Chapter 5

Selene POV

The address Caspian sent me led to a penthouse on the Upper East Side that probably cost more than most people made in a lifetime.

I stood in the marble lobby, feeling like an imposter in my jeans and worn leather jacket while the doorman pretended not to notice how out of place I looked. The elevator was lined with mirrors that reflected my anxiety back at me from every angle pale skin, wide eyes, hands that wouldn't stop trembling no matter how many times I clenched them into fists.

Twenty-three floors up, the doors opened directly into an apartment that belonged in a magazine. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased Manhattan's glittering skyline, and everything else was white and chrome and expensive enough to fund a small country's national debt.

Dario was waiting for me in the living room, a glass of something amber in his hand and tension radiating from every line of his body. He'd changed from the perfectly styled man I'd caught with his lover into something rawer hair mussed, shirt wrinkled, eyes red-rimmed like he'd been drinking for hours.

"So," he said without looking at me, "we're really doing this."

"Apparently." I stayed near the elevator, not ready to fully enter his space. "Your father didn't give me much choice."

"My father never gives anyone much choice." Dario's laugh was bitter. "That's his specialty."

The apartment felt too big, too quiet, like we were actors on a stage waiting for someone to call action. I could hear the city humming twenty-three floors below us, but up here, wrapped in luxury and lies, it felt like we were floating in space.

"I need to know what I'm walking into," I said finally. "If we're going to do this if we're going to pretend to be engaged I need to know the rules."

"Rules." He finally looked at me, and I was startled by how young he seemed without his usual polish. "You want to know the rules of lying to the most dangerous man in New York about who we're fucking?"

The crude words made me flinch, but I held my ground. "I want to know how we survive this without getting killed."

Dario set down his glass and ran his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. "We convince everyone we're madly in love. We play the perfect couple at every party, every dinner, every public appearance. We let them take pictures of us holding hands and looking adoringly into each other's eyes."

"And in private?"

"In private, we stay the hell out of each other's way." His voice was flat, emotionless. "You can have the master bedroom. I'll take the guest room. We maintain separate lives, separate schedules, separate everything."

It sounded reasonable. Clinical. Like a business arrangement, which I supposed it was.

"What about..." I struggled for the right words. "What about the man you were with? Alex?"

Pain flickered across Dario's features. "That's over. Has to be. My father made it very clear that any... distractions... would be eliminated."

The casual way he said it like Alex was a problem to be solved rather than a person he cared about made my stomach turn. "Eliminated?"

"You really are naive, aren't you?" Dario's smile was sharp enough to cut. "My father doesn't make idle threats, Selene. When he says something will be eliminated, it disappears. Permanently."

I sank onto the nearest chair, legs suddenly unsteady. "So we're both prisoners."

"Welcome to the Santoro family, princess."

The nickname stung, probably because it was exactly what Vincent had called me a few hours ago. I was nobody's princess. I was just a girl from Queens who'd gotten caught in a war she didn't understand.

"How long?" I asked. "How long do we have to keep this up?"

"Until my father doesn't need the alliance anymore. Until your biological father is dead or in prison. Until the heat dies down and we can quietly dissolve the marriage." Dario shrugged. "Could be months. Could be years."

Years. The word settled in my chest like a stone. Years of pretending to love someone I barely knew. Years of living a lie so complete it would consume everything real about me.

"There's something else," Dario said, and something in his tone made me look up sharply. "Something you need to understand about my father."

"What about him?"

"He's not just protecting you out of the goodness of his heart. He wants something from you. Something more than just a political alliance."

Ice formed in my veins. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I've seen the way he looks at you." Dario's voice was quiet, almost gentle. "And it's not the way a man looks at his future daughter-in-law."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I thought about Caspian's hand on my shoulder at the restaurant, the way his thumb had brushed across my collarbone. The intensity in his gray eyes when he'd said that if I were his, he would never treat me the way Dario had.

"You're wrong," I whispered, but even as I said it, I could feel heat creeping up my neck.

"Am I?" Dario leaned forward, studying my face. "Tell me you haven't noticed. Tell me you haven't felt it."

I couldn't. Because the truth was, I had noticed. I'd felt the pull of Caspian's presence like gravity, the way my pulse quickened when he was near. I'd told myself it was fear, but sitting here in his son's apartment, I could admit it was something much more dangerous.

