Bianca’s Pov

I knew my father was coming before anyone told me.

The house changed its rhythm.

It was subtle. Quieter, but sharper somehow. Conversations stopped when I entered the rooms. The guards doubled near the front gates. Even Lucia moved differently, her usual efficiency tightened into something cautious.

I didn’t ask why.

By then, I knew better.

It was late afternoon when Dante came for me. Not physically. He sent a message through the house, the way he did everything indirect, controlled.

“He’s here,” Lucia said, standing in my doorway.

My heart jumped so hard it hurt.

“Who?” I asked, even though my mouth had already gone dry.

She hesitated just long enough to answer honestly. “Your father.”

I stood too fast. The chair tipped backward, hitting the floor with a sharp crack. Lucia flinched. I didn’t apologize.

“He came to get me,” I said.

Lucia’s face didn’t change. “He came to speak.”

“With who?”

She met my eyes. “Not you.”

That should have been the first warning.

They didn’t let me go to the main sitting room. Instead, I was taken to a smaller one overlooking the sea, glass walls stretching from floor to ceiling. It felt like a compromise. Close enough to witness. Far enough to control.

I paced.

Every thought in my head tangled into another. Relief fought with suspicion. My father had always been weak, but he was still my father. He wouldn’t leave me here. He couldn’t.

The door opened quietly.

Dante stepped in alone.

“He asked to see you,” Dante said.

My chest loosened. “See? Or take it?”

Dante didn’t answer right away. He crossed the room and stopped near the window, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed on the horizon.

“You can listen,” he said finally. “But you don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

I bristled. “I’m not a child.”

“No,” he agreed. “Children are protected.”

The words stung.

Before I could respond, voices carried from the adjacent room. The wall between us wasn’t solid stone. It was glass layered with soundproofing except someone had left a narrow channel open.

On purpose.

My father’s voice came first.

Low. Nervous. Familiar.

“I appreciate you agreeing to meet,” Lorenzo Valenti said. “This whole situation has been… unfortunate.”

I closed my eyes.

“That’s one word for it,” Dante replied calmly.

“I think we can come to an understanding,” my father continued. “My daughter is young. Uninvolved. She doesn’t belong in this world.”

I stepped closer to the glass.

“She was involved the moment you signed her name away,” Dante said.

A pause.

“She’s my daughter,” my father said. “I want her back.”

I sucked in a breath, relief flooding me so fast my knees went weak.

Dante’s response was quiet. “And what are you offering in return?”

The silence that followed stretched too long.

I opened my eyes.

“I can make it worth your while,” my father said carefully. “There are assets. Inheritance arrangements. Bianca’s trust. Future loyalty.”

The relief drained out of me.

“You don’t have trust,” Dante said.

“Not yet,” my father replied. “But Bianca will. She’s the sole beneficiary on her mother’s side. Once certain conditions are met, everything transfers to her.”

My stomach twisted.

I hadn’t known that.

“I can sign over her rights,” my father continued. “Give you legal authority. Full discretion. In exchange, my remaining debts disappear.”

I pressed my hand to the glass to steady myself.

He wasn’t here to save me.

He was here to sell me again.

Dante didn’t speak immediately. I imagined him watching my father the way he watched me silent, assessing, already five steps ahead.

“You’re offering me something I already own,” Dante said at last.

My father laughed nervously. “Ownership is a strong word.”

“In my world,” Dante replied, “it’s an accurate one.”

“I’m trying to protect her,” my father said quickly. “She doesn’t understand the danger she’s in.”

“She understands perfectly,” Dante said.

“You just never taught her how to avoid it.”

I felt something crack inside my chest.

“She’s innocent,” my father insisted.

“Innocence doesn’t survive transactions,” Dante said flatly.

There was a scraping sound. A chair moving.

“So this is about pride?” my father snapped. “You took her to prove a point?”

“No,” Dante said. “I took her because you would have killed her slowly.”

The words hit like a punch.

“What?” my father demanded.

“Debt,” Dante continued evenly. “Failure. Panic. You would have sold her piece by piece until there was nothing left worth keeping.”

“That’s not…”

“Get out,” Dante said.

Silence.

“I’m not finished,” my father said weakly.

