Chapter 3 - Midnight in the Library
The grand engagement gala finally concluded near three in the morning. Fleets of black town cars and sports vehicles had roared away into the autumn fog, leaving the mansion smelling of stale alcohol, expensive perfume, and extinguished cigar smoke.
Elena was carrying a heavy plastic garbage bag full of discarded party favors when she passed the east wing’s private library. The double oak doors were slightly ajar. A sliver of warm, golden amber light spilled across the hardwood floor.
She intended to walk by. She knew the golden rule: Never disturb the master of the house.
"Elena."
The deep voice halted her in her tracks.
She turned around slowly. Dante was sitting in a high-backed leather armchair near the unlit hearth. He had discarded his tuxedo jacket; his black tie hung loose around his unbuttoned collar, exposing the dark tendrils of ink crawling across his collarbone. In his left hand, a crystal glass half-full of scotch sat forgotten on the mahogany end table.
"Come inside," he said, not looking up from the amber liquid.
Elena hesitated at the threshold. "Mr. Moretti, it's very late. I still have to clear the dining room—"
"Leave the dining room. Come inside and close the door."
Hearing the quiet exhaustion beneath the command, Elena set the garbage bag down in the hallway, stepped across the Persian rug, and closed the heavy oak doors until the latch clicked. The silence in the room was absolute, insulated by thousand-volume bookshelves that reached twenty feet high.
"Did you take the medicine money Vanessa offered you?" Dante asked bluntly.
Elena kept her hands folded in front of her apron. "No, sir. I didn't."
Dante looked up then. His eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but sharp as glass. "Why not? You need it. Your mother's medical invoices aren't secret to me."
"Because it wasn't a gift, Mr. Moretti. It was a collar," Elena said, her voice steady despite her racing pulse. "Miss Bennett wanted to buy my humiliation. If I accept money for being degraded, then I am exactly what she thinks I am. I might be poor, but I still own my dignity."
Dante stared at her for a long, agonizing beat. A dark, reckless expression crossed his features. "Dignity doesn't buy prescription pills, Elena. In my world, pride is the fastest way to an early grave."
"Then I suppose I'm lucky I don't live in your world," she countered softly.
Dante stood up from the armchair. He didn't rush, but each slow, deliberate stride toward her made the air in the vast library grow thinner. He stopped less than a foot away. The heat radiating from his chest was unmistakable. He was so tall that Elena had to tilt her chin upward, her throat exposed in the warm lamplight.
"You do live in my world," Dante murmured, his voice velvety and lethal. "The moment you set foot in this house, you entered it. And tonight, you stood in front of two hundred of New York’s most dangerous people and wept because I put a ring on another woman's finger."
Elena's breath hitched. "I didn't cry for that reason."
"Liar," he whispered. He raised his hand. His calloused, tattooed fingers lightly brushed against the curve of her cheek—the exact spot where her tear had tracked earlier. The touch was burning hot, electric, terrifying. "You looked at me as if I broke an oath."
Elena felt her knees threaten to buckle. The vulnerability in his gaze broke her remaining composure. "You are marrying her, Dante. She is the daughter of a senator. Her family gives you political immunity, legitimate banking networks, social standing... everything you need to protect what you built. I am just a maid who irons your shirts. What did you expect me to do? Smile while she reminded me I'm nothing?"
"You are not nothing," Dante growled, his jaw tightening into iron. His thumb traced her bottom lip, his touch possessing a fierce, desperate reverence that no mob boss was ever supposed to show. "Vanessa Bennett is an arrangement. A business treaty signed in ink to stop a gang war on the docks. But she doesn't own this house. And she will never own me."
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"It doesn't matter," Elena whispered, tears blurring her vision once more. "Arrangement or not, she will be Mrs. Moretti. And there is no place for me here when that happens."
Before Dante could answer, footsteps clicked sharply on the hardwood floor outside the library door, followed by a sudden, violent twist of the bronze handle.
