CHAPTER 8
Present Day—Dante's Estate
The room was beautiful. That was the worst part.
If it had been ugly—cold concrete, rusted bars, the kind of cell I'd imagined when I thought about kidnapping—I would have known how to fight it. I'd spent my childhood learning to survive ugly things. Basements with locked doors. Silences that stretched for days. The sound of Elena's footsteps on the stairs, bringing nothing good.
But this room was beautiful. Soft cream walls. A window that let in golden afternoon light, even if it didn't open. A bed with sheets that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Fresh flowers on the nightstand. Peonies. My favorite.
That was the detail that broke something in me. Not the locked door. Not the barred window. The peonies. Because he knew. He knew, and I didn't even know his name yet.
I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my palms into my thighs and tried to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way I'd taught myself at ten years old, locked in Elena's basement, counting the seconds until someone remembered I existed.
Nobody ever remembered.
Nobody was coming now.
I closed my eyes, and against my will, against every instinct screaming at me to stay present and alert and alive, my exhausted mind slipped backward. To before. To when my biggest problem was an impossible deadline and a boss who didn't know how to say hello without sounding like a subpoena.
Flashback —Ashford Capital,six weeks earlier
Thursday arrived like a prosecutor with a vendetta.
I knew this because I was awake to greet it. Not "woke up early" awake. I'm talking "never went to sleep in the first place" awake. The kind of awake where you name the dust bunny under your desk. Reginald. We'd bonded.
The Kelman audit sat in three precarious stacks. Three thousand pages. Five years of flagged transactions. I'd cross-referenced, highlighted, tabulated, and cried exactly four times. But I'd done it. The completed summary sat in a crisp manila folder, ready for Adrian's "personal review."
Reader, I looked like death's younger sister. My hair was in a bun that had devolved through several stages of chaos. I was wearing two different shades of nude flats. Asymmetrical footwear. Very edgy. Definitely not a cry for help.
"Isabelle."
Adrian stood in his office doorway, coffee in hand. Looking like he'd slept eight hours and possibly moisturized. "You're here early."
"I'm here late. There's a difference." I bent to gather scattered papers, and my bun surrendered. Hair everywhere. One shoe beige, one shoe taupe. "The audit is done. Forty-seven pages. Color-coded risk vectors. A legend. Very professional."
Adrian picked up the folder. Didn't open it. Just looked at me with those grey eyes. "You stayed all night."
"Coffee is for the deserving."
He set the folder down. "Go home, Isabelle. That's an order."
"No additional assignment? No 'reorganize the database by astrological sign'?"
"Go home."
I walked to the elevator in a daze.
The lobby was quiet. The street was quiet. My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Isabelle Moretti? This is Detective Harris. I'm calling about your father. He's been reported missing."
The lobby tilted. "Missing? That's not possible. He's probably gambling. He disappears sometimes."
"When was the last time you spoke to him?"
The truth sat in my throat. "Eight years ago."
The silence was professional. Practiced. Full of pity.
"I think you should come in," he said. "There are details we need to discuss."
Present Day—Dante's Estate
The memory dissolved. I opened my eyes. The peonies were still there, soft pink and utterly indifferent to my terror.
I never went to the police station. I told myself it was because Franco didn't deserve my concern. The truth was messier. I was afraid. Afraid of what the "details" might be. Afraid that somewhere, buried in whatever mess my father had made, there would be something that could reach across eight years of silence and drag me down with him.
I was right to be afraid. I just didn't know it yet.
The door opened.
No creak. No warning. Just the soft click of a lock disengaging, and then he was standing in the doorway. Tall. Dark hair swept back. Eyes the color of a frozen lake at midnight. He was younger than I expected—late twenties, maybe—and dressed like he'd stepped out of a Milan runway. Black cashmere. Perfectly tailored. The kind of elegance that whispered money and screamed danger.
"Hello, Isabelle."
His voice was smooth. Cultured. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the complete absence of mercy.
"My name is Dante Vitale. I apologize for the circumstances of our meeting. I prefer more civilized introductions, but your father forced my hand."
My father. The words cut through the fog of fear and exhaustion.
"Franco," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "What did he do?"
Dante stepped into the room. The door stayed open behind him, but I didn't fool myself. There would be guards. There were always guards. "He borrowed money. A considerable amount. When he couldn't repay it, he offered you as an alternative."
The words didn't make sense. I heard them, understood them individually, but together they refused to form meaning. "Offered me. Like... collateral?"
"Like payment." He said it without flinching. Without softening. "You're his daughter. His only remaining asset of value. He signed a contract transferring your hand in marriage to me in exchange for complete debt forgiveness. Two hundred thousand dollars, plus interest and penalties. You're worth quite a lot, Isabelle. You should be flattered."
The room spun. I gripped the edge of the bed. "That's not possible. I'm not... he can't... I haven't spoken to him in eight years. He can't just sign me away like a piece of furniture."
"He can. He did. The contract is legally binding." Dante tilted his head, studying me. "You're taking this remarkably well. Most people cry."
"I don't cry for Franco." The words came out hard. Cold. A tone I hadn't known I possessed. "I learned that lesson a long time ago."
Something flickered in his gaze. Surprise? Curiosity? "Your father described you as a storm cloud. Bad luck given human form. He said you'd probably cry. 'She's very dramatic,' he told me. 'Fair warning.'"
Of course he did. Of course Franco had sold me with a disclaimer, like a used car with engine trouble.
"Where is he?" I asked. "My father. Where is he now?"
Dante's expression didn't change, but something shifted in the air between us. "Your father is no longer relevant to this conversation."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're going to get."
I stared at him. The frozen-lake eyes stared back. And in that moment, I understood something I couldn't yet put into words. Franco wasn't coming. Franco had never been coming. Whatever my father had done, whatever bargain he'd struck, he'd done it knowing exactly what would happen to me. He'd signed my name and walked away, and now he was "no longer relevant."
Dead. The word whispered through my mind. He's dead.
I didn't feel grief. I didn't feel relief. I felt nothing at all, and the nothing was somehow worse.
"What happens now?" I asked.
Dante walked to the window. The golden light caught the edge of his jaw, the sharp hollow of his cheekbones. "Now you rest. You've had a difficult few days. When you're ready, we'll discuss the terms of our arrangement."
"Arrangement." The word tasted like ash. "You mean marriage."
"I mean ownership. Let's not pretend this is something it isn't. You belong to me now, Isabelle. Your father made sure of that."
He moved toward the door. Paused. Looked back.
"But I'm not unreasonable. Cooperate, and your life here will be comfortable. Defy me..." He let the sentence hang. "Well. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
He left. The door clicked shut. The lock engaged.
I sat on the edge of the bed—the beautiful bed in the beautiful room with the peonies my father didn't know were my favorite—and stared at the door.
Reader, I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I didn't throw anything, though the vase on the nightstand was very throwable.
I did what I'd always done. What I'd learned to do at ten years old, locked in a different room by a different monster. I started paying attention. The window. The door. The gap beneath it. The guard's footsteps in the hallway. The layout of the house I'd glimpsed when they brought me in.
Franco had sold me. Dante thought he owned me.
But I'd been underestimated my entire life. And the thing about being underestimated? It gives you time. It gives you room. It gives you the one advantage no contract can sign away.
Nobody sees you coming.
The peonies watched in silence. Somewhere in the house, Dante Vitale was probably pouring himself a glass of wine, already planning the next phase of his acquisition.
He didn't know it yet, but he'd just made the same mistake my father made.
He'd left me alone with my thoughts.
And my thoughts, Reader, were very, very dangerous things.