“You are,” Dante replied. “If you try to negotiate with her again, you won’t leave my property alive.”

My heart was hammered.

Footsteps approached the door. I backed away instinctively, wiping my face before anyone could see the tears.

The door opened.

My father walked in first.

He looked smaller than I remembered. Older. His suit hung wrong on his frame. His eyes darted around the room until they landed on me.

“Bianca,” he said, relief and guilt colliding in his voice. “You’re okay.”

I didn’t move.

“I tried,” he said quickly. “I really did.”

I stared at him. “You tried to trade me.”

He flinched. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand everything,” I said quietly.

Dante entered behind him.

“Time’s up,” Dante said.

My father turned to him. “She’s my blood.”

“And you’re her liability,” Dante replied.

My father looked back at me, desperation creeping into his expression. “Tell him you want to come home.”

I swallowed.

Home.

The word felt foreign.

I looked at Dante. He didn’t look at me. He waited.

The choice was mine.

“I want to live,” I said.

My father’s face crumpled.

Dante nodded once. “Then we’re done.”

Two men appeared at the doorway. My father didn’t resist when they took his arms. He just kept looking at me like he was waiting for forgiveness.

I didn’t give it.

When they were gone, the room felt hollow.

“You let him leave,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You could’ve killed him.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Dante turned to me then. “Because he already did enough damage.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “You enjoy this.”

“No,” he said. “I'll endure it.”

“That’s worse.”

He didn’t argue.

I sank into the chair by the window, legs weak, mind numb.

“He never came for me,” I whispered.

Dante didn’t correct me.

That night, I stood on the balcony long after the sun went down, watching the sea crash against the cliffs below.

I wasn’t waiting to be rescued anymore.

I was learning something else.

No one was coming.

And if I wanted out of this, I would have to take it myself.

CHAPTER SIX

The Ghost

Bianca’s Pov

After my father left, the house felt different.

Not quieter. Not louder either. Just… heavier. Like something had been dragged through it and left a mark no one wanted to talk about. Even the air felt thicker, harder to move through.

No one checked on me that night.

Lucia didn’t come. No tray. No questions. The guards stayed where they always were, distant silhouettes at the edges of halls. Dante didn’t appear either. That unsettled me more than his presence ever had.

I ate alone in my room, picking at food I couldn’t taste. My thoughts kept circling back to the way my father had looked at me relieved to see I was alive, desperate to leave me anyway. I didn’t cry. I felt hollow instead, like something essential had finally finished breaking.

Sleep came in fragments.

I dreamed of the cathedral doors blowing open again, but this time I was the one pulling the trigger. I woke with my heart racing, fingers clenched into the sheets like I’d been holding onto something real.

Morning came gray and slow.

I didn’t wait for permission.

I left my room and started walking.

The estate was quieter during the day. Less movement. Less noise. I took corridors I hadn’t explored yet, ignoring the subtle shifts that told me someone had noticed. No one stopped me. That worried me.

The locked wing sat at the far end of the west hall.

I’d passed it before. Always dismissed it as storage or something private. Now, after everything I’d overheard, it pulled at me like a loose thread.

The door wasn’t visibly different. Same wood. Same handle. The only thing that gave it away was the faint hum of an alarm system layered beneath the silence.

I stood there longer than I meant to.

“Don’t,” a voice said behind me.

I didn’t turn. “So it’s real.”

“Yes.”

Dante’s voice was closer than I expected. Not angry. Controlled. But there was something tight under it.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“You already know.”

“No,” I said. “I suspect.”

“That’s enough.”

I turned then. He stood a few steps away, arms crossed, watching me like I was standing at the edge of something deep.

“She was your sister,” I said.

His jaw tightened. “Stop.”

“She looks like me,” I pressed. “That’s not a coincidence.”

Silence stretched between us.

Finally, he exhaled slowly. “You shouldn’t have noticed that.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He stepped closer. “Curiosity keeps people alive. It also gets them killed.”

“Which one am I?” I asked.

His eyes met mine, dark and unreadable.

“Undecided.”

I should have walked away. I knew that. But something inside me was already past caring.

“I want to see it,” I said.

“No.”

