Chapter 6 A Kiss Meant for War
Isabella POV
Dante led me up the staircase without a word. His presence filled the narrow hallway, his shoulders nearly brushing the walls as he guided me toward a room on the second floor. “Michael left clothes for you on the bed,” he said quietly as he opened the door. He didn’t step inside. Didn’t wait. Didn’t look back. He simply turned away, dismissing me as if the conversation were already over.
My confusion only deepened. “I thought you were planning to kill me.”
He paused, turning slowly. He was still shirtless his shirt and jacket had been soaked through with his own blood. Even injured, he looked carved from something stronger than stone.
He was massive. Tall enough to feel like a wall, dangerous enough to make the air feel charged.
The only soft part of him was his eyes those unreal blue eyes. They didn’t match the violence in his posture or the cruelty in his voice. They were too warm, too beautiful, far too gentle to belong to a man built on vengeance. Maybe he got them from his mother. His father didn’t deserve them.
He lifted a brow. “Looking forward to it?”
“I just want to know what’s happening.”
A part of me small, desperate still hoped he would change his mind. I was twenty-three. I wasn’t supposed to die yet. And my parents… they’d already endured enough. Losing their only daughter might break them beyond repair.
His voice was ice. “A perfect death takes planning.”
He turned and walked away, the muscles in his back shifting beneath his skin like living armor. The spine down the center of his back was framed by sculpted muscle on both sides, moving with dangerous grace.
Despite everything the kiss in the van, the bruises on my wrists he hadn’t forced himself on me. If he intended to, he would have done it already.
I stepped inside the room and closed the door. It didn’t lock not even a useless latch. Clearly, this was where his prisoners stayed. The room was bare except for a bed, a nightstand, and a single window.
No bars. No escape.
Just a reminder that even if I ran, I’d freeze or disappear into the black wilderness long before I found help.
I folded onto the bed, dragging my knees to my chest. With no one watching, the tears finally stung.
Mama…
The truth about her past had hit me like a punch to the ribs.
My mother had been taken. Violated. Kept prisoner. Brutalized just as my aunt had been. She must have suffered endlessly until my father saved her. They had always been secretive about where they met, their history shadowed in silence.
Now I knew why.
And now I was here.
History threatening to repeat itself.
If Dante killed me, it would hollow them out the way his family had once been hollowed.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Dante Moretti was a man who followed through. His reasons for murdering me were twisted, unfair but real to him. He wanted me to suffer because pain was currency in this world. And killing me quickly? Too easy. Too kind.
He would make it slow.
Cruel.
Memorable.
I thought about that kiss in the van the one that came after I shot him. It made no sense. I’d aimed for his heart, and he answered with his mouth on mine, like violence aroused him.
Maybe it did.
Maybe seducing him was the only card I had left.
Sex was sex. I wasn’t a virgin. If giving him my body meant walking out of this mountain alive, I could swallow the shame. Protect my mind, protect my future, protect my parents.
Darkness crawled across the window as the night dragged on. I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep. I kept my eyes open, watching the door like prey expecting the predator.
If he came to kill me I needed to be awake.
If he came to fuck me I needed to be awake too.
But nothing happened until the morning came.
Dante opened the door without knocking. He stepped in like he owned the air itself. His gaze slid over me still sitting upright against the headboard, wearing the same clothes, my hair a tangled mess, no sleep in my eyes.
He was dressed now in dark jeans and a black shirt that stretched across his chest. His bright eyes made the rest of him look even more dangerous.
“You stayed up all night?” he asked.
I folded my arms, meeting his stare. “The door doesn’t lock.”
“And you think a lock would stop me?” He crossed his arms, head tipping just slightly to the side.
“It would at least warn me.”
“And if I walked in here with a knife, you’d fight me off?”
I straightened. “I’d fight like hell.”
For a second just a second his eyes softened, the way they always did when something about me amused him.
“I respect that,” he said quietly. “If you weren’t a Conti, I might actually like you.”
“If you weren’t Moretti’s son, I’d still hate you.”
His lips curved. “You’ve got a sharp mouth. I liked kissing it.”
I wasn’t going to lie not to myself, not to him. I’d enjoyed it too. That didn’t mean I wanted him. It meant he was dangerous in a way that got under skin, even when I didn’t want him there.
“I’m surprised you didn’t force yourself on me last night,” I said.
His head tilted farther, expression unreadable. “Did you want me to?”
My voice snapped like a whip. “No. But you kissed me, so I assumed that was next.”
“It was just a kiss, Isabella. Don’t overthink it.” He stepped closer, jaw freshly shaved, smelling faintly of clean soap and smoke. If I met him anywhere else, if I didn’t know his name, his bloodline, his intentions my body would have reacted before my mind did. I’d have wanted him. Wanted him badly.
But this wasn’t that world.
And he wasn’t that man.
“Why did you kiss me?” I asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“I shot you. I expected rage. Not that.”
He stood so close the mattress dipped under his weight. “I thought it was hot. Most women flinch at guns. You didn’t. You pulled the trigger without blinking. You wanted me dead.” His voice dropped lower. “And I want a woman who wants to kill me. I respect it.”
“I still want you dead,” I said evenly.
His smile deepened. “And that… I like even more.”
His gaze swept down my body slow, deliberate. Down my neck, across my chest, lower to my bare thighs. Every second he watched me made the air grow thicker, charged with something I wasn’t ready to name.
He was waiting.
Almost like he wanted me to choose.
“You’re not going to rape me,” I whispered.
His eyes sharpened, a flicker of something unreadable passing through them.
“Why?” I pressed. “Why won’t you?”
He didn’t answer. Just turned away, hand on the door.
“I’ll be back for you in an hour.”
And then he was gone.