Chapter 5: The Serpent's Return

Chapter 5: The Serpent's Return

Mine.

The word was a brand, seared onto her brain. Jessica dropped the black box as if it were burning hot. The perfect red rose tumbled onto the floor, its petals bruising against the hardwood. Mine. Who did it belong to? The possessive, elegant script wasn't Dante’s. His handwriting was a sharp, aggressive slant. This was different. Colder. More deliberate.

A thousand terrifying possibilities bloomed in the space of a single, panicked heartbeat. The black sedan parked patiently outside the glass tower. The dead phone line. The name from the newspaper article that haunted her waking thoughts. Moretti.

Was this from a rival? A threat delivered in the most chillingly intimate way possible? A declaration that what belonged to Dante Moretti—what he considered his—was now a target? Or was it from Dante himself? A twisted, cruel test of her nerve, a reminder of his ownership from afar? She couldn't decide which possibility was more terrifying.

The sun bled out of the sky, and her apartment sank into a deep twilight that felt predatory. Every creak of the old building was a footstep. Every siren in the distance was for her. She moved through her rooms like a ghost, checking the laughable lock on her front door for the tenth time, peering through the blinds at the empty street below. The black sedan was gone, but its absence offered no relief. It only meant the watcher was no longer watching; they were ready to act.

She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t work. She could only sit on her sofa, wrapped in a blanket, the fallen rose lying on the floor like a drop of blood in the gloom. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating.

She must have drifted into a state of sheer exhaustion, a trance-like stupor somewhere between sleep and raw-nerved awareness. Because she didn't hear the main door buzz. She didn't hear footsteps in the hall.

The sound that ripped her back to reality was quiet, precise, and utterly horrifying.

Click.

It came from her front door. Not a fumbling key, not a knock. It was the sharp, metallic sound of a lock tumbler being expertly defeated. Her blood turned to ice water in her veins. This was it. The shadow at the window had come inside.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized her. Her breath caught in her throat, a strangled squeak. Rival family. Gang-land execution. No trace. The headlines flashed behind her eyes like lightning in a storm. They knew where she was. They had bypassed security, picked her lock, and now they were inside.

Her body moved on pure instinct. She scrambled off the sofa, her bare feet silent on the rug, and fled toward the bedroom. It wasn't a plan; it was a primal urge to hide. She slipped inside, shutting the door as gently as she could, her hand shaking too violently to even attempt locking it. A useless gesture. Whoever was in her apartment could walk through locks.

Trapped. The bedroom had no other exit. She was cornered. Her eyes darted around the dark room, searching for a weapon. A lamp? Too clumsy. Her laptop? Too light. Her gaze landed on a heavy, solid glass paperweight on her small desk, a gift from years ago. She snatched it up, its cold weight a pathetic comfort in her trembling hand.

She flattened herself against the wall next to the door, shrinking into the shadows, her ears straining. She could hear them now. A soft, deliberate footstep on the hardwood floor of the living room. Then another. They were moving slowly, with an unnerving confidence, a predator assured of its prey. There was no rush.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of her chest. She held the paperweight up, her knuckles white, her arm shaking. She squeezed her eyes shut, imagining a face—a brutal stranger sent to leave a message for Dante Moretti.

A dark silhouette filled the bedroom doorway.

It was a large frame, broad-shouldered and impossibly tall, blotting out the faint light from the living room. It stood there for a silent, eternal second. Jessica’s terror reached a fever pitch. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a choked gasp came out.

The figure took a step into the room.

And then the scent hit her. Sandalwood. Citrus. And the dark, primal musk that was woven into the very fabric of her soul.

“Jessica?”

Dante.

The name was a punch to the gut. The paperweight slipped from her nerveless fingers and hit the carpet with a dull thud. Relief crashed over her in a tidal wave so powerful it buckled her knees, and she sagged against the wall, sobbing.

But the relief was instantly poisoned. He was here. He had broken in. He had terrified her, let her believe she was about to die.

Before she could form a single word, he was across the room, his movements swift and silent. But he didn't reach for her. His body was coiled with a terrifying tension, his head cocked, listening. He was not the tender lover who had made her breakfast. This was a different creature entirely. This was a predator who had found another’s tracks in his den.

His eyes, chips of ice in the darkness, scanned the room. He walked to the window, his gaze sweeping the street below. He turned back, his jaw tight, his entire being radiating a cold, lethal fury.

“The door,” he bit out, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “The lock was tampered with. Who was here?”

His question shattered her confusion. The lock was tampered with? So it wasn't him who picked it? The terror came rushing back, shapeless and suffocating.

“I… I don’t know,” she stammered, wrapping her arms around herself. “The phone line was dead. There was a car… a black car watching me. And then a package came.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Show me.”

He followed her back into the living room, his presence a vortex of controlled violence at her back. She pointed a trembling finger to the floor.

“A rose,” she whispered. “And a note.”

He saw the fallen flower, then the elegant black box on the floor. He crouched, his powerful thighs straining the fabric of his trousers, and picked up the small white card she’d left on the coffee table. He read the single, elegant word.

Mine.

A sound left Dante’s throat, a guttural snarl that was barely human. He crushed the card in his fist. The cold fury in his eyes ignited into a white-hot inferno. This was not the anger of a startled lover. It was the rage of a king whose sovereignty had been challenged.

“Dante, what is going on?” Jessica finally cried out, the words tearing from her throat. Her fear was finally hardening into anger. “That name… Moretti! I saw the article. An execution in Rome. Tell me what it means!”

He rose to his full height, his shadow swallowing her. He looked at her, truly looked at her, and she saw in his face the confirmation of every one of her fears. He saw her terror, her pale skin, the tremble in her hands. The rage in his eyes flickered, replaced by a flicker of something that looked agonizingly like regret.

“It means you were right to be afraid,” he said, his voice flat and cold with a truth he could no longer hide. “This,” he gestured with the crushed card toward the rose, “is a message. They know you are with me.”

“Who are ‘they’?” she demanded, her voice shaking but insistent.

“My enemies,” he answered, the words dropping like stones into the silence. “And they are using you to get to me. You are in danger, Jessica. You are in profound danger because of me.”

He stepped toward her, and this time he did touch her, his hands closing on her upper arms. His grip was firm, possessive, absolute.

“This ends now,” he said, his dark eyes boring into hers. “We’re leaving. Pack a bag. Just the essentials. We’re leaving right now.”