Page 114 of Ruthless Desire

And now, the one person I thought would protect me, had sold me to Dante for nothing more than a pitiful sum of money. The revelation shreds my heart, each beat a lacerating reminder of the trust that's been brutally violated.

Dante watches me with that dark, possessive intensity, his gaze never wavering as I crumble under the weight of my father's betrayal. Every promise, every memory of paternal love, it all shatters into irreparable shards, the jagged edges slicing me to ribbons.

The man who was supposed to be my guardian, my fiercest protector, had auctioned my soul to the highest bidder without a second thought. Bile scorches my throat, the acrid taste of disillusionment coating my tongue like ashes.

I look back at my father, really seeing him for the first time. Not through the rose-tinted lens of a little girl desperate for affection, but with the cold clarity of a woman betrayed. He's a coward, a man willing to sacrifice his daughter's freedom for his own miserable gain.

The sorrow in his eyes, the broken pleading...it does nothing to mend the gaping wound he's carved into the very fabric of my being. His apologies ring hollow, his regret as meaningless as dust in the wind.

All that remains is the stark, inescapable truth—I am utterly alone in this cruel world, adrift without anchor. Except...except for the monstrous man who stands beside me, claiming to love me in his twisted, all-consuming way.

Dante steps closer, the heat of him searing my chilled skin. His hand cups my face with an almost tender possession, his touch branding me to the bone. "Do you see now, Natalie?" he murmurs, his voice a low, seductive rasp that curls around my senses like smoke. "You belong to me. No one else has ever loved you as I do."

His words wrap around me like chains, shackling me to his dark truths. As grotesque and depraved as Dante's love may be, he has never pretended to be anything other than what he is—a beast, a demon, a man forged in blood and shadow. He has shown me the fathomless depths of his obsession, his primal need to possess every inch of my mind, body and soul.

And in this moment, with the last of my delusions ripped away, his unrelenting devotion to our twisted bond is the only constant I can cling to. The rest is shifting quicksand, eager to drag me under.

But then Dante's expression shifts, a flicker of feral fury igniting in those obsidian eyes. "You compared me to him," he snarls, his grip on my face tightening to just shy of painful. "You dared to put me in the same wretched breath as that pathetic excuse for a man."

My pulse stutters, rabbit-quick, the acrid tang of fear coating my tongue. "Dante, I didn't mean—"

He cuts off my protests with a harsh, dismissive slash of his free hand. "Do you think I'm like him, Natalie? Do you think I would ever betray you as he has? Sell you out for a fistful of fucking cash?" The words drip venom, caustic and searing.

"No, of course not! I know you would never—"

Dante releases me with a brutal shove, the loss of his scorching touch like a physical blow. He looms over me, his eyes wild, burning with a light that borders on insanity.

"Then prove it," he hisses, the challenge in his voice as heavy and inexorable as a death knell. "Choose, Natalie. Right here, right now.. You can die alongside your spineless, worthless father...or you can take your rightful place at my side. Decide."

The ultimatum hangs in the air between us, a crushing weight that steals the breath from my lungs. The last gossamer threads of my past stretch taut, fraying, snapping one by one until only the bleak promise of Dante's future remains.

I glance at my father, bound and trembling. Broken. Pathetic. Something inside me withers, blackens, turns to frost in my veins. Any lingering shreds of love, of loyalty, crumble to ash on my tongue.

There is no salvation for this miserable creature. No path to redemption for the man who tore my whole world down with his greed and weakness.

In that moment of icy, diamond-hard clarity, I make my choice. Dante is my north star, my one fixed point in the chaos. The only one who truly sees me, knows me, loves me in his cruel and uncompromising way.

I meet his waiting gaze, unflinching. Resolute. "Do it," I command, my voice powerful and sure despite the tempest raging inside me. "Kill him."

Triumph blazes across Dante's features, fierce and resplendent. Pride, dark and hungry, glitters in his eyes as he takes me in—his masterpiece, his corrupted queen—and gives a single, sharp nod to his waiting men.

The gunshot cracks through the charged air like thunder, echoing in the hollows of my bones.

But I don't flinch. I don't turn back to witness the ruin I've wrought with two simple words.

I have no need. The frail, treacherous man who raised me is no more. My father broke my heart...so I stopped his.

Chapter 32 Dante

She chose me.

I watch her, my dark queen, as she stands over her father's body. The air is thick with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid scent of gunpowder. Natalie's eyes, once soft with innocence, now gleam with a newfound darkness that makes my black heart sing.

"She chose me," I whisper to myself, the words a prayer and a curse rolled into one.

Natalie turns to me, her face a mask of cold determination. "He was weak," she says, her voice husky with emotion. "Unworthy of my loyalty."

Pride surges through me, hot and vicious. This is the woman I've been cultivating, the deadly flower I've nurtured in the shadows of my empire. I cross the room in three long strides and crush her to my chest.

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