked everything about Adrian, from his personality to his confidence. I liked the way he carried himself, the way he created art. I liked the connection we had, as if we’d known each other before we even met but those feelings alarmed me and made me feel so much guilt that I despised myself. It’s been months since Dante left and he’d been with other women by now, but that didn’t change the way I felt.I stepped back, putting an end to the tenderness before I could enjoy it a second longer. “I should get going…”I turned my back on him before he even had the opportunity to say anything. His footsteps sounded as he followed me to the stairs. “Isabella.”I stepped on the first stair and gripped the rail. He spoke again, a little more authoritatively. “Isabella.”He didn’t reach out and grab me, but his voice was enough and I turned around, eye level with him. “How long has it been?”He moved his hands into his pocket
Desire And Revenge First Body Contact
Isabella POVGetting coffee with Adrian was much better than I expected. The conversation unfolded naturally, and by the end, it seemed like I was getting coffee with an old friend.He was interesting, polite, and easy on the eyes. He never made it seem like a date. When we’d first walked into the coffee shop, he didn’t even try to pay for my drink and it was nice.I enjoyed his company because we had so much in common, and it was nice to talk to someone who had no tie to my past but with Adrian, I didn’t have to see him pity me like the rest of my family did. It felt like a fresh start, turning over a new leaf. He was the first friend I’d made in the city, and I hoped he would stay my friend.We left the coffee shop and walked back to my apartment, his arm almost touching my shoulder on the sidewalk. The streetlamps were on, and there were very few people passing through town. I was only a few blocks away and even though I told him I could make it back on my own, he insisted on escor
Desire And Revenge Family Support
Isabella POVMy parents would never act that way. Whatever I wanted to do, they would always be supportive. When Varos wanted to venture into his business, they were supportive of that too.There was nothing we could do or say to make them disapprove of us then I remembered the one thing they could never accept…the one person they could never approve. It was the only instance when my parents didn’t give me what I wanted because it was too difficult for them to look past. “You proved him wrong a million times over…”He nodded, still smiling. “Yeah, I did and it felt good.” His collared shirt fit across his chest nicely, stretching over the muscles of his upper body. He was lean, but it was clear he was strong. I’d seen his sculpted arms before, and it seemed like everything else under his linen shirt was the same. “Can I ask you about the painting you bought from me?”I had it hanging in my living room, a perfect picture of the city. I could talk about artwork forever, so the question
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