I was asleep on the bed.
At least, I think I was. Sleep has become a strange, unreliable thing for me—half dreams, half memories that maybe belong to me. The sheets were warm, and my body felt heavy, like it didn't want to wake up even if my mind did.
A sound slipped from my lips before I could stop it.
A soft moan.
"Mmm… Kieran…"
The name felt natural in my mouth, like it had always lived there. I didn't know why. I didn't know who he was. But my chest tightened when I said it, like I was reaching for something just out of reach.
I didn't stay asleep long enough to figure it out.
Something shattered on the ground.
The sharp sound cut through me, snapping me awake instantly. My eyes flew open, my breath catching in my throat—and that was when I saw him.
Dante.
He was hovering over me, staring.
Not smirking.
Not amused.
Not playful.
Angry.
It startled me more than the broken object on the floor. Dante was always smiling, always wearing that infuriating, effortless smirk like the world existed purely for his entertainment. Mischievous, lighthearted, impossible to read—but never angry. Seeing rage in his eyes felt wrong, like the world had tilted slightly off its axis.
For a split second, I couldn't move.
Then I scrambled backward on the bed, my heart pounding, the sheets twisting beneath my hands as I tried to put distance between us.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded, my voice sharper than I felt.
His gaze never left my face.
"This is my house," Dante said, his tone unhinged, edged with something dangerous. "I'm allowed to stare at you."
That didn't make me feel better. If anything, it made the room feel smaller.
So many thoughts were clearly racing behind his eyes, even if he wasn't saying them. I could see it—the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers flexed like he was restraining himself from breaking something else.
He looked like he wanted to ask me something.
Who is Kieran?
The name echoed again in my mind, hollow and unanswered. I had no memory to offer him even if he asked. Just fragments. Feelings without faces. Names without stories.
Dante said nothing.
I could tell he decided not to ask, maybe remembering what I didn't remember. Instead, his expression darkened further, as if he were arguing with himself.
I didn't know it then, but in his mind, he was hoping the Kieran I had spoken wasn't the Kieran he knew.
And judging by the way the air between us thickened, I had the sinking feeling that if it was, things were about to stop being funny very quickly.
"I'll be leaving soon."
His voice was calm now, detached, as if nothing unusual had happened between us.
"Get ready," he continued. "My men will take you around the city."
"Fill your eyes," he added, his gaze sharpening. "But you are not to step out of the car."
I frowned immediately.
"Fine," I said.
Of course, I had no intention of listening.
It was as if Dante saw through me,
"Your defiance is amusing," Dante said, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "But it will be the last thing you ever do."
He gripped my chin with bruising force. His thumb pressed hard against my bottom lip, forcing it down.
"Let me make this perfectly clear," he murmured, his face inches from mine. "If you disobey me, if you so much as think about taking off that Durga or stepping out of the car... I will not just punish you."
His eyes glinted with a dark promise. "I will break you. Shatter you into so many pieces that even the devil himself won't recognize what's left."
He leaned in closer, his breath hot against my ear. "I'll chain you to my bed and take you again and again until your body is raw and your mind is shattered. I'll make you beg for mercy that will never come."
⸻
Getting ready was not simple.
Dante followed me into the bathroom without asking, without pausing, as if my space had never existed to begin with. He turned on the water, tested the temperature, and guided me into the tub with a control that left no room for refusal.
He washed me himself.
His hands were slow and deliberate—too intimate for something that was meant to be ordinary. He washed my hair, massaging my scalp, my shoulders, my arms. He lingered everywhere he didn't need to.
Too close.
Too much.
I hated how my body reacted. Hated how my thoughts tangled, how impossible it felt to pull away when he was right there, steady and overwhelming, touching me like I belonged to him.
By the time he was done, I felt dizzy, flustered, and furious.
As if that wasn't enough, Dante handed me a durga.
"Wear this."
I stared at it.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because without it," he replied calmly, "you're not leaving."
That was enough. I didn't argue. I dressed as instructed, the fabric heavy against my skin, hiding me completely.
Only then did he allow me to go.
⸻
The car was quiet.
A driver sat in front, eyes fixed on the road. A guard sat beside me in the back seat—large, rigid, his expression permanently set in a frown.
I tried to speak to him once.
No response.
Not even a glance.
"Charming," I muttered under my breath.
I turned toward the window.
The city unfolded slowly, and with it came a strange sense of recognition. The streetlights. The signs. The buildings. None of it felt new, though I knew it should have been.
On a large screen mounted on a street corner, a news headline flashed.
Kieran D'Angelo has just discovered he has a son—
My breath caught.
Kieran.
I had said that name in my sleep.
And D'Angelo—the sound of it pressed against something deep in my chest, stirring a dull ache. My head began to throb, pressure building behind my eyes.
I pressed my fingers to my temple.
"Stop the car," I said suddenly. "I need something cold. Ice cream. My head feels like it's going to split."
The guard hesitated.
"I'll get it," he said at last.
We pulled up near a mall. Before leaving, he instructed the driver to watch me carefully. I promised I wouldn't move—claiming my leg hurt.
A total lie.
⸻
The guard had barely disappeared inside when noise erupted outside.
Shouting. Cameras. A frenzy of movement.
A man had arrived in a car so expensive it looked unreal—a Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, gleaming beneath the lights. Paparazzi flooded the space instantly.
"Mr. D'Angelo!"
"Tell us about your son!"
"How are you coping with your wife's death?"
"Did she know about the child?"
"Was the child hers?"
My chest tightened.
D'Angelo.
I couldn't see the man clearly through the crowd, only the chaos surrounding him. It looked suffocating. Overwhelming.
All that attention—for someone who had only come to buy ice cream.
And toys for his son.
The driver leaned forward, distracted by the commotion.
I didn't think.
I forgot Dante's warnings. I had never taken them seriously.
Even this morning, I should have been afraid.
I should have been.
But I wasn't.
I had seen the anger in his eyes, sharp and unfamiliar, and still I had dismissed it. I didn't understand then that some warnings aren't meant to be loud.
Some are meant to be remembered.
Little did I know I would taste what hell looks like tonight.
I opened the car door.
"Hey—!" the driver shouted.
I was already moving.
I slipped through the crowd, past the cameras and voices, my heart racing. I hadn't realized how desperate I was to breathe until I finally did.
I crossed the threshold into the mall, adrenaline humming beneath my skin.
⸻
The man finally entered the mall.
The noise outside followed him in—voices still calling his name, flashes of light spilling through the glass. Guards moved around him in tight formation, as if the world itself were something to shield him from.
I tried to step aside.
I misjudged the space.
I bumped straight into him.
The impact was light, barely anything, but it was enough to stop us both. I gasped softly and lifted my head—
And froze.
Blue.
His eyes were an impossible shade of blue, sharp and clear, like they had learned how to see too much and never unsee it. They locked onto mine instantly.
Green met blue.
For a split second, the world narrowed to that single point of contact.
His expression changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.