Dante Pov
"Moreno men."
Nico set the photos on Dante's desk. Two faces. Both familiar from intelligence files. Both confirmed members of Marco Moreno's inner security team.
Dante looked at the images and felt something cold settle in his chest.
"You are certain."
"Ran facial recognition twice. Both men have been with Moreno for six years. They do not do casual surveillance. If they were following Dr. Cole, it was on direct orders."
Dante picked up his water glass. Drank slowly. Set it down.
Marco Moreno knew about Mara.
That meant someone inside the Reyes organization had told him. The list of people who knew about her was extremely short. Family. Senior security. His father's legal team.
Every name on that list was someone he should be able to trust.
One of them was not.
"How long have they been watching her?" Dante asked.
"We caught them today but they could have started earlier. If they were good enough we might have missed previous surveillance."
Dante thought about Mara walking six blocks alone. Noticed. Tracked. Targeted.
The decision formed instantly.
"Move her to the secure apartment. Seventh floor. My building."
Nico did not look surprised. "When?"
"Today. Now."
"She is going to fight you on this."
"I know."
"You want me to handle it?"
Dante stood. "No. I will tell her myself."
Nico raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He left to make arrangements.
Dante stood at his window looking at the city below. Mara would be here in ten minutes. She would argue. She had every right to argue. He was about to upend her life again without asking permission.
But asking permission implied she had a choice.
And when it came to her safety, there was no choice.
The knock came at exactly twenty minutes. Punctual even when terrified. He respected that.
"Come in."
Mara entered looking shaken but composed. Her hands were steady now though they had been shaking in the coffee shop. He had heard it in her voice on the phone.
"Sit," he said.
She sat. "Who were they?"
"Moreno family. Confirmed."
Her face went pale. "Why would they be following me?"
"Because someone told them about you. Someone inside my organization who should not have."
She processed that quickly. He watched her mind work through the implications.
"So there is a leak."
"Yes."
"And you think they will try again."
"I know they will." Dante came around the desk and leaned against it, closer to her. "Which is why you are moving. Today. To a secure apartment in this building."
The silence lasted three seconds.
Then Mara stood.
"No."
"This is not negotiable."
"You do not get to decide where I live."
"Someone just followed you through your own neighborhood. They know where you live. Where you work. Your patterns. That apartment is not safe anymore."
"So you hire more security. You do not move me out of my home."
Her voice was rising. Dante kept his level.
"More security at that location is not sufficient. You need controlled access. Limited entry points. A building with proper surveillance."
"You mean a building you control."
"Yes."
"So I can be monitored every second of every day."
"So you can be protected."
Mara stepped closer. Her eyes were blazing and for the first time since he met her she looked genuinely angry instead of scared.
"You did this before. You moved me out of my apartment without asking. You decided I needed a new place and you just did it. And now you are doing it again."
"The situation has changed."
"My situation keeps changing because of you!" Her voice was loud now. Actually loud. "I had a life. I had an apartment I chose. I had independence. And you keep taking pieces of it away and telling me it is for my own good."
"It is for your own good."
"That is not your decision to make!"
Dante's jaw tightened. Most people stopped talking when he went quiet. When his face flattened into the expression that meant the conversation was over.
Mara did not stop. She spoke louder.
"You keep treating me like something you own. Like I am a possession you need to protect and control and keep locked up somewhere safe. But I am not yours, Dante. I am a person who had a whole life before you dragged me into this."
"I am not treating you like something I own."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I am treating you like something I am responsible for." He pushed off the desk, his own control fraying at the edges. "There is a difference."
"Is there? Because from where I am standing it feels exactly the same."
They were close enough now that he could see the pulse jumping in her throat. Close enough that he could count the exact shade of fury in her eyes.
Most people were afraid of him.
Mara was furious at him.
And for some reason he could not name, that fury felt more honest than anything anyone had given him in years.
"You were followed by men who work for my most dangerous rival," Dante said quietly. "Those men do not follow people to observe them. They follow people to find moments when those people are vulnerable. Alone. Unprotected." He held her gaze. "I will not give them that moment."
"So you lock me up instead."
"I keep you alive."
"By taking away every choice I have left."
"You still have choices."
"Name one."
Dante was silent.
Mara laughed. It was not a happy sound. "That is what I thought."
She turned toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"To pack. Since apparently that decision has already been made for me."
She left.
Dante stood alone in his office and tried to identify what he was feeling.
Not anger. Not satisfaction at winning the argument.
Something else. Something that felt uncomfortably close to regret.
He pulled out his phone and texted Nico: Make sure her belongings are moved carefully. Nothing damaged.
The reply came fast: Already on it. And boss? She is pissed.
Dante replied: I know.
He did not add that her anger bothered him more than it should. That he kept replaying the way she had looked at him when she said "I am not yours."
Like she needed to convince herself as much as him.
The move took four hours. Dante received updates every thirty minutes. Her books. Her clothes. Her father's old record collection that she had packed herself and refused to let anyone else touch.
By eight PM she was installed in apartment 7C. Nico reported that she had thanked the movers, inspected every room, and then closed the door without another word.
At nine PM, Nico knocked on Dante's office door.
"She left you something."
He handed over a folded piece of paper.
Dante opened it.
The handwriting was sharp and angry, the letters pressed hard enough into the page that he could feel the indentations.
I am not yours. Do not forget it.
He read it once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then he folded it carefully and put it in his jacket pocket.
Nico was watching him. "You keeping that?"
"It is evidence of her state of mind. Relevant to her clinical file."
"Right. Clinical file." Nico's expression said he did not believe that for a second. "Anything else you need tonight?"
"No. Go home."
Nico left.
Dante sat at his desk with the note in his pocket and tried to focus on the intelligence reports in front of him. Someone in his organization had betrayed him. Had given Moreno information about Mara. That was the problem he needed to solve.
Instead he kept thinking about seven words on a piece of paper.
I am not yours. Do not forget it.
He would not forget.
But the fact that she felt the need to write it, to state it so clearly, meant she was worried he might claim otherwise.
Or worried she might let him.
The thought should not have felt like victory.
It felt like something far more dangerous.
His phone buzzed. Security update from 7C.
Subject is in residence. Lights on in bedroom. No unusual activity.
He pulled up the camera feed before he could stop himself. Not the bedroom. He had not put cameras there. But the living room showed her shadow moving past the window.
She was pacing.
He watched for longer than he should have.
Then he pulled the note from his pocket and read it one more time.
I am not yours.
Not yet, he thought. Then he caught himself.
Not ever.
She was his therapist. His responsibility. A witness he had converted into an asset. That was all she could be.
He repeated that to himself three times before he finally believed it enough to put the note away and return to work.
But he did not throw it out.
And when he finally left his office at two in the morning, the note was still in his pocket.
Right above his heart.