Chapter 1 - The Forbidden Bedroom
Elena Brooks jerked awake and whispered, "Who has his arm around me?"
Dante Moretti opened his eyes as a silver pendant slipped from beneath the pillow.
Four tiny numbers had been scratched into the back.
This wasn't an accident.
Elena stopped breathing.
The arm around her waist belonged to a man whose face she had seen on magazine covers, charity-gala photographs, and whispered online stories that disappeared almost as quickly as they were posted.
Dante Moretti.
Thirty-four.
Owner of hotels, restaurants, shipping companies, and enough Manhattan real estate to make politicians return his calls.
The same Dante Moretti whom half the city described as a private billionaire and the other half described in lower voices.
Mafia boss.
Elena had never cared which version was true.
Until now.
His bare chest rose slowly beside her.
Black-and-gray tattoos covered his shoulder and upper arm. A wolf dominated the left side of his chest, its eyes almost hidden beneath the shadows of the room.
Elena looked down.
She was wearing the same ivory satin dress she had changed into after midnight when champagne had spilled over the black event suit she'd worn all day. Her robe was still tied. Her clothes were intact.
Nothing had happened.
That realization should have calmed her.
It didn't.
Because Dante Moretti's arm was still around her.
And she was inside the one bedroom everyone on his staff had been specifically forbidden to enter.
She remembered the night in broken pieces.
The Moretti Foundation winter gala had been the largest event Elena's company had ever handled.
Three hundred guests.
Forty-two staff members.
A string quartet.
Two celebrity chefs.
A twelve-foot floral installation that had arrived four hours late.
A senator who changed his seating request seventeen minutes before dinner.
Then the ballroom lighting system had failed.
Then a waiter dropped an entire tray of champagne beside the auction stage.
Then one of Dante's security men had ordered Elena to move several cases of emergency supplies from a corridor immediately because "Mr. Moretti doesn't tolerate clutter."
By 3:00 a.m., Elena had been awake for twenty-three hours.
She remembered searching the mansion for a quiet room where she could sit for five minutes.
She remembered opening a dark wooden door.
She remembered seeing a couch.
Then nothing.
Apparently, she hadn't reached the couch.
"Dante?"
Her voice barely existed.
His eyes opened.
Dark.
Alert instantly.
Not the eyes of a man waking naturally.
The eyes of someone trained never to sleep deeply.
He studied her face.
Then his gaze moved to where his arm rested around her.
For the first time, something almost resembling confusion crossed his expression.
Elena swallowed.
"I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding."
Dante removed his arm slowly.
"You're in my bed."
"I noticed."
"No one enters this room."
"I also noticed that part a little late."
His eyes narrowed.
Elena sat up quickly, pulling the black blanket against herself.
"I was exhausted. I thought this was a guest room. I must've sat down and fallen asleep."
Dante pushed himself upright.
"You climbed into my bed accidentally?"
"I've had worse weeks."
A faint twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Elena stared at him.
"Are you smiling?"
"No."
"You absolutely were."
The expression disappeared.
"You're very comfortable arguing with a man you're apparently afraid of."
"I'm an event planner. Last night I argued with a senator's wife over six inches of table placement. Fear is relative."
That almost earned another smile.
Then Dante looked past her.
His expression changed.
The silver pendant.
It lay between the pillows.
Elena followed his gaze.
"I didn't touch that."
Dante picked it up.
It was old, unlike everything else in the room.
A small round piece of silver hanging from a dark chain.
He turned it over.
Four numbers were scratched into the back.
Dante's jaw hardened.
"What?" Elena asked.
He closed his fist around it.
Before he could answer, footsteps approached outside.
Fast.
Several people.
Then the bedroom doors opened.
Elena nearly jumped out of her skin.
An elderly woman stood in the doorway.
She looked like royalty arriving to order an execution.
Dark-gray hair sculpted perfectly around her face.
Diamond earrings.
Black velvet robe embroidered with gold.
Behind her stood two men in black suits.
Both stopped when they saw the bed.
The elderly woman's mouth opened.
Her eyes traveled from Dante's bare chest to Elena's satin robe.
Then to the blanket.
Then back to Dante.
"Dante Alessandro Moretti."
Her tone could have cracked marble.
Elena moved immediately.
"It's not what it looks like."
The woman's eyes snapped toward her.
