Chapter 60 Chapter 60

Chapter 60 Chapter 60
\[ IRIS’S POV \]

The air in the room, once thick with a dark, seductive heat, suddenly turned ice-cold. My lungs felt like they were filling with glass. Every protective touch he had given me, every word of "safety" he had whispered, felt like a phantom stain on my skin.

I backed away, my heels hitting the edge of the bed as I nearly tripped. I didn't just push him; I recoiled as if his very presence was a flame.

"Don't touch me," I choked out. My voice didn't sound like mine. It was thin, brittle, and sharp.

Salvatore’s expression shifted instantly. The predator was back. He didn't look hurt; he looked lethal. He stepped toward me, his hand reaching out to steady me, but I flinched so violently he stopped mid-motion. His eyes dropped to the phone gripped in my white-knuckled hand.

“What is on the phone, Iris?” he spat, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “Tell me who fucking made you shake like that, and I swear I will kill every one of them.”

“Nothing…it’s just uh, people’s comment. It makes me feel like I took what   belongs to my sister you know.”

“I already told you.”

“I know what you said, Salvatore,” I said, cutting him off. “But no matter what you say I still feel guilty about leaving home. I want to be alone please. Can you give me space?”

He looked at me for a while and without saying a word he left me in the room.

\~~~~~~~~~~~~

I paced the master suite of Salvatore’s Catskills fortress. Sunlight filtered weakly through the glass walls, but it didn’t warm me. It only highlighted the way shadows pooled in the corners.

Dinner had been a quiet, tense affair. I ate mechanically, eyes flicking to the door every time it moved, waiting for him to reappear, to reclaim the morning in his calm, terrifying way. But Salvatore was gone, and with him, the suffocating security and the subtle, possessive energy that had both terrified and enthralled me.

And yet, I couldn’t breathe.

I had been silent for hours, letting the events of the last night press into me like waves against rocks. The gala, the SUV speeding into the mountains, the sudden abandonment of my life in the Russos’ estate, all of it spun in my mind. But one thought refused to leave: the text I had received in the morning. The one that had appeared just as I was coming to terms with Salvatore’s obsessive protection.

“I know where he took you. Don’t trust him. He didn’t save you—he’s the one who killed your mother.”

The words weren’t just a warning, they were a key turning in a lock I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. For five years, I had hidden the suspicion at the back of my mind. The circumstances surrounding my mother’s death had always been murky, a shadow that my father never illuminated. A car accident. Or maybe not an accident. I had whispered questions to no one, feared answers, and let grief become a quiet, constant companion.

But the message had reignited the spark of anger, of suspicion. My mother had been gentle, full of life and light, gone before I had fully grown into the world that my father wanted to mold me into. And now, the idea that Salvatore—my protector, my captor, the man who had stalked me, obsessed over me, and stolen me, could be the one responsible… It was unbearable.

I clenched the silver orchid tightly in my hand, the metal biting my skin. My chest rose and fell erratically. How could he? How could the man who had shown me a glimpse of safety, who had promised to protect me, also be the one who had taken the only person who had ever truly loved me from me?

I had to know. I had to confront him.

But how?

He had already demonstrated, in so many ways, that he controlled everything, the estate, my movements, even the morning sun that shone through the glass ceiling. How could I ask him that? How could I say the words without betraying every ounce of fear I had for him, and every shred of the fragile loyalty I felt toward the man who had, in his own brutal way, saved me from my father?

I tried to plan. I circled the bed like a caged animal, the hardwood floor creaking under my weight. I rehearsed phrases in my head.

“Did you… kill her?”

“Why did you let her die?”

“You have to tell me the truth.”

And then I froze. None of those phrases would work. Not with Dante. He didn’t answer questions. He answered obediently. He commanded, he controlled, he corrected. There was no room for uncertainty, no space for confrontation. And yet, the thought of living in this gilded cage without knowing the truth felt like poison.

I pulled the orchid from around my neck and held it in both hands, studying it. Fragile. Resilient. Beautiful. My mother had loved orchids. My mother had loved me. And the thought that  Salvatore…Salvatore—could have ripped her away from me while pretending to shield me, while pretending to protect me, made bile rise in my throat.

I sat on the edge of the bed, head in my hands. My heart thudded against my ribcage, a frantic beat I couldn’t control. My fingers traced the delicate petals of the orchid over and over. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to confront him with all the fury I had been bottling up for five years.

And yet, I couldn’t.

Because I was still trapped.

I was trapped in a house that he controlled. I was trapped under the shadow of a man who could kill with a whisper. I was trapped in the memory of my mother, knowing that asking for the truth could mean losing myself, or worse, confirming that the one person I might have trusted had destroyed the person I loved most.

I could hear him moving somewhere in the house. Footsteps, careful but deliberate. His presence was inescapable, even when I couldn’t see him. He was always watching, always anticipating. And now, he was the answer to the question I was terrified to ask.

I took a deep breath and rose to my feet, pacing again. I needed a strategy. Confronting him directly was suicidal. I needed leverage. I needed an angle. I needed… something.

I glanced around the room. Everything here was a statement. The closets were curated for me. The sketches of my childhood. The journals I had lost years ago. The orchid. It was all designed to make me feel at home, to make me feel powerless while simultaneously convincing me that I was free.

A cruel paradox.

I couldn’t act impulsively. I couldn’t storm into the living room and demand answers while Dante’s eyes burned into mine. But I could observe. I could wait. I could gather knowledge, like I always had. I had been surviving in my father’s house for years, careful and silent, and I could survive here, even if the stakes were higher.