Semua Bab The Ceo’s Unwanted Claim: Bab 11 - Bab 20

The morning sun that hit the black metal shutters of the penthouse didn’t bring warmth; it just heated the steel until the room felt like a kiln. Evelina woke up in the massive grey bed, her body heavy with the phantom weight of exhaustion. For a split second, in the haze of sleep, she felt a surge of triumph. I did it. The code was embedded. User_Guest_77 was inside the Valenti mainframe, a silent, digital parasite waiting to feed her information. She had a weapon now. A way to see in the dark. She sat up, pushing the heavy duvet aside. The silence in the suite was absolute. She walked to the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the polished floor. She needed coffee. She needed to strategize how to access the backdoor she had created without triggering Luca’s alarms. But when she entered the kitchen, the atmosphere was wrong. It wasn’t just quiet; it was vacant. The air felt thin, sterilized. Dante was sitting at the marble island. He was dressed in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, rea

The atmosphere, a pressurized tube of silence and stale, recycled air. Evelina sat in the cream leather captain’s chair, her body turned entirely toward the window. The view was nothing but endless, suffocating blue. She had been staring at it for two hours, refusing to look across the narrow aisle. Dante was there. He wasn’t working. He wasn’t reading. He was watching her. He had discarded his jacket. His black shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that looked too strong, too brutal for the corporate setting. He sat with his legs sprawled, invading the aisle, his presence expanding until it filled the entire cabin. He was bored. And a bored predator was a dangerous thing. “Your breathing is shallow,” Dante said. His voice was a low, vibrating hum that seemed to come from the floorboards. Evelina didn’t turn. “I’m working.” “You are lying. You haven’t turned a page in forty minutes.” He stood up. The movement was sudden, violent in its silen

The ride back to the residence was silent, but it wasn’t peaceful. It was the silence of a predator carrying prey back to the den. Dante didn’t look at her. He sat with his legs sprawled, scrolling through his phone, radiating a cold, dismissive energy. Evelina sat pressed against the door, the severe navy sheath dress she had worn to destroy Aubert feeling like a target painted on her back. When they arrived at the fortress-like house in Geneva, Dante didn’t lead her to the dining room. “Upstairs,” he commanded. Evelina froze on the gravel driveway. “I thought we were having dinner.” “I’m not hungry,” Dante said, walking past her. “And you look like you need to be cleaned.” He didn’t wait. He walked into the house, taking the stairs two at a time. Evelina had to run to catch up, her heels clicking frantically on the stone. He led her straight to the master suite. He threw the door open and walked in, turning on the harsh overhead lights. “Inside,” he ordered. Evelina stepped

The armored car tore out of the industrial district, tires screeching on the wet pavement. Evelina sat huddled in the corner of the leather seat, her hands clutching the torn fabric of her skirt where Dante had ripped it. She was shaking, not from cold, but from the residual adrenaline of the violence in the warehouse. Dante sat on the other side. He was staring out the window, his jaw locked so tight a muscle feathered frantically in his cheek. He looked like a man holding back a landslide. “You lied to him,” Evelina whispered. The silence was choking her; she had to break it. “You told him I was your wife.” Dante turned his head slowly. His eyes were black voids. “I told him what he needed to hear to keep him breathing,” Dante said. His voice was a low, rough rasp. “If I hadn’t claimed you… if I hadn’t established a boundary he couldn’t cross… I would have killed him, Evelina. Right there on the concrete.” He looked at his own hands, flexing his fingers as if remembering the ur

Evelina woke up to the sound of a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.It was slow, steady, and heavy, a rhythmic thud against her ear. She was lying on her side, her face pressed against a wall of warm, hard muscle. A heavy arm was draped over her waist, pinning her to the mattress. Her legs were tangled with thick, hairy limbs that felt like iron bars.Memory crashed into her. The shower. The soap. The cold command to sleep.She was in Dante’s bed. She was in his arms.She lay freezing, afraid to breathe. The morning sun was filtering through the cracks in the metal shutters, casting thin bars of light across the room. It illuminated the dark hair on his chest, the scar on his shoulder, the terrifying relaxation of his sleeping face.He looked human when he slept. That was the worst part. He didn’t look like a monster; he looked like a man who was finally resting after a long war.Evelina tried to shift, just an inch, to relieve the cramp in her shoulder.Dante’s arm tightened instantly. He