PART 2
Dante moved so quickly that my eyes could not follow him.
One moment, he stood perfectly still.
The next, his hand had closed around Marcus’s wrist.
He did not bend it.
He did not break it.
He simply applied enough controlled pressure to make Marcus suck in a sharp breath.
“You will never speak to her again,” Dante said, every word polished and dangerous as the edge of a knife. “You will not go near her. You will not contact her through friends or relatives. You will not wait across from her apartment and pretend your presence is accidental.”
His grip remained steady.
“You will become nothing more than a memory she no longer needs to survive.”
Marcus stared at Dante.
So did everyone else in the ballroom.
Then Marcus nodded.
The movement was barely visible.
Small.
Degraded.
Terrified.
Security pulled him toward the exit.
His expensive shoes slid against the polished floor, forcing him to stumble as they escorted him away.
Marcus no longer resembled a powerful man.
He looked like someone who had spent years pretending to be a wolf—only to discover what real teeth looked like.
The ballroom doors closed behind him.
Only then did the room seem to breathe again.
The musicians cautiously resumed playing.
Conversations returned in scattered, uneasy whispers.
Servers began moving among the tables as though nothing unusual had happened, because people like us were trained to make other people’s disasters invisible.
But I remained frozen.
My fingers were still locked around the stem of an empty champagne glass.
Dante turned toward me.
At close range, he seemed even more intimidating.
It was not merely because he was tall.
It was not the faint scar crossing one eyebrow or the way the men surrounding him waited for commands he never needed to speak aloud.
It was the intensity of his attention.
When Dante Caruso looked at me, it felt as though the entire ballroom had disappeared into darkness and I was the only person left beneath the light.
“Did he hurt you?” Dante asked.
I shook my head.
“No.”
His gray eyes held mine.
“Are you lying?”
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