My diary slipped away from my numb fingers and landed with a soft thud on the marble floor. The place had a thunderous sound, a gavel announcing my death sentence. The mind, a tormented storm full of horror and realization, came to an unbalanced stop, but instead of the heavy, measured footsteps approaching my door, it focused on something very real, terrifying.
Adrenaline, cold and penetrating, rushed into my blood vessels. I jumped off the bed, legs clumsy with alarm, muscles in a crazed tangle: Hide it. Hide it now. My eyes rushed about the room. There was nowhere to go. Under the bed? Too obvious. In a drawer? The first place he'd look. My gaze rested on the ornate silver jewelry box atop the dresser with its false back still somewhat ajar. That was my only chance.
Jerked from my reverie, I lunged toward the dresser still clutching the diary. My hands shook so stiffly I could scarcely shove the little leather book into its secret compartment. The footsteps halted just outside my door. I fumbled with the thin wood panel as my heart hammered against my ribs, trying unsuccessfully to fit. It wouldn't fit. My breath hitched on a sob of pure terror. I forced it, jamming it into place just as the doorknob began to turn, spun around, leaning against the dresser to look casual with my body shielding the box as the door opened silently before me.
Yes, it was Dante.
A dark silhouette against the light of the hall, standing in the doorway, sucking the very air from the room; he took in the scene: me, standing beside the dresser, my face pale, my body rigid with tension I prayed he would mistake for grief. He had come to inspect whether Sofia's coup de grace had achieved his purpose in breaking me. My performance had to be perfect. My life depended on it.
He entered and shut the door behind him, bathing the room in that soft, dim light of late evening. He moved almost with the stillness of a predator, scanning every inch of me, searching for cracks in my defenses. I had to give him what he wanted to see. I let my shoulders sag, allowed my eyes to sink to the floor, and wrapped my arms around myself as if to hold my shattered pieces together.
"You seem... contemplative," he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floor. It wasn't a question. It was a probe, testing my defenses.
I looked up at him through my lashes, forcing tears to well in my eyes. "My entire life," I whispered, voice intentionally hoarse and broken, "everything I thought I knew about my family, my mother... was all a lie."
He would hear the words, yes, but he'd hear them through the filter of his own narrative: He'd think I was mourning the death of my villainous parents rather than discovering the truth concerning his.
He glided closer, stopping just a foot away from me. I could smell clean, sharp cologne in the air and feel the heat radiating from his body; in my mind, he urged me to recoil, to back away from a son whose father had himself murdered his wife. But there I was, refusing to budge; forcing myself to tremble slightly in a doll's brokenness.
"The past is dead, Isabella," he murmured dangerously softly. "Lies cannot hurt you anymore. I am your truth now. I am your present."
His dark eyes bore into mine, and for a terrifying moment, I was certain he could see the secret I was hiding. I was sure he could see the image of the diary, its terrible words branded on the back of my eyelids. I forced myself to hold his gaze, to show him nothing but a reflection of the sorrow and confusion he expected.
Satisfied, he seemed to relax imperceptibly. He was convinced he had won. He was convinced I was finally his, a blank canvas upon which he could paint the image of his mother. He reached out, his movements slow, and my entire body went rigid. His fingers, surprisingly warm, brushed a stray strand of hair from my cheek. That touch was electric: a jolt of revulsion and terror that I had to fight to conceal. This was the son of the monster, and his touch felt like a serpent's kiss-intimate, possessive, and laced with a deadly venom.
"You are beginning to understand," he whispered, his thumb stroking my jaw. "Good. The sooner you accept it, the easier this will be."
He held my gaze for another long, suffocating moment and then turned to walk away. "Get some rest," he ordered. "Your education continues tomorrow."
Lock clicked shut behind him as he left. That was all. And as soon as he was gone, the facade I had built up so carefully crumbled. A violent shudder wracked my body, and I slid down the wall to the floor, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. Survive, lie to him, but in the end, the basement was empty in the dark where I sat shaking. Now, I hold the only secret that can very well destroy the most powerful person I know-any secret behind which, I am sure, he will kill me if he ever finds out.