Chapter 4 The Night No One Will Ever Confess

• I still wasn’t used to Villa Selene—ancestral home of the Salvatores.
• More imposing than anything the Castellis ever owned.
• It had towering windows overlooking the lake, classical gardens, a subterranean library, a secret vault, an armory, a heated pool, and biometric security systems.
• Too big. Too quiet.
• Too perfect.
• It felt like living inside a photograph: nothing moved, nothing aged, nothing breathed.
• Except for him.
• Dante Salvatore.
• Every morning he appeared like clockwork—impeccably dressed, coffee in hand, wearing a look caught somewhere between disdain and duty.
• A ghost made of flesh and power.
• As CEO of Salvatore Holdings, he likely carried more responsibility than most monarchs.
• A man so private it became terrifying.
• The press only published what he allowed.
• God help the ones who tried to dig deeper.
• The first time I ever heard the name Salvatore was a year ago.
• I was looking for Ethan—he had promised to come to my graduation—and the door to his study hadn’t closed completely. I hovered in the hall, hesitating… until I heard them. Ethan and his father, cursing everyone who bore that surname like it was a plague.
• But I was never allowed to know anything about Ethan’s business, so I dismissed it back then.
• Now that memory returned with startling clarity.
• They’d said Salvatore Holdings was just a front—for tech and financial crimes.
• That Dante was trying to bring them down.
• Not that the Castellis were innocent doves themselves.
• Their payroll included corrupt politicians, police chiefs, and criminals who could chill your blood with a glance.
• Was Dante Salvatore a criminal too?
• We crossed paths at breakfast—brief, polite, wordless.
• Then he’d vanish for hours.
• Sometimes he returned late, his eyes darker than before.
• Other times… not at all.
• I never asked.
• Neither did he.
• Our marriage was theater.
• And actors don’t get to look behind the curtain.
• Though sometimes… rebellion stirred inside me.
• But I couldn’t afford to anger him.
• He was all I had in this country.
• Everything else… was back in Spain.
• That afternoon, however, something changed.
• Rain slammed against the glass like it wanted to be let in.
• I was in the library, reading by inertia, when I heard it.
• A sound that didn’t belong.
• A strangled cry.
• Low. Male.
• I stood up immediately.
• Followed the sound down the hall, to a door at the far end of the east wing.
• One I had never opened before.
• I didn’t know it was his study.
• I knocked.
• No answer.
• The door was slightly ajar.
• “Dante?” I called gently. “Are you okay?”
• Silence.
• I pushed the door open.
• And then I saw him.
• Not the man I thought I knew.
• He was on the floor, on a fur rug, no jacket, no tie, his shirt unbuttoned down to his chest.
• Sweating.
• Breathing heavily.
• His face twisted in either pain… or fury.
• A shattered glass beside him.
• Blood on his hand.
• Knuckles torn open.
• “What—” I stepped in, shocked. “What happened?”
• He looked at me.
• Took time to recognize me.
• Like it hurt to come back from wherever he’d just been.
• “Out,” he said.
• More command than request.
• “You’re bleeding.”
• “Not your problem.”
• “I’m your wife. Even if it’s just pretend. So yeah—it is my problem.”
• I stepped closer. “And I’m not leaving.”
• He clenched his jaw.
• The wound wasn’t too deep, but it ran across the bone.
• I knelt beside him without asking.
• My eyes searched for something—anything—to help.
• A towel lay on the sofa.
• “Do you have alcohol?”
• “Bar. Second drawer.”
• I went.
• Came back.
• Soaked the cloth.
• He didn’t stop me.
• When I took his hand, his body tensed—but he didn’t pull away.
• “Did you fight someone?” I asked, dabbing carefully.
• “Myself.”
• “And from the looks of it, you lost.”
• Dante let out a dry laugh.
• Not joy.
• A crack.
• His storm-grey eyes, still cold… but filled with pain.
• And it wasn’t physical.
• It was the kind that came from a soul in ruins.
• I would know.
• “Sometimes winning… hurts too,” he murmured.
• I dared to look closely at him.
• Dark, sweat-dampened hair fell in loose waves over his brow.
• Fair skin.
• An athletic frame—six foot two, maybe more.
• His profile tense, shadowed by exhaustion.
• Something in him was broken.
• Something old.
• “What do you do,” I asked, “when you can’t sleep?”
• “Work.”
• “And when work doesn’t help?”
• “I start wars. I drink. I punch walls. Sometimes I wake demons that should’ve stayed asleep.”
• Silence.
• Then he looked at me again.
• No longer with coldness.
• But with the kind of tired that makes your chest ache to witness.
• He lifted his uninjured hand toward me—then stopped midway.
• Regret flickered across his eyes and jaw.
• “And you, Zoe? What do you do when you can’t sleep?”
• “I blame myself.”
• “For what?”
• “For not leaving sooner.
• For not seeing who Ethan really was.
• For believing love was enough. That I could change him.”
• Dante closed his eyes.
• “Love doesn’t save you,” he said. “It only makes you weak.”
• “You always knew that?”
• “Yes.”
• He opened his eyes again.
• “Because love was the bullet they fired at me when I let my guard down.”
• I helped him up.
• His body heavy, pressing against mine.
• He smelled… intoxicating.
• He walked slowly.
• But pride never left his spine.
• I guided him to the sofa.
• He sat down.
• “Do you want to stay?” he asked.
• “Here?”
• “Yes.”
• “With you?”
• “I don’t want to talk. I just… don’t want to be alone tonight.
• When demons crawl out of hell, it’s better to be surrounded by an angel.”
• It wasn’t an order.
• It was the closest thing to a plea that had ever passed his lips.
• “And what if I’m not an angel?” I whispered.
• He raised an eyebrow.
• His gaze slid down my body—hot, devouring.
• “Then you’ll have to fake it… until you believe it yourself.”
• I sat beside him, facing the stone fireplace I hadn’t known this modern house even had.
• This room felt separate—cozier.
• More human.
• I liked it.
• I stayed.
• Didn’t touch him.
• Didn’t look at him.
• Just… stayed.
• And in that quiet we shared, I knew—this was one of those nights people never admit happened.
• The kind that changes everything, even if no one speaks it aloud.
• I fell asleep there.
• Didn’t even realize it.
• When I woke, it was almost dawn.
• Dante was gone.
• But on the table sat a folded blanket.
• And a glass of water.
• I should have returned to my sterile, magazine-perfect bedroom.
• But I didn’t.
• I curled deeper into the soft couch.
• I liked it here, I thought, as my eyes closed again.
• The next morning, everything resumed its usual rhythm.
• “There’s a dinner with investors tonight,” Dante said over breakfast.
• “Should I come?”
• “Yes. We go together.”
• “Any instructions?”
• “Just one.”
• I looked at him.
• “Make sure no one guesses what happened last night.”
• I kept my promise.
• Black fitted dress.
• High heels.
• Smoky eyeliner to make my green eyes burn.
• Deep red lips.
• My dark brown hair loose, cascading to the small of my back.
• My gaze, steel.
• I stared at my reflection, maybe hoping—selfishly—that Dante would notice the effort.
• But when I reached the end of the staircase… he didn’t.
• His indifference was more suffocating than Ethan’s arrogance ever was.
• I walked beside him like we owned the world.
• As if there wasn’t dried blood under his knuckles.
• As if there weren’t open wounds behind his silences.
• But inside me, something had shifted.
• I wasn’t just the hired wife.
• I didn’t just hate him because the contract said I should.
• Now…
• I was starting to understand him.
• And that understanding…
• was dangerous.
• Very dangerous.