The word hung in the air like a blade suspended on the thinnest thread.
Bait.
Selene could feel every beat of her pulse, each one drumming hard against the inside of her ribs. The blond man didn't blink, didn't look away. He was perfectly still, the kind of stillness that came from a predator who had already calculated the outcome of the hunt.
Across the table, Kieran was motionless too but it was the wrong kind of stillness for safety. His hands were loose at his sides, but his eyes… his eyes were the color of a winter sea before a storm, dangerous and deep.
"You're going to walk out of this room," Kieran said quietly, his voice low enough that Selene had to strain her ear to hear. "You're going to tell your boss I said no. And you're going to tell him if he thinks about touching her, he'll lose more than his appetite for business."
The blond man's grin didn't falter. "And you're going to tell me you have something better to offer, Wolfe. Because if you don't…" He glanced at Selene. The smile became a slow, deliberate up-and-down sweep of his gaze. "…she is the better offer."
The room went cold.
Selene didn't move not because she was afraid to, but because something told her that if she broke the silence now, everything would spiral into blood. She could feel the coiled violence in Kieran's posture, the weight of a choice he was calculating with deadly precision.
And then Kieran moved.
Not with the explosion she expected. Not a single wasted gesture. He walked around the table in three steps, leaned down, and murmured something in Italian directly into the man's ear.
The blond's grin slipped.
Just a fraction.
Selene couldn't catch the words, but whatever Kieran said landed hard. The man's hands, which had been loose on the arms of the chair, tightened just slightly an involuntary tell.
Kieran straightened, his gaze locked on the man like a marksman sighting a target. "You've got thirty seconds to decide if you walk out of here or if I send you back in a box small enough to fit under Dante's desk."
The blond chuckled, but it was thin now, brittle at the edges. He rose slowly, adjusting his jacket. "Message received." He shot Selene one last lingering look, this time more calculated than mocking and headed for the door.
When it shut behind him, Selene let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Kieran didn't look at her. He was already pulling his phone from his pocket, dialing. The sharp click of Italian spilled into the air again, faster this time, each word sharper than glass.
Selene leaned back in her chair, the leather cool against her skin. "So I'm bait now?"
Kieran ended the call, slid the phone into his pocket, and finally met her gaze. "Not while I'm breathing."
"That's not a denial," she said.
"It's a promise," he said. "One I will keep."
She wanted to believe him. God help her, a part of her did believe him but there was another part, the part that had watched him orchestrate her public humiliation in a cathedral full of cameras, that remembered the cold efficiency in his threats, that whispered this man will use anything to win.
Even me.
The elevator ride down from the private room was silent except for the soft hum of the machinery.
Selene stood slightly apart from him, her gaze fixed on the reflection in the polished steel doors. Kieran looked unreadable, his jaw tight, eyes distant as if mapping out twenty different moves ahead.
When they reached the garage, the black SUV was waiting. The driver opened the door without a word, and they slid in.
The city outside blurred pas. Steel, glass, and neon streaks reflected in the tinted windows.
She finally spoke. "How does Dante even know who I am?"
Kieran didn't answer immediately. His hand rested against the window ledge, fingers curled loosely. "He's been watching me for years. He knows every acquisition I make, every partnership I consider, every weakness I have. When I married you, he would have had your name before the priest said 'I now pronounce you.'"
"That's not comforting," she said.
"It's not supposed to be," he replied.
Selene folded her arms. "So he makes a video of my father, sells it to you, and now he's decided I'm useful to him. Why?"
His gaze shifted to her, unreadable. "Because you're not just a bride, Selene. You're leverage. And in this world, leverage is more dangerous than bullets."
They didn't go back to the penthouse.
Instead, the SUV pulled into another underground garage, this one smaller, quieter, the air thick with the scent of oil and cold concrete. Kieran got out first, scanning the shadows before offering his hand.
She ignored it and stepped out on her own.
The elevator here was different. No glossy panels, no mirrored walls. Just steel and a single keyhole where Kieran inserted a small brass key from his pocket.
The doors opened into a space that made her stop in her tracks.
It wasn't luxurious, not in the way the penthouse was. This was stripped down, functional. A massive table covered in maps, satellite photos, and what looked like floor plans dominated the room. Screens lined one wall, flickering with security feeds from different angles of the city. Actual weapons were mounted in glass cases on another wall.
Selene turned slowly. "This isn't your home."
"No," Kieran said, stepping past her toward the table. "This is where I go when I need to think without being watched."
She arched a brow. "You mean besides me?"
His lips curved, but it wasn't amusement, it was acknowledgment. "You'd be surprised how many eyes Dante has in places you wouldn't expect. This is one of the few he doesn't."
She walked to the table, fingers brushing over a map spread across the center. "This is the city."
"Yes."
"And these red marks?"
"His influence," Kieran said.
She frowned. "There are a lot of them."
"That's why I didn't want you at the pier tonight. The second you step into his territory, you're a target. He's already moved faster than I expected. He's testing my boundaries."
"And if you don't give me out to him" Selene said quietly, "what will he do?"
Kieran looked up from the table, meeting her gaze with a steadiness that made her stomach tighten. "He'll take something else. Something bigger. Something that makes me bleed in ways money can't fix."
Selene exhaled slowly. "And you think keeping me in a cage will stop him?"
Kieran's jaw flexed. "It's not a cage. It's a shield."
"To you, maybe," she said. "To me, it's still a cage."
They stayed in that underground room for hours, the weight of the conversation hanging between them like a storm cloud.
Kieran made calls; short, sharp bursts of Italian or clipped English. Selene studied the maps, the red marks spreading like an infection across the city. She thought about her father, about the video, about the way Dante had looked into the camera as if he could see straight into her.
Finally, Kieran ended a call and said, "We move at dawn."
"Move where?"
"A safe location outside the city."
Her arms folded. "And if I say no?"
He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "Then you'd better start praying Dante prefers games over war."
Selene didn't flinch. "Maybe I should meet him."
Kieran's expression didn't change, but the air between them tightened. "No."
"You met him," she said.
"I chose to meet him," he countered. "And I walked away because I knew the rules. You wouldn't."
"Then teach me," she said.
For the first time that night, he blinked just once, but it was enough to tell her she'd caught him off guard.
"Careful, Selene," he said quietly. "If I teach you my rules, you'll never be able to go back to your old life."
She met his gaze steadily. "Maybe I already can't."
The first light of dawn was bleeding into the sky when the SUV pulled out of the garage. Selene sat in the back, watching the city shrink behind them.
For a while, there was only the hum of the engine, the occasional crackle of Kieran's radio.
Then a different sound cut through, followed by a voice she didn't recognize, speaking in Italian. Kieran stiffened, answering quickly.
Selene didn't need a translation to know something was wrong.
When he hung up, his jaw was tight.
"What?" she asked.
His gaze stayed fixed on the road ahead. "The safe house is gone."
"Gone?"
"Burned," he said flatly. "Last night."
Selene's stomach dropped. "So… where do we go now?"
Kieran's eyes narrowed, his voice a low growl. "Now? Now we stop running."
That's when she saw it. The faintest flicker of something in his expression. Not fear. Not anger. Something colder.
Resolve.
And she knew, without him saying it, that whatever came next would be dangerous enough to change everything.