Chapter 109: What I Claim, I Keep
Dante’s POV
Because you matter to me more than you should. Because the thought of losing you makes me want to burn the world down. Because I would bleed a thousand times before I let anything happen to you.
But I could not say any of that. Not yet. Not when she was still looking at me like I was the enemy.
So I did what I always do, pushed it down, hid behind the walls I had built, and gave her the only truth I could let out.
“Because no one is worth killing yourself over. Not even me. And certainly not that deranged psychopath you call a father. When life corners you, you do not fold. You push back. You drag yourself out, even when it feels impossible. You do not give anyone the satisfaction of watching you fall. You survive.”
“What if I am tired of surviving?” Her voice shook like the words were scraping their way out. “I am tired of fighting battles I cannot win. I am tired of being afraid.”
“Then stop being afraid of me.”
“How?” She searched my face like she was begging for something solid to hold on to. “How am I supposed to stop being afraid when you will not give me anything to trust?”
She was not backing down. She wanted to tear into me, drag the truth out of my chest. She needed reassurance. She deserved it. Maybe even the whole truth.
But giving her that truth meant opening doors I had kept locked for years.
It meant admitting that, that night, I had gone to that house to erase Lorenzo and the daughter he swore to protect. To end his bloodline the way he tried to end mine.
But the moment I saw her, everything shifted. There was no turning back. I knew I was going to take her from him. Keep her.
Later, when I tracked her to that despicable underground auction and saw her again, standing on that stage in that barely–there bra and shorts, every curve on display, chin lifted in defiance while her world burned around her, a dark pull shot through me. She challenged me the moment I bought her, fought me every day after, and still managed to slide beneath my defenses in ways I could not explain.
And every day since then, I told myself it was for revenge. To make her father suffer. To keep control. To break her before she
could run.
But the truth was darker and more selfish.
Some deep, possessive part of me decided she was mine, and what claim, I keep.
I was willing to risk my daughter believing I had turned into a cruel, unrecognizable version of myself, a father who could forget her mother and tie his life to the daughter of the man who destroyed ours. A man she would struggle to look at with respect. All for a woman who thought I hated her.
The irony was not lost on me.
My hand was still slick with blood when I reached for her again. She did not pull away. Her fingers trembled as I lifted her hand and this time she did not fight me.
I guided them to my chest, right over the wild beat beneath my skin.
I let her feel every heavy thud, every surge of adrenaline tearing through me, proof that she was not facing a monster.
She was facing the man who would burn for her.
“Feel that,” I said, my voice low. “That is what you do to me.”
“I give you my word today,” I continued, each word shaking loose from a place I never opened. “No harm will ever touch you. Anyone foolish enough to try would have to reach you through me first, and they will not. They would never dare, not when you
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Chapter 109. What I Claim, keep
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will be the wife of the man who rules this entire world.”
Her breath trembled, but she did not pull away.
“As my wife,” I continued, my pulse beating hard under her palm, “I will protect you with everything in me. My blood. My strength. My last breath if I have to.”
Her eyes widened at the vow, as if she could not decide whether to run or listen.
Then she whispered, barely audible, “Who protects me from you?”
I moved my hand and threaded my fingers into her hair. A streak of red trailed over one dark curl, marking her. Claiming her. Her lips parted as my thumb brushed her cheek.
“You do not need protection from me,” I murmured. “Pretty Doll, you need to understand me.”
Her breath hitched.
“Soon,” I leaned in closer, “you will open your heart to me. And when you do, you will see the truth. I am the one man who will never walk away from you.”
I meant every word. “So promise me you will not try that again.”
She stared at me as if she had never seen me before, shocked by the force of it, by the emotion I could not hide this time.
Seconds stretched. Then finally, she nodded.
“I promise.”
D
