My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a frantic echo of the word on the screen.
URGENT.
Instinct took over. My thumb swiped the screen off, plunging it into darkness, and I flipped the phone over on the nightstand. A guilty, reflexive action.
He saw it. I knew he did. The air in the room, already heavy, turned thick and cold.
"Problem?" His voice was carefully neutral, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze on me. It was like being pinned under a microscope.
I forced a laugh. It sounded brittle and fake even to my own ears. "No. Just my father. Being my father." I turned away from the phone, from Luca's terrifying message, and tried to act normal. "He probably wants a minute-by-minute report of my breathing."
It was the first real lie I had ever told him. It felt like swallowing broken glass.
Dante didn't move. He just watched me, his expression unreadable. I felt stripped bare under his gaze, as if he could see right through the clumsy lie to the panic underneath.
I needed to call Luca. Now.
"I'm just... going to use the bathroom," I stammered, grabbing my phone. I needed to escape his eyes.
I walked towards the bathroom door, my back prickling, painfully aware of him watching my every step. He didn't say a word, but his silence was a physical weight, pressing down on me.
I closed the bathroom door behind me, locking it with a soft click. My back pressed against the cool wood, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make my trembling hands work. I unlocked my phone and stared at Luca's name.
My finger hovered over the call button. Was Dante listening? I pressed my ear against the door. Silence. Nothing but the sound of my own blood roaring in my ears.
I had to know.
I hit call.
The phone rang once. Twice. My heart pounded with each ring.
"Izzy, thank God." Luca's voice was a burst of static and pure relief. "Where are you? Are you safe?"
"I'm fine," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "Luca, what is it? Your message..."
"Listen to me," he said, his voice urgent and strained. "I don't have long. We found something. About Volkov. The name is a front. It's not real. He has ties... he has ties to—"
Bzzzt. Hisss. Click.
The line went dead.
I stared at the "Call Failed" message on my screen. The signal, always weak out here, was gone.
A front. Not real. He has ties to...
To who?
The question echoed in the silent bathroom, cold and terrifying. The man I had slept with, the man whose initial touch I had thought I recognized, the man who had shown me a glimpse of a broken soul... was a ghost. A lie.
My fear was a cold, sharp thing, cutting through the haze of passion from the night before.
I took a deep, shaky breath, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.
And my heart stopped.
He was there.
Blocking the doorway. Leaning against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't surprised. He was waiting.
The man who had held me, who had whispered "Mine" in the dark, was gone.
In his place was a predator. His eyes were chips of ice. His body was a wall of muscle between me and the rest of the world. He was no longer my protector. He was my jailer. And the look on his face told me he knew I'd been caught.
His voice, when he spoke, was a low, soft rumble, completely devoid of the heat from the night before. It was the deadliest sound I had ever heard.
"Who were you calling, Izzy?" Use Arrow Up and Arrow Down to select a turn, Enter to jump to it, and Escape to return to the chat.