Chapter 7 - The Confession in the Dark
The fifty-first floor was silent once more.
Norah stood near the edge of the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the glittering lights of the Chicago skyline through a haze of shock and trembling relief. The man who had terrorized her life for three years had just been swept away in less than five minutes by a billionaire mob boss who looked at her as if she were the only living soul in the universe.
Footsteps echoed softly across the hardwood floor.
Dante walked up behind her, stopping just inches away. He didn't touch her, giving her all the space she needed, but his presence was a warm, anchoring anchor in the storm of her emotions.
“He won't bother you again,” Dante said quietly. “Not in Chicago. Not anywhere else.”
Norah let out a long, ragged exhale, a tear finally spilling over her eyelashes and tracing a hot path down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand, turning her head to look up at him.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, her voice cracking. “You don't even know me. I’m just a maid who got stuck in your elevator today.”
Dante turned to face her fully, his dark eyes searching her face with an aching vulnerability that he had never shown to another human being in his entire life.
“For three years, Norah,” Dante said, his voice raw and heavy with confession, “I couldn't feel anything. No anger, no pleasure, no warmth. My body was a dead machine. The moment the elevator doors jammed today, and I reached out to shield you from that falling panel... for the first time in thirty-six months, my heart beat like a living thing.”
Norah’s breath hitched. She looked into his dark, intense eyes and saw not the terrifying mafia Don that the city whispered about in dark alleyways, but a man who had been starving in the dark and had finally found a single ray of light.
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“You woke me up,” Dante murmured, his hand rising to cup her cheek with an infinite, reverent gentleness. “And now that I’m awake, I will burn this entire city to the ground before I ever let anyone take you away from me.”
Norah closed her eyes, leaning her face firmly into the palm of his hand, and for the first time in years, she felt completely, undeniably safe.
