Twisted Throne

Lyra

Dante Rossi doesn't just want me. He wants to own the air in my lungs.

"The terms are simple." His voice slices cleanly through the heavy silence of the study. "You'll marry me."

For a heartbeat, I'm convinced I've misheard him.

"You'll move into this penthouse," he continues, his tone as casual as a man reading a grocery list. "You'll share my bed. And you'll fulfill every obligation expected of my wife."

I grip the strap of my handbag until my knuckles turn white, forcing my spine rigid.

As I stepped through the heavy double doors minutes ago, my gaze swept past security cameras discreetly tucked into corners of the ceiling, and finally a biometric fingerprint scanner gleaming silently on his office door, and two stone-faced guards flanked the corridor.

When the office door shut behind me, the heavy click of the automated locks echoed like a cell door securing. I am trapped.

Dante watches me with a keen, unwavering stare from across the room. He's cradling a crystal tumbler of whiskey, flooded in the afternoon sun pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

God, he's beautiful.

Nobody should be allowed to look this flawless while actively locking someone in a room.

A thin, disbelieving laugh slips past my lips. "This is a joke, right?"

His expression doesn't even flicker.

I lift a hand, as if to ward him off. "You called me here to demand marriage? You've officially lost your mind, Dante. There are hundreds of women in this city who would marry you without asking a single question."

"I don't want one of them." His answer comes without hesitation.

Without explanation.

My eyes involuntarily dart toward the locked door, my mind calculating the distance.

"The elevator is to your left," Dante says calmly.

I freeze, my heart hammering against my ribs. I force my chin up. "I wasn't leaving."

"No?"

"I was just. . . "

"You were counting how many steps it would take to reach the door." The corner of his mouth lifts almost imperceptibly. A ghost of a smirk. "You'd make it three."

The psychological weight of his gaze pins me to the spot. I fold my arms tightly across my chest to hide the slight tremble in my fingers.

"You'll hate me. You'll hate being married to me."

Still nothing. Not a denial. Not an agreement. Just those impossible green eyes watching my every breath.

Unable to bear the silence, I turn toward the towering windows. Manhattan stretches out below us, glittering and unreal.

Marry Dante Rossi?

The stable boy my father insisted was beneath me.

Memory can be cruel. I can still smell the fresh hay clinging to his clothes, still see the quiet, fierce pride in the way he used to carry himself. Even when my father spoke to him like he was invisible, Dante had never lowered his eyes. He'd simply looked back. Fearlessly.

Now, he even owns the skies.

Drawing a slow breath, I face the desk once more.

Dante hasn't moved an inch. One hand rests loosely around the whiskey glass, the thin white scars just above his knuckles disappearing beneath the crisp cuff of his shirt.

He knows exactly how unsettled I am, and he's enjoying every second of it.

I swallow the lump of fear in my throat and square my shoulders. "No." The single word hangs heavily between us. I don't soften it. I don't explain it. "I'm not marrying you."

"Walk out that door," Dante says, his voice drop-dead quiet, "and your father will be arrested within forty-eight hours."

The threat hits me like a physical blow. The air leaves my lungs, and the room seems to tilt. "What?"

Dante studies me for a long, agonizing moment, letting the panic settle into my bones. Then, without a flicker of anger, he reaches for a dark leather folder resting on his desk.

With agonizing slowness, he slides it across the polished wood until it stops right in front of me.

My fingers shake as I finally reach out and flip the folder open. The moment the first page comes into view, the last trace of color drains from my face.