Chapter 5 - Shadows in the Lemon GrovesThe sun was just beginning to crest over the Mediterranean horizon, painting the sky in strokes of bruised purple and gold, when I slipped out of the French doors of the master suite and onto the stone terrace.
Sleep had been impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the face of my father warning me about the men who traded in stolen antiquities, and then Dante’s pale, intense eyes staring back at me across the airplane table.
The air was crisp and smelled of salt and citrus blossoms. I walked down the stone steps into the terraced lemon groves, hugging my light wool cardigan tightly around my shoulders.
"You’ll catch a chill."
I jumped, turning around to see Dante standing a few paces behind me. He had discarded his suit jacket, wearing only a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, looking entirely too relaxed for a man sitting at the center of an international syndicate war.
"You’re up early," I said, turning back toward the sea view.
"I don't sleep much," Dante replied, walking over to lean against the stone balustrade beside me. "Especially when my wife is wandering around my estate plotting ways to escape."
"I wasn't plotting an escape," I muttered. "There's nowhere to run to. We're on a cliff overlooking an ocean five hundred miles from anyone who knows my name."
"You underestimate yourself, Sophia. And you underestimate my family's security." Dante paused, turning his head to look at me. "Are you regretting it?"
I looked down at my hands, resting on the cold stone. "Regretting what? Being abducted? Being forced into a marriage with a man I met thirty hours ago? Discovering my father was a courier for criminals?" I let out a dry, bitter laugh. "Is there part of this nightmare I'm supposed to be enjoying?"
Dante didn't flinch. He reached out, his warm fingers gently brushing against my bruised wrist—the one where Martin’s fingerprints had finally faded away. I flinched slightly, but didn't pull away.
"I know this wasn't how you envisioned your life, Sophia," Dante said softly, his voice dropping into a register that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "When I saw the bruise on your arm through our surveillance feeds in Boston three weeks ago—when I realized the man you were living with was putting his hands on you—the timeline for bringing you here accelerated by six months."
I stared at him, my breath catching in my throat. "You... you were watching him, too?"
"He was a liability. And anyone who harms what belongs to me becomes a target," Dante said flatly, his eyes blazing with a quiet, terrifying intensity. "Martin is currently serving a five-year sentence in a federal penitentiary in Indiana on federal tax evasion and wire fraud charges engineered by my legal team. He will never touch you again."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. All this time, I had thought my miserable life in Boston was just a string of bad luck—an abusive boyfriend, an eviction notice, a failing gallery. But behind the scenes, this dark, powerful stranger had been quietly dismantling my entire prison piece by piece.
"Why?" I whispered, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. "Why go to all this trouble for someone you didn't even know?"
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Dante stepped closer, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. He reached up, his thumb gently wiping away a stray tear I hadn't realized had fallen.
"Because the moment I saw you standing in your gallery rain-soaked and refusing to let a corrupt landlord push you out," Dante whispered, "I knew I would burn every shipping lane in the Mediterranean to keep you safe."
