In the suffocating dark of the service corridor, Dominic's hand found hers. His grip wasn't gentle it was firm, certain, anchoring her to the present moment as the world shattered around them. The sound of the SUV's engine faded behind them, replaced by the hollow echo of their boots on concrete and the distant, haunting sounds of conflict muffled shouts, the sporadic, terrifying pop of gunfire that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
They moved like ghosts through the labyrinth of the estate's underbelly. Dominic led with an unerring sense of direction, pulling her around corners, through unmarked doors, down narrow staircases. Aria's mind raced, trying to keep up with her pounding heart. He was prepared for this. The gilded cage wasn't just a pretty prison; it was the heart of a fortress, and he knew every bolt, every hidden artery. This was a contingency he'd drilled for.
The air was cold and smelled of dust and damp stone. The only light came from sporadic, caged emergency bulbs that cast long, jumping shadows. Her borrowed boots were too big, threatening to trip her, but his grip kept her upright, kept her moving forward.
Where are we going? she breathed, the words swallowed by the gloom.
Somewhere they won't look, he replied, his voice a low vibration she felt more than heard. He didn't slow. A primary extraction point was compromised. This is secondary.
Another burst of gunfire, closer this time, ricocheting somewhere in the parallel corridor. Aria flinched, stumbling. In one fluid motion, Dominic stopped, turned, and pulled her tight against the wall, his body shielding hers, his free hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, pressing her face into the rough fabric of his shirt. She could feel the rapid, strong beat of his heart against her cheek. He didn't tremble. He was a pillar of tense, waiting energy.
Listen to me, he whispered into her hair, his lips moving against her skin. Whatever you hear, whatever you see, you stay with me. You do not freeze. You move. Understood?
She nodded against his chest, inhaling the scent of him sweat, gunpowder, and that immutable sandalwood. It was the scent of survival now.
He pulled back just enough to look down at her. In the bad light, his eyes were black pools, but the intensity in them was a physical heat. For a fleeting second, his gaze dropped to her mouth, and the memory of the kiss in the garage hard, desperate, claiming flashed between them, a spark in the darkness. Then it was gone, replaced by ruthless focus.
Good girl, he murmured, and the words, in that tone, sent an entirely inappropriate shiver through her core, with the sheepish smile on his face sparked a thing.
They moved on. He was a shadow, and she was his echo. They reached a junction where two corridors crossed. Dominic paused, holding up a fist, peering around the corner.
Time slowed.
A masked figure rounded the corner from the opposite direction, not five yards away. Black tactical gear, a sleek helmet, a rifle held at ready position. He saw them instantly.
There was no shout. No hesitation.
The man's weapon came up.
But Dominic was already moving. He didn't push Aria away he used the momentum of his turn to swing her behind him, putting his body between her and the muzzle. Then he became a blur of lethal grace.
He closed the distance in two strides, his movement too fast for the gunman to track. One hand shot out, grabbing the barrel of the rifle, wrenching it upward as he pivoted inside the man's guard. Aria heard a sickening crack as Dominic's elbow connected with the man's throat. The gun clattered to the floor. Dominic didn't stop. A brutal knee to the stomach doubled the attacker over, followed by a sharp, precise chop to the back of the neck.
The man collapsed, a heap of black fabric and gear, unmoving.
It was over in three seconds.
Dominic stood over him, breathing slightly harder, a dangerous panther over its kill. He kicked the rifle away, his eyes scanning the fallen man with cold, clinical detachment. This was his element. Not the boardroom, not the elegant penthouse. This raw, violent calculus. The protector was, without doubt, a predator.
Aria stood frozen, her hand pressed to her mouth, stifling a scream. The sheer, brutal efficiency of it horrified her. It also, to her shame, ignited a fierce, primal awe.
Then she saw it.
As the assailant fell, something had flown from his gear, skittering across the concrete floor. It came to rest near her boot a small, metallic pin.
Her breath hitched. Her eyes, wide with residual terror, fixed on it.
It wasn't some crude criminal syndicate emblem. It was polished, official-looking. A circular insignia with a stylized owl perched on a scroll, surrounded by Latin she couldn't read from here.
She knew that pin.
She had seen it a thousand times. On the lapel of her father's favourite tweed jacket. On the desk in his study, next to his reading glasses. He had called it an old academic society badge. A memento from his youth.
Just a foolish club from university, sweetheart. We thought we were guarding the secrets of the world. We were just guarding our own ego.
Her blood turned to ice water in her veins. A ringing started in her ears, drowning out the distant alarms.
Slowly, as if in a dream, she stepped forward. She bent down, her fingers trembling, and picked up the badge. It was cold and heavy in her palm. Identical. Down to the tiny scratch on the owl's wing her father had once shown her, blaming a clumsy cleaning woman.
The hunters were not outsiders. They were not rival monsters from Dominic's world.
They were from her father's world.
The quiet academic. The facilitator. The man who could make problems disappear from the historical record.
Dominic had been telling the truth. Every impossible, terrifying word.
A sob built in her throat, sharp and painful. The foundation of her life her memory of her gentle, bookish father cracked and began to crumble into dust. He hadn't just had a past. He was still in it. And he had sent it after her.
She felt a presence beside her. Dominic. He didn't touch her. He looked from her blanched face to the badge in her shaking hand. His own expression hardened, but there was no I told you so in it. Only a grim, weary understanding.
The Ordine della Civetta, he said quietly, naming the ghost. The Order of the Owl. Historians, archivists, collectors… and the most ruthless information brokers the world has never heard of. Your father didn't just work for them. He was a founding member.
She couldn't speak. She could only stare at the pin, the metal biting into her palm.