"Young woman, I don't know what it looks like yet."
"Mother," Dante said.
Mother.
Of course.
Elena wanted the floor to swallow her.
Dante's mother stepped into the room.
"I came because Marco told me your bedroom alarm registered an unauthorized entry at three seventeen this morning."
Elena closed her eyes briefly.
Fantastic.
There was an alarm.
The older woman continued.
"And now I find my son in bed with the event planner."
"Mrs. Moretti, I can explain."
"Can you?"
"No," Elena admitted. "Not in a way that sounds good."
One of the security men coughed suspiciously into his fist.
The older woman looked at him.
He became stone.
Dante climbed from the bed.
Elena immediately turned her face away even though he was wearing black lounge pants.
He picked up a shirt from a nearby chair.
His mother noticed the pendant in his hand.
Every trace of outrage disappeared from her face.
"What are you holding?"
Dante didn't answer.
"Dante."
He showed her.
The woman's face changed completely.
Fear.
Elena noticed.
So did both guards.
The taller one reached instinctively toward his jacket.
"What is going on?" Elena asked.
Dante's mother looked at her.
"When did you find that?"
"I didn't. It was under the pillow."
Dante turned toward Elena.
"It wasn't there last night."
"How do you know?"
"Because I check this room."
"Check it for what?"
No answer.
The atmosphere had changed.
This was no longer an embarrassing morning misunderstanding.
Something was wrong.
Dante walked toward the doorway.
"Lock the mansion."
The guards immediately moved.
Elena stared.
"Excuse me?"
Dante's mother stepped closer.
"Nobody leaves."
Elena swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
"I definitely leave."
"No," Dante said.
She looked at him.
"I have employees downstairs. I have invoices waiting. I have a rental company collecting furniture at ten. Whatever family drama this is, I'm not part of it."
Dante's eyes settled on her.
"You became part of it when someone put that pendant beneath the pillow while you were sleeping."
Elena's stomach tightened.
"Why would anyone do that?"
His mother answered.
"Because the numbers on it are a date."
Dante shot her a warning look.
She ignored him.
"July fourteenth."
Elena waited.
Nothing.
"What happened July fourteenth?"
Dante's mother went pale.
"My husband was murdered."
The room went silent.
Elena slowly looked at Dante.
His expression revealed nothing.
"Your father?"
Dante nodded once.
"Fifteen years ago."
Elena looked at the pendant.
"And that belonged to him?"
"No."
Dante's voice became colder.
"It belonged to the man who killed him."
A chill moved across Elena's arms.
She stood.
"I need to go."
Dante stepped between her and the door.
"You're safer here."
"That sentence has never made anybody feel safer."
"Someone entered this room while you were unconscious."
Elena froze.
"The alarm—"
"Records the first unauthorized entry."
His mother stared at him.
"Meaning Elena triggered it."
"Yes."
"So whoever came afterward knew the security code."
Elena's throat tightened.
Someone had been inside.
While she slept.
Perhaps while Dante slept beside her.
"Why were you in the bed?" she asked suddenly.
Dante's eyebrow moved.
"What?"
"If I fell asleep here first, why did you get into the bed?"
His mother looked interested now.
Dante didn't.
"I came in at four."
"And saw me."
"Yes."
"And instead of waking me—"
"You looked exhausted."
"So you just slept beside me?"
"I've slept beside armed men in warehouses."
Elena blinked.
"That doesn't make this explanation better."
His mother almost smiled.
Then one of the guards returned.
"Sir."
Dante turned.
The man's expression was grim.
"We checked exterior cameras. No breach."
"Interior?"
"There's a seventeen-minute blackout on the third floor."
Dante's face hardened.
"From?"
"Four forty-one to four fifty-eight."
Elena's pulse jumped.
She had been asleep.
So had Dante.
The guard continued.
"And someone accessed the staff manifest during that window."
Elena looked at him.
"What manifest?"
"The list containing full names, phone numbers, addresses, and emergency contacts for every contractor who worked tonight."
Her blood ran cold.
"My staff?"
The man nodded.
"Including you."
Dante took out his phone.
"Move everyone into the east ballroom until we clear them."
Elena stepped toward him.
"My people didn't sign up for this."
"Neither did you."
"Then let us go."
He looked directly at her.
"I can't."
His mother approached them.
"Dante, if the pendant means what we think—"
"It doesn't."
