Chapter 6 6

Dante POV

The tears were gone. Just like that. One second she was a weeping, broken girl, and the next, she was staring at me with eyes as cold and dead as a hitman's.

I slowly lowered my whiskey glass onto the heavy oak desk, my fingers brushing against the cold brass of a letter opener. I wasn't looking at a victim anymore. I was locked in a cage with a predator.

"Look," I said, keeping my voice even, trying to inject some sanity into the room. "This is madness. Tomorrow, we go to Don Antonio. We ask for an annulment. You go back to the Valdez family, and I go back to my life. It's the cleanest way out for both of us."

She didn't blink. Instead, her hand darted out.

Before my whiskey-dulled reflexes could even process the movement, she snatched the heavy brass letter opener from the desk. She stepped into my space, pressing the sharp point flush against my throat. The metal bit into my skin, a chilling promise of violence.

"An annulment?" she whispered, her voice a venomous hiss that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "So we can both become the laughingstock of the Commission? I would rather put this blade through your throat and then my own, than accept that kind of dishonor."

I swallowed hard, feeling the sharp point bob against my Adam's apple. She wasn't bluffing. The absolute certainty in her dark eyes terrified me more than any gun ever had.

"Fine," I rasped, raising my hands in a slow gesture of surrender. "What the hell do you want, then?"

She lowered the blade but didn't back away. The scent of her heavy perfume wrapped around me, suffocating and intoxicating. "Julian humiliated me. But he also humiliated your family. Your uncle is furious. The scales of power are tipping, Dante."

I let out a harsh, humorless laugh, rubbing the spot on my neck where the brass had pressed. "He's the heir. I'm nobody. I can't win against him."

Isabella stepped even closer. Her obsidian eyes searched mine, and for the first time tonight, I saw something other than ice. It was disappointment. It cut deeper than the blade.

"You are a Moretti," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Power isn't given, it's taken. Are you going to let him win without a fight?"

No one had ever looked at me like that-like I was capable of being something more than a useless drunk. A strange, long-forgotten spark ignited in my chest. "What's your plan?" I asked, the words tasting foreign on my tongue.

"You're going to stop being the family ghost and start being my ghost," she stated flatly, laying out her war strategy. "You will take control of the family's intelligence network. The docks, the unions, the speakeasies. I want to know what Julian eats for breakfast before he does. Information, Dante. That's how we'll bleed him dry."

My blood ran cold. The family business was exactly what I had spent my entire life avoiding. I threw my hands up in exasperation. "You know what? The blade sounds better. Just kill me now."

"I will not be the wife of a coward," she snapped, her jaw tightening. "And I refuse to live a life less than what that *bastarda*(bastard) Sofia dreamed of."

I stared at her, realizing the absolute finality of my situation. I was chained to a woman who was going to drag me into the very hell I had escaped.

I rubbed my temples, a massive headache building behind my eyes. I needed air. I needed out of this room. I grabbed my car keys from the console table. "I'm going to the club. I need a drink."

Isabella's expression shifted instantly. A flicker of vulnerability crossed her face. "You'll leave?" she asked softly. "And make me the joke of the entire Moretti family before my first sunrise as a bride? Is that how little you value this alliance... and my life?"

I froze, the keys digging into my palm. If I walked out that door, the wolves in my family would tear her apart by morning. Cursing under my breath, I tossed the keys back onto the table.

"Fine. I'll stay." I leaned against the wall, offering her my signature, careless smirk, trying to salvage some piece of my pride. "So... my side of the bed, or yours?"

The vulnerability vanished, replaced instantly by that familiar, glacial calm. She didn't even look at me as she tilted her chin toward the living room.

"The couch."