Dante did not sleep.
He stood in the dark long after Aria's footsteps disappeared, the studio was still breathing around him, oil, charcoal, turpentine, truth. The painting stared back, merciless and intimate, a quiet indictment pinned to canvas. He had faced gun barrels with steadier nerves. He had ordered countless deaths without blinking his eyes.
But this, this was exposure.
He shut the door with surgical precision, sealing the room like a vault. Then he walked.
The penthouse shifted as he moved through it. Lights came on without being touched. Doors unlocked before his knuckles reached them. His world obeyed him automatically, systems, men, money, muscle memory. Control was his native language.
Except where Aria was concerned.
He stopped at the security hub. Screens layered the wall, feeds tiled in perfect symmetry: corridors, stairwells, terraces, elevators.