"You don't know that."
"What does it mean?" Elena demanded.
Neither answered.
She felt anger replacing fear.
"Stop talking around me."
Dante studied her.
Then he held out the pendant.
"Fifteen years ago, the man blamed for killing my father disappeared after the murder."
"Who?"
"Matteo Vescari."
His mother's face tightened at the name.
"Vescari's organization collapsed after that night," Dante continued. "At least officially."
Elena looked at the numbers.
"And the pendant?"
"It was identified in security footage from the murder scene."
"But how did it get here?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
A phone rang.
Not Dante's.
Elena's.
She looked toward the bedside table.
Her phone was there.
She didn't remember placing it there.
Her screen showed an unknown number.
Dante saw it.
"Don't answer."
Elena already had.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then breathing.
A man's voice said softly:
"Good morning, Elena."
Her spine went rigid.
"Who is this?"
Dante stepped closer.
The caller laughed.
"You look beautiful in Moretti's bed."
Elena turned toward the window instinctively.
Dante grabbed the phone.
"Who are you?"
The voice changed immediately.
"Ah."
A pause.
"The wolf is awake."
Dante's expression became lethal.
"If you know what's good for you—"
"I know exactly what's good for me."
The call ended.
Elena stared at the screen.
A message arrived.
One photograph.
She opened it.
Her hands went numb.
It showed her asleep in Dante's bed.
Taken from inside the bedroom.
Only hours ago.
Dante's mother whispered something in Italian.
The two security men drew their weapons.
Elena stared at the photograph.
Someone had stood only a few feet from her.
Watching.
Photographing.
Her phone vibrated again.
Another message.
THIS WOMAN BELONGS TO DANTE MORETTI NOW.
Elena looked at Dante.
"I don't belong to anyone."
His gaze shifted toward the doorway.
"I know."
His mother grabbed his arm.
"Dante, if they believe she's yours—"
He turned to her sharply.
But the damage was already done.
Elena understood.
Enemies.
Someone had marked her as leverage.
She stepped backward.
"This is insane. Tell them I'm not with you."
Dante's mother looked toward the guards.
Then toward Elena.
Her voice dropped.
"That might make it worse."
"Why?"
"Because they now know you saw the pendant."
Elena stared.
"So what exactly am I supposed to do?"
Dante didn't hesitate.
"Stay beside me until I know who's watching you."
"Absolutely not."
A crash sounded downstairs.
The guards moved instantly.
Then an alarm began screaming through the mansion.
Dante grabbed Elena and pulled her behind him.
One guard spoke into his radio.
"Report."
Static.
Then:
"North gate breach."
Dante's mother went pale.
"Already?"
Another security man appeared at the end of the hallway.
He ran toward them.
"Mr. Moretti, we've got press outside."
Dante frowned.
"Press?"
"Dozens of them."
"What are they doing here?"
The guard looked at Elena.
"Someone anonymously leaked a story ten minutes ago."
Elena's stomach sank.
"What story?"
The guard hesitated.
Dante's voice sharpened.
"Say it."
"That Mr. Moretti secretly spent the night with his fiancée."
Silence.
Elena stared at Dante.
"I'm sorry. His what?"
Dante's mother looked suddenly thoughtful.
Too thoughtful.
Elena pointed toward the door.
"Fix it."
Dante's gaze remained on her.
Outside, camera flashes began flickering beyond the mansion gates.
His enemies already believed she mattered.
The press now believed she was his secret lover.
Correcting the story would identify her as an innocent civilian.
A disposable witness.
Dante seemed to reach the same conclusion.
His mother whispered:
"Dante."
He made the decision.
Elena saw it in his eyes before he spoke.
"No statement denying it."
She stared.
"Excuse me?"
He stepped closer.
"For now, you are exactly what they said."
Elena shook her head.
"No."
The bedroom door suddenly slammed open.
A guard stood there holding another phone.
His face had lost all color.
"Sir, there's a live video playing on every screen downstairs."
Dante turned.
"Of what?"
The guard swallowed.
"Miss Brooks."
Elena's phone vibrated again.
A live-stream link appeared.
She pressed it.
The image showed Elena herself standing in Dante's bedroom.
Right now.
Filmed from somewhere inside the room.
She slowly raised her eyes.
May you like
The camera was still watching them.
And then the bedroom closet door clicked open from the inside.
