She Whispered, “May I Warm Up by Your Fire?”
Part 2
Elena’s hand went to her bag before she could stop herself. Dante saw the movement and understood more from it than she wanted him to. The photograph was still with her. Not in the envelope. Not among the documents he had already read. The one thing Richard Voss feared most was still pressed against her body like a second heartbeat.
“How many?” Dante asked.
“Two confirmed near the east perimeter,” Marcus said. “Maybe a third on the access road.”
Dante’s expression did not change, but the room seemed to tighten around him. “Lock down the east wing. No one fires unless they cross the wall.”
Elena stared at him. “You knew this would happen.”
“I knew men like Paul don’t drive six hours to sit in a car.”
“He won’t leave without me.”
Dante stepped closer. “Then he’ll be disappointed.”
The words were quiet, almost cold, but they struck something deep in her chest. No man had ever said that for her without wanting ownership in return. No man had ever stood between her and danger as if it were the most natural place in the world to stand.
“I didn’t come here to start a war,” she whispered.
Dante looked down at her. “Wars don’t start when people fight back, Elena. They start when men like Richard Voss think everyone else belongs to them.”
For one second, she saw what his control cost him. The restraint in his hands. The hardness in his jaw. The careful distance he kept, as if touching her might make him forget the rules that had kept him alive.
“Give me the photograph,” he said.
Her chest tightened. “Why?”
“Because if Paul gets inside, he’ll go for what Richard wants most.”
“And if I give it to you?”
“I protect it.”
She lifted her eyes. “Not me?”
His answer came without hesitation.
“Both.”
That one word nearly undid her.
She reached into the lining of her bag and pulled out the old photograph. It was creased, soft at the edges, showing her mother standing in the background of a hotel lounge while Richard Voss shook hands with Gerald Fitch beneath a chandelier.
Dante took it carefully, as if he understood he was holding the last piece of a dead woman’s courage.
Then a sharp sound cracked through the house.
Not a gunshot.
Glass.
Elena jerked.
Dante moved instantly, one arm coming in front of her without touching her, his body between her and the door.
Marcus’s voice came through the comms. “East corridor window. They’re inside the outer hall.”
Dante handed the photograph to Marcus. “Vault. Now.”
Elena caught his sleeve. “Dante.”
It was the first time she had said his name.
He stopped.
Fear stood between them. So did something worse. Something warm. Something impossible.
“Don’t let him take me back,” she said.
Dante looked at her hand on his sleeve, then at her face.
“No one takes what is under my protection.”
His voice dropped.
May you like
“And you are.”
Then he pulled away and walked toward the broken glass, leaving Elena behind with her heart pounding as if she had just heard not a threat, but a vow.
