Chapter 2 - THE UNRAVELING TRUTH
The silence in the presidential suite was absolute, heavy enough to crush the breath from Alara’s lungs. Dante Moretti did not move. He did not blink. But the temperature in the room plummeted, a localized winter settling over the cream marble floors.
“Who?” he asked again. His voice was no longer a question; it was an execution order waiting for a name.
Alara’s throat worked frantically as she swallowed. She backed away until her spine hit the floor-to-ceiling glass, the glittering Chicago skyline framing her fragile silhouette. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have—”
Dante closed the distance between them. He didn’t rush. He walked with the deliberate, terrifying grace of a predator that knew the exits were already sealed. When he stopped, he was inches from her, his broad shoulders blocking out the city lights.
“Take off the dress, Alara,” he commanded, his tone frighteningly calm.
She flinched, her hands flying to the silk bodice. “Please, Dante, I—”
“I am not going to touch you,” he said, his dark eyes locking onto hers, demanding she see the truth in them. “But I need to see what I am dealing with. If we are bound together, your enemies are my enemies. Take it off.”
With shaking fingers, Alara reached for the hidden zipper at her side. The heavy, six-figure silk pooled at her feet like melted snow. She stood before the most dangerous man in the city in nothing but delicate La Perla lace and a roadmap of agony.
Dante’s jaw locked. The muscles in his neck strained against his collar.
The fading fingerprints on her throat were just the beginning. Yellow and purple blossoms of trauma painted her ribs. A sharp, ugly laceration marred the skin just above her hip bone, closed with surgical glue.
“Vincent Caruso,” Dante said. It wasn’t a guess.
Alara squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear escaping. “My father owed him. Three million. Caruso came to the house last week. He told my father that if he couldn't pay with cash, he would take his interest in flesh. My father… my father locked the study door from the outside.”
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A sound escaped Dante’s chest—a low, feral vibration that made the glass behind Alara rattle. He reached into his tuxedo jacket and pulled out his phone. He dialed one number.
“Enzo,” Dante said, his voice stripped of all humanity. “Wake the men. Cancel the shipments. Burn the Caruso warehouse on 5th to the ground. If anyone asks, tell them Dante Moretti is collecting a new tax.” He hung up and finally looked back at his trembling bride. “You are a Moretti now. And no one touches a Moretti and lives.”
