Chapter 4 · The Midnight Checkpoint

"Cut it, then."

My voice came out steadier than my knees.

Dante Ferrara was close enough that I inhaled him—cedar, black coffee, cold gun oil. His knuckle grazed my collarbone, index finger hooked through the ribbon at my corset.

He didn't move.

Neither did I.

The suite was dead quiet. Soundproofed, he'd told me in the back of the town car, like that was supposed to make me sleep easier. Black marble floors. Iron lattice bolted across the terrace glass. One bedside lamp throwing sharp shadows across his cheekbones.

And six inches under my wedding silk, strapped against my inner left thigh, a six-inch stiletto was biting into skin every time I drew breath.

He couldn't know it was there. He couldn't.

"You think I'm bluffing," he said. His voice was low, gravel scraped over velvet.

"I think you've been waiting all damn night to put hands on the collateral." I tilted my chin up, meeting those slate-gray eyes. "Go on. Do it. Just don't expect me to make it easy."

A muscle ticked along his jaw. Not an irritation tick. A hunter seeing game bolt toward the snare.

He pulled.

Just an inch. Slow. deliberate. The cord ripped over bare skin, burning my ribs, before the front of the ivory gown went slack.

I slammed my forearm against my sternum before the bodice could spill open.

Heat crawled up my throat, red and hot. Dante tracked it with his eyes, taking his sweet time, letting me know he caught every stutter of my breath.

"There she is," he murmured.

The phone on the nightstand buzzed.

Once. Twice. Short, angry vibrations against marble.

Dante didn't flinch. Then the wall intercom clicked alive, static popping before a woman's clipped voice cut through the dark.

"Boss. South checkpoint. Camera three. You need to look at this now."

Dante held my gaze for one second longer. A challenge, pure and dirty. Then he let the silk lace drop and stepped toward the mounted monitor by the double doors.

*Move,* my head screamed. *Reach under the skirt. Draw the steel.*

My feet stayed glued to the rug.

I looked at the screen instead.

Headlights cut through thick river fog outside the estate gate. An idling black Suburban, exhaust curling into the damp chill. Two men stood under the amber security lamps, hands flat on the hood.

The man on the left wore an Italian camel-wool coat I knew by heart.

Nico.

My uncle's driver. The guy who used to slide me lemon drops when I was eight and hide me in the garage when my father was throwing bottles.

My stomach plunged through the floor.

"Katia," Dante said into the wall unit. "What do they want?"

"They claim Salvatore sent them." A pause, tense and heavy. "They want proof the bride is still breathing."

A harsh breath hitched in my chest. Proof. Salvatore had walked me down that cathedral aisle six hours ago with tears in his eyes, kissing my knuckles and whispering that I was saving the family from ruin.

Now his shooters were at the gate asking if I was dead.

"Patch the gate mic into this feed," Dante ordered. "Let them hear my voice."

"Wait." The word tore out of my mouth before I could bite it down.

Dante's head turned. Just his head. His eyes went flat, calculating.

I was standing there clutching my own half-shucked wedding dress to my chest like an idiot, and I'd just barked an order at the capo running half of Chicago.

"Don't," I said, dropping my tone. "Don't tell them a damn thing."

His brows drew together. "Why?"

"Because he's not checking if I'm breathing." Copper flooded my tongue. I tasted my own lip where I'd bitten it raw during the vows. "He's checking to see if you took me to bed. If you touched me, the alliance holds. If you left me alone, you broke faith first. He gets an excuse to breach the line."

Dante didn't blink. "Breach the line."

"He wants the war back on," I whispered. "He wants blood on your lawn tonight. Give him that radio, and you give him the green light."

Silence stretched between us, thick and brittle. The air felt thin. Dante looked at me—really looked at me—like he was peeling back skin to see what made the gears turn.

"Smart girl," he said.

"Don't sound shocked."

"I'm not." He reached out and thumbed the intercom button. "Katia. Tell them she's asleep in my bed. Tell them the sheets are ruined, the deal is closed, and if Salvatore wants to look at my wife, he can bring an army to ask for her."

"Understood, boss."

The monitor clicked black.

My ribs burned where I was holding the fabric pinned. For half a heartbeat, something stupid and soft flared behind my ribs. Relief. Like this killer had actually stepped between me and my uncle's wolves.

Then Dante turned toward me, and that relief choked out instantly.

"You flinched when that camel coat showed up on screen," he said. He took one step back toward the bed.

"I know him. That's all."

"He's your uncle's pet. You thought about running out to him."

"I didn't—"

"Don't lie to me, little bride." He wasn't rushing. He stalked like a wolf that already owned the perimeter. "Five miles of fog out there, and the first time you see a Moretti flag, you want to crawl back into the kennel."

"That's not my home!" The words ripped out of me, sharp and ragged. "I don't have one! Your family burned that to the ground three years ago!"

Dante halted.

The room went dead again. My mother's name hovered between us, unsaid, toxic as poison gas. *Your orders. Your men.* I'd spent six months imagining this exact second—saying it with three inches of steel pressed under his jawline, not half-naked and shaking like a leaf.

His gaze dropped.

Not to the exposed curve of my shoulder.

Straight to my left thigh.

Cold sweat broke along my spine.

"Dante."

"Mm?"

"Don't."

"You've had your weight leaned on your right heel since you walked through that door," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Protecting the left. You're favoring it."

He knew.

He pivoted smoothly toward the nightstand, slid the heavy drawer open, and pulled two things out.

A matte-black Glock.

And a small, heavy brass key.

He didn't hurry. He came straight at me with both.

I stepped back. The black marble frame of the bed slammed against the back of my knees, trapping me cold.

Before I could drop my gown and reach for the garter sheath, his hand shot out. Fingers clamped around my left wrist like iron handcuffs. He twisted my arm out, flipped my palm up, and slapped the brass key into my skin hard enough to sting.

Then he brought the steel up.

The cold barrel of the Glock shoved right between my ribs. Hard. Right against the silk and whalebone, directly over the spot where my heart was going crazy.

He leaned in until his lips brushed the curve of my ear. His breath was scorching against my cold skin.

"That key unlocks the outer terrace gate," he whispered, the metal boring deeper into my sternum. "Past those bars, there's a forty-foot drop onto jagged breakwater, then freezing lake water. Thirty-four degrees tonight."

My fingers curled around the key. The brass was still warm from his palms.

"Turn the lock and run, killer," Dante whispered, his thumb clicking the Glock's safety off. "Let's see how far you swim."