All Chapters of Safe In His Darkness : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

ALEXANDER'S ANTONIO'S My hand paused against her back for a moment before continuing its slow movement. Up. Down. Gentle. Steady. Emily stayed curled against my chest, quiet and exhausted in my arms while the apartment was silent around us. I lowered my head slightly, my lips brushing against her hair. “You should lie down,” I murmured softly after a while. She didn’t answer immediately. For a second, I thought she’d fallen asleep right there against me. But then her voice came, small and fragile against my chest. “Don’t make me be alone tonight.” The words wrapped around my ribs and squeezed painfully tight. God. I don’t think she understood what hearing that did to me. The vulnerability in her voice nearly destroyed me where I sat. Emily had spent days building walls around herself, brick by brick, shutting everyone out, especially me. And now she was asking me to stay. Asking me not to leave her alone with the grief waiting in the dark. I swallowed ha

ALEXANDER ANTONIO'S Twenty minutes later, I balanced the tray carefully in my hands and pushed the bedroom door open with my foot. Emily looked up immediately. She was sitting against the pillows now, her hair slightly messy from sleep, the blanket still wrapped loosely around her body. God. She looked beautiful. Tired. Fragile. But fucking beautiful. The kind of beautiful that physically hurt to look at sometimes. Her eyes widened slightly when she noticed the tray in my hands. I walked over carefully and set it across her lap. “For you, my queen.” Emily blinked down at the breakfast before looking back up at me. “You cooked again?” I shrugged lightly, trying to appear casual about it even though I’d spent twenty minutes acting like a man preparing a five-star meal for the world’s harshest food critic. A faint smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. She picked up the fork slowly and took a bite of eggs.And then I waited, watching her far too intensely. Emily noticed immediately.

ALEXANDER ANTONIO'S..The drive back to my mansion felt different this time. Not tense. Not frantic. Not filled with the suffocating fear that had haunted every second of the last eight days. Just quiet. A calm, careful kind of quiet. Emily sat beside me in the passenger seat, her gaze fixed on the road stretching endlessly ahead through the windshield while late afternoon sunlight spilled across the dashboard in soft golden streaks. Her hands rested loosely in her lap. I kept one hand on the steering wheel. The other rested gently over hers. Not gripping. Not holding too tightly. Just there. Warm. Steady. A silent promise that I wasn’t going anywhere. Neither of us spoke much during the drive. But the silence between us didn’t hurt anymore. It wasn’t the hollow, suffocating silence that had filled hospital rooms and sleepless nights. This felt different. Safer. Like two people sitting beside each other after surviving something terrible together.Neither of us fully knew how to talk

ALEXANDER ANTONIO'S “This place feels different now,” Emily said. I understood exactly what she meant, because it felt different to me too. Like grief had settled itself quietly into the walls, like the house remembered what happened here. I pushed myself away from the doorway and walked toward her slowly. “It won’t always feel like this,” I said quietly. Emily looked down at her hands. “I know.” But uncertainty still lived beneath the words. I stopped beside her near the window. For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. Outside, the fountains shimmered beneath soft garden lights while cool night air drifted through the cracked balcony doors. Then Emily asked quietly, “Did you come in here while I was gone?” Every day. Every fucking day. But I swallowed that answer down before it reached my mouth.“Yes,” I said more calmly. Her eyes lifted toward mine. “What did you do in here?” she asked softly. “Because I know you don’t actually like reading.” A quie

EMILY GRAYSON'S For one horrible second, I forgot how to breathe. He stood several feet away with his hands tucked calmly into the pockets of his dark coat, watching me through the mirror as if this were an ordinary conversation. Like he hadn’t tortured me. Like he hadn’t destroyed my life. Slowly, I turned to face him fully. My heart slammed violently against my ribs, but somehow my voice stayed steady.“How did you get in here?” Declon tilted his head slightly.“That’s not important.” My jaw tightened immediately. “You shouldn’t be here.” A faint smile touched his mouth.“And yet, here I am.” Silence swallowed the room whole. Then his eyes moved slowly over my face. “You look better than I expected.” I said nothing. Declon took one slow step closer. “Which is good.” His voice dropped lower. Colder.“Because I’m not done with you yet.” Ice crawled slowly down my spine. But I refused to step backward.“What do you want?”His expression hardened instantly. “Tell Alexander to releas