Semua Bab Collateral Kiss : Bab 31 - Bab 40

The hall still smelled of blood and smoke. The men hadn’t left since the ritual began; they lingered in clusters, their eyes sharp, their whispers heavy. The table where they had cut their palms was streaked with drying red, and the knife lay across it like a warning.Emilia stood at the edge of the room. She could feel their stares sliding over her, weighing, measuring. Dante had forced every man here to bleed for him, to speak words of loyalty that rang like iron in the torchlight. And now the weight of that knife had shifted toward her.Luca leaned against a pillar, his lips curled in a smirk. “It’s only fair,” he said, his voice smooth, carrying easily through the hall. “She lives under this roof. Eats at our table. Sleeps under your watch, brother. Shouldn’t she swear too?”Marcello’s head snapped toward him, his eyes narrowing. “Enough.”But the damage was already done. The men stirred, their murmurs louder now.Dante’s gaze cut across the room, silencing them. He walked toward

The dagger lay between them like a curse. Its blade caught the dim light of Dante’s study, the dried blood along its edge dark and ugly.Emilia’s breath stuck in her chest. She couldn’t look away. That isn’t mine. I’ve never touched it. But the weight of every pair of eyes in the room made her throat close.Luca lounged near the door, a cruel smile tugging his lips. “I told you, brother. Trouble followed her here. Now you see it with your own eyes.”Marcello moved first. He leaned heavily on his cane, his face sharp with disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous. Anyone could have hidden that dagger. To think she planted it herself is madness.”Luca’s laugh was low and cutting. “Madness? Or proof? You think it’s a coincidence? A threat carved on her door, a guard dead in the stables, and now this—conveniently tucked where she sleeps?” He jabbed a finger toward Emilia. “She’s the crack in our walls. And you’re too blind to see it.”Dante’s silence was worse than shouting. He stood behind his des

The air between them was razor-thin. Dante’s words still cut through her chest, heavy as chains: “Run, and you’re mine forever. Stay, and you may die tonight. Choose, Emilia.”Her lips parted, but the choice stuck like stone in her throat. The night pressed around them, the garden breathing cold and silver under the moon. For one heartbeat, the world held still.Then gunfire shattered it.The first shot cracked the air like a whip. Stone burst near the doorway, shards raining down around them. Emilia cried out, flinching back against the wall. Another shot rang out, then another — rapid, merciless. Shouts erupted across the courtyard.“Nemici!” one of Dante’s men roared. “They’ve breached the walls!”Chaos swallowed the night.Dante didn’t hesitate. He seized Emilia by the wrist and yanked her against his chest, dragging her from the open doorway. His grip was bruising, iron, but it was the only thing keeping her from stumbling into the hail of bullets.“Stay behind me,” he snarled.E

The first blast jolted Emilia from her sleep.Her eyes snapped open as the room shuddered, dust trickling from the ceiling. The barred window rattled in its frame, glass trembling. For one disoriented heartbeat, she thought the mansion itself was collapsing around her.Then came the shouts.“Nemici!” The cry rang from the courtyard below. Boots pounded stone. Gunfire cracked, sharp and unrelenting, splitting the morning silence apart.Emilia stumbled from the narrow bed, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. Smoke drifted past the window, curling gray against the pale light of dawn. She clutched the sill, peering through the bars.The courtyard writhed with chaos. Men in masks surged through broken gates, rifles spitting fire. Dante’s guards fired back from the walls, the air thick with the scream of bullets and the acrid stench of gunpowder. Smoke stung her eyes.Another explosion rocked the ground, sending a plume of dirt and flame skyward. She reeled back, covering her ears as the

Sleep would not come.Emilia lay curled on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling until the moonlight shifted across the stone. Dante’s words echoed like a brand pressed onto her skin: “Tomorrow, you will tell me everything.”Her stomach twisted at the thought of his eyes, sharp and merciless, as though he could already see the sins carved into her blood.When the silence of her chamber grew unbearable, she rose. Barefoot, she crept to the door and pressed her ear into the wood. The guards’ boots scraped softly outside, but their voices were low, weary. She waited for their rhythm to settle before she eased the lock open.The corridor was colder than her room, the torches burning low, shadows stretching long across the floor. Her nightdress whispered around her ankles as she slipped into the hall.She didn’t know where she was going—only that she needed air, space to think, a place where the walls didn’t close like fists around her.Her steps carried her down the winding passage towar