Chapter 1 - The Weight of Silence
The antiseptic smell hit me before I opened my eyes.
Not a hospital. Too quiet. Too expensive. The sheets beneath me felt like cool water against my skin, and the dull, rhythmic throb in my back told me exactly why I was lying face-down on someone else’s bed.
“Don’t try to sit up, Elena. You’ll pull the stitches.”
I stiffened. The voice was low, unhurried, and entirely too comfortable speaking my name.
Dante Moretti sat in a leather chair in the corner, swirling a glass of scotch like he had nowhere more important to be. His jacket was gone. His shirt was open at the collar. He looked like a man who owned the silence around him.
“Where am I?” I managed.
“My house,” he said. “One of them. You’ve been out for thirty hours.”
I blinked at the ceiling. Thirty hours. My double shift. The crash of the chandelier. The small boy with dark curls frozen underneath it. My arm shooting out before my brain caught up with the decision.
“Your son,” I said. “Is he—”
“Fine,” Dante said, and something in his voice changed slightly. “Because of you.”
I let out a slow, shallow breath, wincing as the movement pulled tight against the gauze taped across my shoulder blade. I was just a waitress working two jobs to keep my head above water in a city that chewed people like me up for breakfast. Dante Moretti, on the other hand, was a name whispered in high-rise boardrooms and dark alleyways alike—a man whose shadow stretched across half of Manhattan.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” I murmured, testing the strength in my limbs. “I need to get home. My rent is due, and my manager is going to fire me for no-showing.”
Dante took a slow sip of his scotch, his dark eyes never leaving my face. “Your manager won’t be firing you, Elena. In fact, that diner has new ownership as of this morning. You’re retired from waiting tables.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “You bought my diner?”
May you like
“I bought the building,” he corrected smoothly, standing up from the chair. He crossed the room with the silent, predatory grace of a big cat, stopping just beside the bed. Up close, the intensity of his gaze was staggering. “You took a heavy brass chandelier in the back for a boy you didn't even know. In my world, actions have weight. Debts are paid. And right now, you belong under my roof until you heal.”
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