Dante's POV
The ghost of her kiss was a brand on my soul, a sweet torment that made the leather of my office chair feel like a prison. I'd spent the night there, staring at the city lights, replaying the feel of her mouth, the fire in her touch, and the devastating trust and terror in her eyes when she'd pulled away. I'd given her space. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
I'd forced myself to go to Club Inferno the next evening, needing the cold, harsh reality of my world to ground me. In the dim, soundproofed office below the pulsing dance floor, I tried to focus on the numbers from the legitimate shipping lines. The figures blurred. All I could see was the way a strand of her hair had clung to her damp cheek.
Marco entered, his face grim. He carried not a report but a single, plain manila envelope.
"This was delivered ten minutes ago. To the back door. Addressed to you. No stamp. Hand-delivered."
A cold foreboding, sharper than any hangover from the night's lack of sleep, dripped down my spine. I took the envelope. It was light. I slit it open with a silver letter opener and tipped the contents onto my desk.
A single, high-resolution photograph slid out.
It was Isabella. Taken yesterday at the café in SoHo. She was sitting at the corner table, her profile turned toward the window, a faint, sad frown on her face as she stared into her latte, waiting. The image was crisp and intimate. It had been taken from across the street, with a long lens.
But it wasn't just a photo of Isabella.
The photographer had captured the exact moment Marco, her ex, had walked in and was approaching her table. His hopeful, desperate face was clear. And in the background, just inside the café door, stood my men, Leo and Enzo, their watchful presence a stark contrast to the civilian scene.
On the back of the photograph, in precise, slanted Cyrillic script, were three words:
Such a lovely bird.
The world went silent. The thumping bass from the club above vanished. The air left my lungs. A cold, murderous rage, pure and focused, flooded my veins, burning away the last lingering warmth from Isabella's kiss.
Volkov.
He wasn't just watching the house. He was having her followed. He'd tracked her outing. He'd seen her meet with another man. He'd seen my security detail. He'd seen it all. And he was sending a message: I see your weakness. I see her. I can reach her.
The photograph wasn't a threat against me. It was a threat against her. A demonstration of capability. A promise.
My hand trembled, not with fear, but with the intensity of the fury I contained. I carefully, deliberately, placed the photograph face down on the desk.
"Triple her detail," I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. "Two cars and four men should be present anytime she leaves the house. I want a full electronic sweep of the mansion twice a day for bugs. Please review all staff backgrounds once more. The gardeners, the cleaners, everyone. Additionally, I want a dedicated team monitoring Viktor Volkov. 24/7. I am interested in knowing when he urinates.
"Dante," Marco said slowly, his eyes on the photograph. "This is an escalation. He's poking the bear."
"He's not poking the bear," I corrected, looking up. My eyes were black ice. "He's pointing a gun at the bear's cub. There's a difference." I leaned forward, the facade of the businessman gone, replaced by the primordial Don. "He knows. He knows she's not just a wife. He knows she's…" I couldn't say the word. Everything.
Marco studied me for a long moment. The silence in the room was heavy. "You're in too deep."
It wasn't a question. It was the conclusion of a man who had known me since we were boys. I didn't bother to deny it. I was past denial. The kiss had obliterated it.
"She kissed me," I said, the words raw. "She initiated it. And then she ran from it. From me. From what it means." I dragged a hand over my face. "And now that Russian pig has a photo of her looking like her heart is breaking, with another man walking toward her. He'll see vulnerability. He'll see a lever."
"She is a lever," Marco said, not unkindly. "You've made her one. You always do with the things you…" He trailed off, but the word hung there. Love.
I stood abruptly, pacing the confined space. The obsession was a living thing in my chest, now fused with a protective ferocity that dwarfed anything I'd ever felt for Sofia or for the empire. "I can't lock her in a vault. I tried that. It's killing her spirit. But every time she steps outside, she's in my crosshairs."
"Then you end the threat," Marco said simply.
"I intend to." I paused, my mind shifting into a cool, strategic mode, transforming my personal terror into a problem that needed solving. "But Volkov is careful. He's protected. The cost of a street war would be prohibitive, and she would find herself caught in the aftermath. It has to be surgical. Decapitating. I need leverage on him. Something he values."
"He values power. Money. Territory."
"Then we take it. Slowly. Systematically. Until he has nothing left to lose but his life." My voice was deadly. "And then we offer him the chance to keep it, in exchange for his solemn vow to never look in her direction again."
"And if he doesn't take the deal?"
I turned to face Marco, and in my eyes was a promise of annihilation that made even my hardened underboss go still.
"If they touch her," I said, each word measured and cold as a scalpel, "I won't just kill him. I'll burn his entire organization to the ground. I'll salt the earth so nothing ever grows there again. I'll wipe the Volkov name from history. It won't be business. It will be a crusade."
The vow hung in the air, absolute and terrifying. This wasn't the strategic calculation of Don protecting an asset. This was the oath of a man who had found the one thing he could not lose.
Marco nodded, accepting the new reality. The mission had changed. "I'll see to the security. And I'll start digging for Volkov's pressure points."
After Marco left, I picked up the photograph again. I looked at Isabella's face, the loneliness in her posture even amidst the bustling café. I'd put that loneliness there. I'd put her in this danger.
The kiss had been a beginning. A terrifying, beautiful beginning.
And Volkov's move had just made protecting that beginning the only thing that mattered.
I would build a fortress around her, not of stone and locks, but of utter, devastating ruin for anyone who threatened her.
The game was no longer about territory or money.
It was about her.
And for her, I would become the devil the world already believed me to be.