Villa Salvatore
Three Days Later
Arohi had never known silence could be so loud.
Three days had passed since the wedding—if one could even call that cold exchange of vows a wedding. And Dante had kept to his promise. He hadn't touched her. Had barely spoken to her. Except for rare, brief conversations across long dinner tables under crystal chandeliers and watchful eyes.
She was alone. Surrounded by luxury but trapped in it.
Except… something had changed.
She was being watched.
At first, she thought it was paranoia. The lingering trauma of being torn from her life in Florence and thrown into the middle of a storm.
But the shadow she saw under her door at midnight?
The soft rustle of fabric outside her window when the night wind was still?
The whisper of footsteps in the hallway when Dante was gone?
That was real.
And she hadn't imagined the letter.
She'd found it that morning, slipped beneath her tea cup. On creamy ivory paper. No seal. Just one line in blood-red ink:
"The sins of your father are not forgotten, principessa."
Her hands had trembled as she read it.
She hadn't told Dante. She didn't know why.
Maybe she didn't trust him.
Maybe she didn't trust herself.
---
Later that Evening
In the Library
The library was the only place in the villa that felt real. Wooden shelves taller than Dante himself, filled with books that smelled like time and secrets.
She wandered through them now, dragging her fingers across the spines, pausing at volumes in Italian and Latin, her mind heavy.
She stopped at a portrait above the fireplace. An oil painting of an old man—fierce, regal, with dark eyes not unlike Dante's.
His grandfather, she guessed.
But what caught her attention wasn't the man. It was the crest painted subtly in the corner.
A crowned lion biting a serpent.
She froze.
Her breath hitched.
She'd seen that symbol before.
In her mother's old diary.
Back in India, when she was sixteen, Arohi had once found a leather-bound diary wrapped in her mother's silk shawl. She couldn't understand most of it—names she didn't recognize, cities she'd never heard of—but the last page had a symbol drawn in faded pencil:
A lion biting a serpent.
Back then, it hadn't made sense. Now, standing in front of that portrait, something cold slithered down her spine.
What connection did her mother have with the Salvatore family?
---
Midnight
Arohi couldn't sleep.
The letter burned in her pocket like a secret she couldn't ignore. She got up, wrapped her shawl around her, and quietly padded down the hall toward the north wing—where Dante never let her go.
She didn't know what drew her there.
Curiosity. Restlessness. Or that strange ache in her chest every time she thought about him.
Halfway down the corridor, she heard something.
A floorboard creaking behind her.
She spun around.
Nothing.
But she felt it—eyes. Watching. Waiting.
She picked up her pace. Her heartbeat raced. Her hand brushed against a door—Dante's study. Locked. Of course.
She took another step—
And a hand wrapped around her mouth.
She screamed, but it was muffled.
A voice hissed in her ear, thick with accent.
"Should've stayed in your golden cage, princess."
She kicked, flailed—smashed her heel into his shin. The man cursed, loosened his grip—
And suddenly, the air exploded.
Gunfire.
The man stumbled back, blood pouring from his shoulder.
Arohi collapsed against the wall, gasping.
Footsteps thundered down the hall. Guards. But it wasn't them who reached her first.
It was Dante.
He stormed down the hall like a beast unchained, his black shirt half-buttoned, eyes blazing with something terrifying and primal.
He saw the blood. The man slumped on the ground. Arohi's torn sleeve.
His jaw clenched. Hard.
And then… he snapped.
In one swift motion, he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the intruder's head.
"No, wait—Dante, he's wounded—he's not armed!" Arohi cried out, grabbing his arm.
He didn't blink.
"You touched her," Dante growled. "That was your last mistake."
The man looked up, smirking despite the pain. "Looks like your bride carries more secrets than you think, Salvatore."
Dante stiffened.
"What did you say?"
"She's not just a pawn," the man whispered. "She's blood. She's one of them."
BANG.
The bullet hit the wall, inches from the man's ear.
"Dante!" Arohi screamed.
The man laughed. Coughing blood. "You don't know… do you?"
Then he collapsed.
Unconscious.
Dante turned to her slowly. His gaze dark, unreadable.
"What is he talking about?" he asked, voice low. "Who are you, Arohi?"
She stared at him, breathless.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I swear, I don't know."
But in her heart, something cracked open.
Because part of her… wasn't sure that was true anymore.
---
Cliffhanger for Chapter 5:
Dante begins his own investigation into Arohi's past and uncovers a name that hasn't been spoken in the mafia world for over two decades—Vikram Sen.
Arohi finds her mother's diary hidden in a box in the villa attic—with a torn photo of two children. One of them… looks like Dante.
But the other?
It's her.