Chapter 6

Aria Sterling POV

I walked into the office to resign. Instead, I stayed just long enough to watch my heart get ripped out of my chest.

The door to Dante's private study stood ajar. A sliver of darkness in a hallway of light. It was never open. Not ever.

I had spent the entire morning rehearsing my speech in the mirror. I was going to tell him that the balcony meant nothing. I was going to tell him that I valued my survival more than his paycheck. I was going to admit that Sofia Moretti terrified me, and I was not built for a war I didn't understand.

I reached for the heavy brass handle, but a sound froze my hand in mid-air.

Laughter. Low, throaty, feminine laughter.

My blood ran cold. Through the intentional gap in the door, I saw them.

Dante was perched on the edge of his massive mahogany desk, his posture relaxed yet imposing. Sofia stood between his spread knees, a vision of proprietary arrogance. Her hands rested casually on his shoulders, her manicured fingers toying with the collar of his dress shirt.

They looked like a portrait of absolute power. The King and his inevitable Queen.

I couldn't hear Dante's low rumble, but I saw him lean in. I saw the familiarity in the way he tolerated her invasion of his space. He didn't look like a man fighting a hostile takeover or an arranged marriage. He looked like a man closing a deal.

"You see?" Sofia's voice drifted out, sharp and crystalline, cutting through the silence. "We are inevitable, Dante. The girl is just a distraction. A pretty little toy you play with before you come home to the real work."

Dante didn't push her away. He didn't deny it. He just stared at her, his expression a mask of unreadable stone.

I stepped back. My heel clicked sharply against the marble floor-a gunshot in the quiet corridor.

Both heads snapped toward the door.

Dante's eyes found mine instantly. For a splinter of a second, the mask cracked. I saw panic. Actual, raw, human panic.

"Aria," he choked out. He surged to his feet, shoving Sofia aside with a roughness that startled her.

I didn't wait for the explanation. I turned and ran.

I bypassed the elevators. I took the stairs. I hurled myself down twelve flights, my lungs burning as if I'd swallowed fire, my vision blurring with hot tears I refused to let fall.

By the time I burst into the lobby, gasping for air, my phone was vibrating violently against my hip. It was a push notification from a major city gossip blog.

BREAKING: Vitiello Biographer Revealed as Corporate Spy? Sources Allege Aria Sterling Selling Secrets to Feds.

I froze in the center of the bustling atrium. People were looking at me. They weren't looking at the mistress anymore. They were staring at the rat.

Sofia. She didn't just move fast; she moved at the speed of malice.

The room began to tilt. The vaulted ceilings of Vitiello Tower seemed to buckle and collapse inward. The air grew too thin, too scarce to fill my lungs.

My chest tightened, a vice grip closing around my ribs. A sharp, crushing pain radiated down my left arm. It wasn't just heartbreak. It was a physiological revolt. Panic, pure and unadulterated.

I stumbled toward the revolving doors, desperate for the street, but my legs turned to water.

The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me was the cold marble floor rushing up to meet my face, and the distant, distorted sound of security guards shouting into their radios.

...

I woke to the sterile sting of antiseptic and the muffled aggression of an argument.

I was lying in a hospital bed. A rhythmic beeping echoed nearby, and my arm felt heavy, anchored by an IV line. My head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

I kept my eyes closed, feigning sleep, listening.

"You cannot go in there," a heavy voice said. It sounded like a slab of concrete given the power of speech.

"Move," a familiar voice growled, vibrating with suppressed violence.

"Family only," the guard stated, his tone flat and bureaucratic. "Ms. Moretti gave strict orders. No outsiders. No staff. And certainly no rats."

I felt a hot tear slide out from under my eyelid, tracking into my hair. Family only. That was the line in the sand. That was the fortress wall I would never be able to scale.

Sofia was right. I was just a tourist in their dangerous world. And now, I was a casualty.

I heard the sharp scuffle of bodies colliding. A heavy thud against the wall. Then, the distinct, terrifying click of a safety being disengaged.

I opened my eyes just as the door flew open.