Chapter 7 – A Knife Between Us
Valentina Cruz
There's a difference between silence and stillness.
Silence is peaceful. Stillness… is what happens before something explodes.
The mansion had gone still.
No footsteps. No whispers. No slamming doors or Camilla humming Lana Del Rey in the kitchen like some sadistic fairy godmother.
I should've felt safe. Instead, I felt like a candle in a room full of dynamite.
I padded down the hall in Rafael's hoodie and fuzzy socks I'd stolen from Camilla (don't judge — I earn my petty victories), and followed the same hallway I wasn't supposed to go down.
The one with a door that always stayed locked.
Except now…
It wasn't.
⸻
I should've turned back. Should've remembered all those horror movie rules — don't open strange doors, don't follow the blood trail, don't date a mafia boss no matter how good his jawline is.
But I was already pushing it open before I realized my hand was shaking.
Inside?
Darkness.
And then — click.
A row of lights buzzed to life, revealing a room that didn't belong in a palace.
It was cold. Clinical.
Metal file cabinets. Surveillance monitors. A giant corkboard littered with photos, maps, scribbled notes.
And in the center of it all, like a secret confession left behind:
A photo of me.
Taken months before I ever met Rafael.
I was walking to class. Backpack, headphones, mid-bite of a sandwich.
A red circle was drawn around my head.
⸻
My heart stopped.
My legs didn't.
I was already storming toward the board, fingers trembling as I scanned the rest — names I didn't recognize, surveillance on my family, even a transcript of a call I made to my mom.
"I'm okay, Mama. I swear. He's just… complicated."
I hadn't known anyone else heard that.
Now I did.
"What the hell is this?" I whispered.
"Classified," came the voice behind me.
I spun.
Rafael stood in the doorway. Not angry.
Worse.
Calm.
⸻
"You were watching me before the wedding," I said. "Before the debt."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He walked into the room like it didn't haunt him — like the files weren't filled with proof that I was never a choice. Just a plan.
"You were useful."
"Oh, well thank you, my liege," I snapped. "I was wondering if my life's purpose was to decorate your war wall."
He said nothing.
And that silence? That was worse than yelling.
I stepped forward.
"So what now?" I asked. "You lock me in here next? Add another red circle to the board?"
He looked at me.
Like really looked.
And I hated that I couldn't tell if it was guilt or pride in his eyes.
"You're not on the board anymore," he said softly. "Because you're not a target. You're mine."
"That's not romantic," I said. "That's the plot of a hostage documentary."
Still — a small part of me. The broken, battered, exhausted part — wanted to believe him.
⸻
A phone buzzed.
He answered, eyes never leaving mine.
Then he cursed in Italian.
"What is it?" I asked.
"We have to leave," he said.
"Where?"
"Somewhere no one will find us."
"You mean like… a romantic death trap?"
He actually smirked. The smallest crack in the steel mask.
"You'll like this one. No blood. Just the ocean."
And before I could argue, deny, or pack actual underwear, I was being whisked away in a black SUV with bulletproof windows and enough tension to make a priest sweat.
⸻
The villa was remote. Cliffside. The kind of place where secrets go to tan and sins get buried under roses.
And for the first time in weeks, there was no one else.
No guards.
No Camilla.
Just me.
And the beast.