Chapter 3 - The Broken Glass
Dante’s body went rigid as steel. His slate-grey eyes whipped toward me, wide with sudden, sharp alarm.
Instead of pulling away, my hand found his beneath the table, gripping his wrist. His fingers instinctively closed around mine, hard and warm.
With my free hand, I deliberately swept my arm across the edge of the table.
Crash.
The heavy crystal water pitcher tipped over, shattering against the marble floor. Water exploded outward, soaking the hem of my trousers and splashing violently across Dante’s lap and knees.
“Oh, my God!” I shrieked, pitching my voice into a theatrical panic. “I am so, so sorry!”
Dante jerked backward in his seat, his reflexes instantaneous, his hand releasing mine as he instinctively cleared the table.
The sudden commotion triggered his bodyguards with military precision.
In less than a second, both men materialized out of the shadows. One of them slammed into Marco’s side with devastating force, pinning him against the velvet booth wall.
Something heavy and metallic slipped from Marco’s grip.
Clack.
A stainless-steel medical syringe bounced off the marble floor, rolling to a stop near my shoe. The barrel was filled with a thick, amber-colored fluid.
The entire restaurant erupted into sudden, chaotic pandemonium.
Screams rang out from the adjacent tables. Diners scrambled backward, chairs screeching against the floor.
Marco thrashed violently beneath the bodyguard’s crushing grip. “Get off me! Let me go!”
Dante stood up slowly, towering over the scene. His trousers were soaked through with water, but he didn't even glance down. His eyes were locked entirely on the syringe rolling across the floor.
Then his gaze shifted slowly to me, kneeling beside his chair, my chest heaving, my hands trembling violently.
The second bodyguard twisted Marco’s arm behind his back, hauling him toward the back service corridor while the manager ran forward, pale-faced and stammering apologies.
Dante didn't say a word to the manager. He looked down at me, extended a large, warm hand, and hauled me effortlessly to my feet.
“We're leaving,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, glacial register.
I blinked through a haze of adrenaline. “Okay. I—I need to get my apron, I’ll just—”
“We are leaving right now,” he repeated, placing a heavy, possessive hand against the small of my back.
“What? No, I have a shift, I can’t just walk out, Mr. Russo—”
“Eleanor.”
“I need this job! I have rent, I have bills—”
“The man who just tried to kill me saw your face,” Dante interrupted, his voice dropping to a low, lethal hum that only I could hear.
My stomach tightened into a hard, painful knot.
“He heard you warn me,” Dante continued, guiding me firmly toward the private rear exit as the restaurant descended into complete chaos. “Whoever sent him will know about you before midnight.”
I looked back over my shoulder toward the service corridor where Marco had disappeared. The reality of what I had just done settled over me like a falling guillotine.
Dante leaned down, his face inches from mine, his grey eyes piercing straight through my soul.
“How long do you think you'll survive here alone once they realize you ruined their hit?”
For the first time that night, I had no answer.
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Because without meaning to, without planning to, and without knowing a single thing about the dark world he inhabited—I had just saved Dante Russo’s life.
And in doing so, I had completely destroyed my own.