He left them. Took knowledge they considered theirs. They've been looking for it for him for two decades. They thought he had hidden it. But when you started digging in those specific archives, following his old research paths… Dominic finally reached out, his hand closing gently overseers, the one clutching the badge. His touch was startlingly warm. They realized he might have passed the key to the only thing he ever truly loved. You.
The emotional impact was a physical blow. It wasn't just fear now. It was betrayal, deep and personal. Her father's quiet life, their peaceful home, their shared love of history it had all been a lie. A cover. And she had been an unwitting part of it.
She looked up at Dominic, tears finally spilling over. All this time… he was using me? My research…my time.
He was protecting you by keeping you in the dark, Dominic corrected, though his voice held little comfort. But the past has a gravity, Aria. It pulls everything back. Even love.
The sound of bootsteps echoed from the corridor the attacker had come from. More than one set.
Dominic's head snapped up. The moment of revelation was over. He pried the badge from her numb fingers and pocketed it. Then his hands were on her shoulders, turning her to face him.
Listen. The shock comes later. Right now, you grieve later. You survive now. Do you trust me?
The question was absurd. He was a kidnapper. A killer. A stranger. And yet, in the wreckage of her world, he was the only truth she had left. The only one who had seen the monster and stood between her and it.
She met his stormy eyes, saw the ferocious honesty in them, and nodded. Yes.
Something fierce and bright flared in his gaze. He cupped her face, his thumb wiping away a tear with a roughness that felt like a vow. Then run.
He grabbed her hand again, and they ran, leaving the unconscious or dead man behind. The corridor ended at a heavy metal door. Dominic didn't hesitate. He slammed his shoulder against it, and it burst open into the cold, shocking air of the night.
They were in a walled kitchen garden at the edge of the estate. The scent of rosemary and turned earth was surreal after the concrete and blood. In the distance, the main villa burned, orange flames licking at the dark sky.
Dominic pulled her along a gravel path toward a dense line of cypress trees. Just before the tree line, he stopped, pulling her into the deep shadow of a garden shed.
We wait here. Extraction is two minutes, he whispered, his chest heaving against her back as he held her close, both of them listening for pursuit, panting nervously.
Pressed against him in the dark, the adrenaline began to ebb, leaving a terrifying hollow. The image of the badge, her father's face, the violence it all swirled in a maelstrom of pain. A shudder wracked her body, a silent, convulsive sob.
He felt it. His arms, already around her, tightened. He turned her in his embrace until she was facing him, her face buried against his neck.
Let it out, he commanded softly, one hand tangling in her hair, the other splayed against the small of her back, holding her impossibly close. Quickly. Then lock it away.
She cried then, hot, silent tears soaking into his skin, her body shaking with the force of her shattered world. He didn't shush her. He just held her, his grip unyielding, his presence an anchor in the total collapse of her reality.
When the shuddering subsided, she went still, utterly spent. She was aware, hyper-aware, of every point of contact: his strong heartbeat under her cheek, the hard planes of his body against her softer curves, the way his hand was slowly, rhythmically stroking her spine.
She tilted her head back to look at him. His face was so close she could feel his breath. The moon emerged from behind a cloud, casting a silver edge along his jaw, his lips.
The kiss in the garage had been about defiance, a brand in the face of death. This… this was different. This was an aftermath. A collision of shared secrets and shattered lies.
His eyes searched hers, seeing the pain, the betrayal, the hollowed-out trust. And she saw in him not just the protector or the predator, but a man who carried his own burdens, who understood the weight of a poisonous legacy.
He lied to me, she whispered, her voice raw.
The world is built on lies, little scholar, he murmured, his thumb tracing her lower lip. I've only ever told you the hard truths. Ugly as they are.
It was the most honest thing anyone had ever said to her.
She didn't know who moved first. Maybe they both did. This time, the kiss was not a collision, but a fusion.
It was deep, slow, and devastatingly hot. A claiming of a different kind. Not of defiance, but of understanding. His mouth was demanding, and she answered with a hunger that shocked her, pouring all her confusion, her newfound trust, her desperate need for something real into him. His tongue swept against hers, and a moan vibrated in her throat, swallowed by him.
One of his hands slid down to her lower back, pressing her tightly against him, leaving no space between their bodies. She could feel the hard, undeniable evidence of his desire against her stomach, and instead of fear, a answering heat pooled low in her own belly. She arched into him, her hands sliding up to clutch at his shoulders, then tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.
He broke the kiss with a ragged gasp, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes blazing down at her. This is a terrible idea, he growled, but his hands were pulling her closer still.
The worst, she agreed breathlessly, and pulled his mouth back to hers.
This kiss was all fire. It was teeth and tongue and desperate, clutching hands. It was the steam and the tension and every unsaid thing igniting at once. His hand found its way under the borrowed shirt, his calloused palm skating up the bare skin of her back, making her gasp into his mouth.
A distant, mechanical thrumming sound pierced the haze of sensation.
Dominic tore his mouth from hers, his head snapping up, his body tensing. Chopper, he said, the word a harsh reality check.
The thrumming grew louder. A sleek, black helicopter descended from the night sky, its searchlight cutting a path through the garden, heading for a clearing just beyond the trees.
He looked back at her, his eyes wild, his lips swollen from her kisses. The moment hung, suspended between the passion that had just exploded and the danger that still hunted them.
Time's up, he said, his voice thick with unfinished business. He took her hand, his grip firm once more. The game just changed. Now you know the players.
He pulled her toward the waiting helicopter, its blades whipping the air into a frenzy. As they ran, Aria knew with absolute certainty: her old life was ashes in the burning villa behind them.
And the man pulling her into the roaring dark her kidnapper, her protector, the bearer of terrible truths and the source of a reckless, consuming fire was now the only compass she had left in a world of lies. The hunt was on, and she was irrevocably, dangerously, his.