Chapter 55: Chapter 55

\[ IRIS’S POV \]

The hallways were crawling with guards, but Dante’s security detail was different. As I slipped out of my room, I saw the Moretti men standing at the intersections. They didn't stop me. They didn't even acknowledge me. They simply stepped aside, their eyes fixed on the walls, as if I were a ghost they had been ordered to ignore.

He had cleared the path.

I made it to the service stairs and descended into the cold, damp air of the estate’s lower levels. The back gate was a mile away, tucked behind the overgrown rose gardens and the old stone chapel where my mother had been buried.

The night air was biting, smelling of frost and damp earth. I ran, my lungs burning, the silence of the garden magnified by the distant music of the gala. Every rustle of the leaves sounded like a footstep. Every shadow looked like a hand reaching out to grab me.

As I rounded the corner of the chapel, I saw it.

The gate was iron, heavy, and rusted from years of disuse. And standing in front of it, leaning against a matte-black SUV with the engine idling silently, was Salvatore.

He wasn't wearing his tuxedo jacket anymore. He was in a black tactical sweater, a holster visible at his hip. He looked like the version of himself from the secret room, the man who got his hands dirty so I didn't have to.

I slowed to a stop, ten feet away from him. My chest heaved.

"You came," he said. His voice was a low vibration that seemed to pull the very air out of my lungs.

"I have questions, Salvatore," I panted, clutching the key in my hand.

"The time for questions ended when you crossed the garden line, Iris." He straightened up, his eyes scanning the darkness behind me. "In five minutes, your father’s head of security will do his final rounds. In ten minutes, Sofia will realize you aren't in your room. If you’re going to step through this gate, you do it now."

"Where are we going? If you think I’m just moving from one cage to another…"

Salvatore moved so fast I didn't have time to flinch. He was in front of me, his hands cupping my face, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones with a ferocity that made me tremble.

"It is a cage, Iris," he whispered, his eyes dark with a terrifying honesty. "The whole world is a cage for a girl like you. But in my house, you’re the one who holds the keys. In your father’s house, you’re just the prize in the window. Choose."

I looked at the gate. Beyond it was the dark road that led away from the only life I had ever known. Behind me was the house where I was a shadow.

"Sofia will hate me for this, for taking you away from her," I whispered.

"Sofia will survive and I don't belong to her. She wants the Moretti name. I’ll give her a settlement that will keep her in diamonds for a lifetime. But I’m not giving her a husband." He leaned down, his lips brushing mine, a soft, devastating contact. "I’m giving that to you."

I closed my eyes and leaned into him. It was a surrender. A betrayal of my blood, my sister, and my sanity.

"Take me away," I whispered.

Salvatore didn't waste a second. He gripped my hand, pulled me to the passenger side of the SUV, and practically lifted me inside. He climbed into the driver's seat and threw the car into gear just as the first flashlight beams appeared near the chapel.

"Stay down," he commanded.

He didn't turn on the headlights until we were a mile past the estate. We drove in silence, the city lights beginning to flicker in the distance like fallen stars. I expected him to head toward the airport, or perhaps a hotel in Manhattan.

But as we hit the bridge, he turned north. Toward the mountains. Toward the Moretti stronghold, a place no Rossi had ever entered and returned from.

"Salvatore?" I asked, my voice small in the dark cabin.

"We aren't going to a hotel, Iris," he said, his eyes fixed on the road. The mask was back on. The cool, calculating Alpha. "And we aren't going to my father."

"Then where….."

"I’m taking you to my estate in the Catskills. It’s off the grid. No cameras I don't control. No guards who don't answer only to me." He glanced at me, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "Your father thinks he’s getting a merger. He’s about to realize he’s lost his only leverage."

"You kidnapped me, you can easily take me away without waiting for tonight. But just for the fun of it. You make it the engagement day. Are you not scared my father will not let your father leave the estate unshattered?”

Salvatore reached over and took my hand, his fingers interlaced with mine, his grip unbreakable.

"I’ve been stealing you for five years, Little Mouse. Tonight was just the first time I let you watch me do it. And my father already left with Anton so you don’t need to worry about him.”

What do I even expect from the Morettis? It was then that I realized Mira and Michael weren’t even at the party. It wasn’t even a party after all it was a game.

We drove into the heart of the mountains, the forest swallowing the road. Two hours later, we pulled up to a gate that made the Russo estate look like a playground. It was a fortress of glass and black stone, perched on the edge of a cliff.

Salvatore killed the engine. The silence was absolute.

"Welcome home, Iris," he said.

He walked around to my side and opened the door. But he didn't let me walk. He reached in and pulled me into his arms, carrying me across the threshold of the massive front doors.

He took me straight up the grand staircase, past rooms filled with art and shadows, until we reached the master suite. He set me down on the edge of a massive, velvet-covered bed.

"This is your room," he said.

"And yours?" I asked, my heart hammering.

Salvatore walked to the door and turned the lock. He took off his holster and tossed it onto a chair. Then, he started unbuttoning his shirt, his eyes never leaving mine.

"I told you, Iris. I don't bid. And I don't share. From tonight until the day I die, there is no 'mine' and 'yours.' There is only us. And the world can burn outside these walls for all I care."

He walked toward the bed, his shadow looming over me.

"Now," he whispered, reaching for the hem of my hoodie. "Let’s get you out of these Russo clothes. You’re a Moretti now. And it’s time you started acting like one."