“You said I wasn’t locked in.”

“I said you weren’t imprisoned.”

I laughed under my breath. “You really enjoy technicalities.”

“They keep things from falling apart.”

I stared at the door again. “If I walk away now, will you ever let me see it?”

“No.”

That settled it.

I reached for the handle.

Dante moved fast. He grabbed my wrist, firm but not painful, stopping me inches from the door.

“Bianca,” he said, low and sharp. “This isn’t a test.”

I looked up at him. “Then why does it feel like one?”

His grip tightened just slightly. “Because you’re pushing where you shouldn’t.”

“Because you’re hiding something.”

“Yes.”

“About her?”

“Yes.”

“About me?”

That was when his expression changed.

Not anger. Not control. Something closer to frustration.

“You think you’re special,” he said.

“I think you made me part of something I didn’t agree to.”

He held my wrist for a moment longer, then released it abruptly.

“Go,” he said. “Before you force my hand.”

I stepped back slowly, pulse pounding.

But I didn’t go far.

I waited.

Not minutes. Hours.

I stayed in my room until the estate shifted into its evening rhythm. Until guards changed positions. Until the house grew accustomed to my absence again.

Then I moved.

I didn’t go back to the west hall right away. I took the long route. Down staircases, through corridors, past rooms I’d already mapped in my head. I moved like I belonged there.

No one stopped me.

When I reached the locked wing again, the hum was still there. So was the handle. What wasn’t there was the alarm.

My breath caught.

Someone had disarmed it.

I didn’t stop to think about what that meant.

I opened the door.

The air inside was colder.

The lights came on automatically, soft and dim, illuminating a hallway that felt untouched. Clean. Preserved. Like time had been asked to wait here and had obeyed.

I stepped inside.

The first room was a bedroom.

Neat. Orderly. Bed made perfectly. A dresser with jewelry laid out like it might still be worn. Dresses hung in the closet dark colors, tailored cuts. Not my style. But close enough that I felt it in my bones.

I picked up a framed photo from the dresser.

A woman stared back at me.

Dark hair. Pale skin. Sharp eyes softened by a faint smile.

She looked like me.

Not exactly. But enough that my stomach flipped.

I set the frame down carefully and backed out of the room.

The next room was worse.

Photos lined the walls. Not staged portraits. Candid shots. She laughed. She is sitting at a table. She was standing beside a man whose face had been scratched out.

I knew without being told.

Moretti.

The realization hit hard and fast. She hadn’t just died because of his family.

She’d belonged to him.

I felt sick.

At the end of the hall was a smaller room. No furniture. Just a single shelf.

On it sat a ring.

Simple. Gold. Heavy.

Not the one I’d worn.

Another.

Behind me, the door clicked shut.

I didn’t turn.

“I told you not to,” Dante said.

“I told you I needed to know,” I replied.

“You weren’t supposed to see this yet.”

“Yet?” My voice shook. “There’s a timeline now?”

He didn’t answer.

I finally turned to face him. His expression was closed off, something dark burning behind his eyes.

“You replaced her,” I said quietly.

“No.”

“You chose me because I fit,” I continued.

“Because I could stand where she couldn’t anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then why does this place exist?” I demanded. “Why keep it like she might come back?”

He stepped closer, stopping just in front of me.

“Because I failed her,” he said.

The words landed heavy.

“She died because I underestimated the men around her,” he continued. “Because I thought proximity was protection.”

I swallowed hard. “And now?”

“And now,” he said, “I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Understanding crept in slowly, cold and unwelcome.

“You don’t see me as her,” I said. “You see me as a second chance.”

His eyes locked on mine. “I see you as alive.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s the truth.”

I looked back at the ring on the shelf. “Did she choose you?”

A pause.

“No.”

The answer said everything.

I stepped past him, my chest tight. “You don’t want a partner. You want control.”

“I want certainty,” he replied. “Control is how you get it.”

I reached the door and stopped. “If I stay,” I said, not looking at him, “it won’t be because you planned it.”

Silence.

“Good,” Dante said. “I’d be disappointed if it were.”

I left the wing shaking.

That night, I locked my door for the first time.

Not because I thought it would keep him out.

But because I needed to believe I still could.