Chapter 9: The Price of Blood

The scream tore through the velvet hush of the club like a blade through silk. My blood turned to ice.

Dante's hand shot out, shoving me behind him with brutal efficiency. "Stay. Here." The words were clipped, final—a command that brooked no argument. But I'd spent twenty-two years learning to survive men who thought they could tell me what to do.

I followed.

The hallway stretched before us, dark and endless, the crimson runner absorbing our footsteps. Dante moved with lethal grace, a predator tracking prey. When we reached the private lounge, the scene before us froze me mid-stride.

My sister. Elena.

She knelt in the center of the room, her blonde hair disheveled, mascara streaking down her cheeks in dark rivulets. A man I didn't recognize held a gun to her temple, his fingers tangled in her hair. Behind him, Marco Ricci—the man I'd thought was Dante's ally—watched with cold satisfaction.

"Aria." Elena's voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Let her go." The words came out steady, though my hands were shaking. "Whatever you want, take it from me."

Marco laughed, a sound like grinding glass. "Oh, we don't want anything from you, sweetheart. We want *him*." He gestured past me, and I felt Dante's presence at my back, a wall of tension and barely contained violence.

"Ricci." Dante's voice was dangerously calm. "You've made a very stupid mistake."

"Have I?" Marco circled Elena slowly, a vulture sizing up its meal. "You took everything from me—my territory, my men, my reputation. Now I'm taking something you actually care about." His gaze flicked to me, then back to Dante. "Though given how quickly you're willing to let her sister die, maybe I've miscalculated."

My heart seized. "What?"

"He doesn't care about you, Aria." Marco's smile was serpentine. "He's been using you to get to your father's empire. The marriage, the protection—all a game. The only question is whether he's willing to sacrifice your sister to win it."

I turned to face Dante. His expression was unreadable, his jaw tight. "Is that true?"

"Don't listen to him." His eyes never left Marco. "I'll get her out. Trust me."

*Trust me.* The words echoed in my skull, warring with every lesson my father had ever taught me. *Trust is a weapon they use against you. The only person you can rely on is yourself.*

"I don't even trust you to tell me the truth." My voice was barely a whisper.

Something flickered in Dante's eyes—pain? Guilt?—before his mask slipped back into place. "Aria, if you walk away from me right now, you sign her death warrant."

"He's right about one thing." Marco pressed the gun harder against Elena's temple, and she whimpered. "You have sixty seconds to decide. The girl's life, or your freedom from the monster who's been lying to you."

Elena's eyes found mine. "Go, Aria. Just go. Don't let him use me against you."

But I couldn't. She was all I had left. After our mother died, Elena had raised me, protected me, taken the beatings when I was too weak to defend myself. And now she was on her knees, paying for my choices.

I looked at Marco. Then at Dante. Two monsters wearing different masks.

"Fifty seconds."

My hand moved to the small of my back, where I'd hidden the knife Dante had given me—a gift, he'd said, for my protection. I'd never used it. I never thought I'd have to.

"Forty seconds."

Time fractured. I saw it all in pieces: Elena's trembling lips, Marco's smug grin, the glint of the gun, Dante's hands at his sides, ready to strike. But ready for what? To save me? To save her? Or to save himself?

"Thirty seconds."

The choice wasn't between trust and betrayal. It was between being the woman who waited to be saved and the woman who saved herself.

I chose.

My fingers closed around the knife's hilt. "You want to know what my father taught me?" I stepped forward, blocking Marco's view of Dante. "He taught me that the most dangerous weapon in any room isn't the gun in your hand. It's the empty space you leave when you move."

Marco's eyes narrowed. "What are you—"

I lunged.

Not at Marco. At the space between him and Elena. The knife winked in the dim light as I slashed across his wrist, forcing the gun away from my sister's head. His roar of pain was swallowed by a burst of chaos—Dante moving like shadow and death, his fist connecting with Marco's jaw, sending him sprawling.

I grabbed Elena's arm, hauling her to her feet. She collapsed against me, sobbing. "I'm sorry, Aria. I'm so sorry. They said they'd hurt you if I didn't—"

"Shh. It's okay. We're getting out of here."

Dante stood over Marco's crumpled form, breathing hard. "Is she—"

"She's fine." I kept Elena behind me. "We're leaving. Now."

"You can't just walk out of here, Aria. You need my protection."

"No." The word was steel. "I need my sister to be safe. And that means no more deals with devils who lie about what they want."

Something cracked in Dante's expression—a fissure in the marble of his control. "I never lied to you."

"Didn't you?" I grabbed Elena by the hand and pulled her toward the door. "Then tell me one truth while I'm walking away. Tell me you weren't using me to get to my father's empire."

Silence.

And that was all the answer I needed.

I left him there, standing over the bloodied man, his secret spilling across the floor like everything else he'd ever taken from me. Elena's hand trembled in mine as we hit the cool night air, the sirens in the distance growing louder.

"Aria, wait." Dante's voice rang out behind us. "If you run from me, you're running into his arms. Marco has men everywhere. You'll be dead by dawn."

I kept walking.

"Aria!"

I turned, just for a moment. "Then I'll die free."

The sound of his footsteps stopped. And I knew—I knew—this was the moment everything changed. The moment I stopped being the bride, the pawn, the vow he'd made to protect me.

I was now his enemy.

And as Elena clutched my arm, whispering that he was watching us, I felt the weight of his gaze follow me into the darkness. But what chilled me wasn't his betrayal.

It was the sound of Marco's voice, drifting through the open club doors behind us: "You should have let me kill her. Now she knows everything."

Everything.

But I didn't know what "everything" meant.

Not yet.