"It doesn't matter," I said, more to convince myself than Dario. "Nothing can happen. Nothing will happen."

"My father gets what he wants, Selene. Always. And if what he wants is you..." Dario left the sentence hanging, but the implication was clear.

"He's your father," I said desperately. "Surely he wouldn't"

"Wouldn't what? Steal his son's fiancée? Seduce a girl young enough to be his daughter?" Dario's laugh was hollow. "You really don't know anything about our world, do you?"

I stood up abruptly, needing to move, needing to do something with the nervous energy crackling under my skin. "This is insane. All of it. I can't do this."

"You don't have a choice." Dario's voice was matter-of-fact. "Neither of us do. We play our parts, we smile for the cameras, and we hope we survive long enough to find a way out."

"And if we don't? If we get caught? If your father finds out the truth?"

"Then we pray he kills us quickly."

The casual way he spoke about death made my blood run cold. This was my future—years of walking a tightrope over an abyss, one wrong step away from destruction.

"I should go," I said, moving toward the elevator. "I need to think."

"Selene." Dario's voice stopped me at the doors. When I turned back, his expression was almost kind. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. About what you saw, about how you found out. You didn't deserve that."

"No," I agreed. "I didn't."

The elevator ride down felt endless, my reflection multiplying infinitely in the mirrored walls. By the time I reached the lobby, I felt like I was fracturing into a thousand pieces, each one showing a different version of the woman I was becoming.

The October night air hit me like a slap, sharp and clean after the recycled atmosphere of Dario's penthouse. I started walking without direction, needing movement, needing to feel my feet on solid ground.

My phone buzzed with a text: How did it go with my son?

Caspian. Of course he was monitoring the situation.

I typed back: Fine. We understand each other.

Good. There's something we need to discuss. Tomorrow, 2 PM. I'll send a car.

*What about?*

The response came immediately: Wedding plans. The engagement will be announced this weekend.

This weekend. Three days away. My hands were shaking as I typed: That's too fast.

Your father's people are getting impatient. We need to move quickly.

I stared at the phone screen, watching the cursor blink in the empty message box. What was I supposed to say? That I needed more time to prepare for a life that would destroy everything I was? That I wasn't ready to become someone else's lie?

Another text appeared: Selene. You're not alone in this.

The kindness in those words was almost worse than threats would have been. It made me want to believe him, want to trust that somehow he would keep me safe in the storm we were all walking into.

I was so absorbed in the messages that I didn't notice the footsteps behind me until it was too late.

A hand clamped over my mouth, another around my waist, and I was being dragged backward into an alley between two buildings. I tried to scream, but the sound was muffled against my attacker's palm.

"Don't struggle," a voice whispered in my ear, accented with something vaguely Eastern European. "We just want to talk."

Terror shot through me like electricity. I bit down hard on the hand covering my mouth, tasting blood, and my attacker cursed in a language I didn't recognize. His grip loosened just enough for me to break free.

I ran.

My sneakers slapped against wet pavement as I sprinted toward the street, but I could hear them behind me at least two men, maybe more, their footsteps echoing off the narrow alley walls.

I burst onto the sidewalk, nearly colliding with a woman walking her dog. "Help!" I gasped. "Someone"

But the street was oddly empty for Manhattan at night. Too empty. Like it had been cleared intentionally.

A black van pulled up to the curb with tires squealing, and I realized with sickening clarity that this wasn't random. This was planned. Coordinated.

"Selene Marcellus," the man from the alley called out, no longer bothering to whisper. "Your father sends his regards."

I turned to run again, but there were more men emerging from doorways and parked cars, surrounding me like I was prey they'd been hunting for hours.

My phone was in my hand, Caspian's number still on the screen. I hit call just as someone grabbed my arm.

"Caspian," I gasped when he answered. "They have me. They"

The phone was ripped from my hands and thrown to the ground, screen shattering against the asphalt.

"Nothing personal, little princess," the man said as they forced me toward the van. "But your father's tired of waiting."

The last thing I saw before the van doors slammed shut was my phone, broken and bleeding light onto the street like a dying star.

And the last thing I heard was the sound of sirens in the distance too far away, too late, racing toward a rescue that would never come.