The Haunted Mansion Confrontation

|| Sienna's POV ||

My fingers strangled the steering wheel as that single written taunt echoed relentlessly inside my skull, draining every ounce of strength from my body. The dark stretch of highway ahead felt endless. Silent tears slipped down my cheeks every time my mind flashed back to the contents of that box—dozens of candid shots taken during my time abroad. God only knew how the fuck he had gotten his hands on photos of me heavily pregnant with Lucas, strolling down foreign streets or picking up groceries. My pulse raced at the sheer terror that someone was holding my darkest secret over my head. Until tonight, I had been completely certain my father's fortune had scrubbed every trace of my pregnancy from the face of the earth.

How the hell had Dante pulled footage from local security cameras over there?

A ragged shudder tore past my lips, my hands shaking so badly I could barely keep the SUV between the lines. Dante Di Marco had ordered me out to an abandoned estate on the outskirts of the city, a place locals swore was haunted. In my blind panic, I had bolted out of the house in the dead of night without even waking my father to tell him where I was going. Nothing else mattered except destroying those pictures.

After what felt like hours, the GPS chimed, signaling I had reached the coordinates he sent. Forcing my erratic breathing to slow, I climbed down from the cab of my SUV, violent shivers racking my frame the second the freezing night wind lashed against my bare skin. Glancing down at myself, a wave of humiliation left me momentarily paralyzed. I had rushed out in a sheer, nearly transparent nightgown. My hair was a tangled bird's nest, and my face was completely bare, looking every bit like someone dragged straight out of a midnight nightmare.

Looming before me, the structure looked ripped straight out of a horror film. Deep fractures split the gray, decaying facade, and without a single light burning inside, the windows were pitch-black voids.

Had I driven to the wrong address?

I chewed hard on my bottom lip, hesitating near the hood of my car until the interior lights of the mansion began snapping on one by one in a dramatic, staged welcome. Swallowing hard against a bone-dry throat, I felt like a ghost walking straight into a trap. Now that the initial adrenaline was fading and rationality was creeping back in, regret over coming here alone hit me full force.

Before I could back out, the heavy front doors swung inward. A man with a grim, sinister face stepped onto the porch, his demeanor as cold and mechanical as his boss's. Showing zero surprise at my state of undress, he offered a cryptic curl of his lips and swept an arm toward the threshold. "Welcome home, Miss. Please, come this way."

_________

The dread pooling in my stomach only thickened as I followed the stone-faced attendant inside. Dim, oppressive gray walls stretched out around us, amplifying the late-night chill. Flanking the long corridor stood rows of men dressed entirely in black; if not for the subtle rise and fall of their chests, I would have mistaken them for statues.

My escort came to a halt before a heavy, closed door at the end of the hall and stepped aside. "Marco is waiting for you inside."

Stepping across the threshold felt like walking straight into the devil's lair. The air hung thick with the sharp bite of aged whiskey and cigarette smoke. Dante had his back to me, yet the sheer weight of his presence was already suffocating. Determined not to let him dictate the pace, I forced my voice out before he could utter a word. "How did you get these? Why are you doing this to me?"

My voice cracked down the middle as my trembling fingers crushed the edges of the photographs I had brought with me. Fate had been cruel enough to wipe my actual memories of carrying my child, leaving me only with the fallout.

Leather creaked as he rose from his chair and pivoted to face me, a plume of gray smoke curling from his lips. The look in his eyes made me shrink back on instinct. The amused, wicked glint from our previous encounters had vanished entirely, replaced by something Arctic and merciless. There was no trace of a smile tonight. Clearly, I had landed squarely at the top of his hit list.

Parting his thin lips, he exhaled another cloud of smoke and let out a low, humorless chuckle. "I figured you'd appreciate the present, seeing as you don't have any keepsakes from back then. Though I have to admit..." He dragged out the pause deliberately, his gaze raking lazily from my tangled hair down the sheer fabric clinging to my frame. "I'm impressed with how well your body bounced back after having a kid."

I bit down hard on the inside of my lip at the casual mention of my son. The desperate vows I had made to my father years ago flashed vividly through my mind.

*No one will ever find out I had a baby.*

*Lucas will stay hidden from the world forever.*

*Please, Father, just let me have him.*

Paralyzed by the impossible choice in front of me, I stood frozen on the rug. I couldn't let Marco leak these photos to the press, yet submitting to him as some kept woman was out of the question. I had clawed my way back from the brink to rebuild my name and my standing; I refused to let any man tear my reputation to shreds.

Crushing his cigarette out, Dante leaned back against the edge of his desk, folding his arms casually. "I despise resorting to blackmail, pretty girl. But stubborn people like you leave me very little choice."

I parted my lips to fire back, only for the breath to catch in my throat when he reached behind him and lifted another photo from the desk, pinching it between two fingers. "How old were you when you carried him?"

The blunt question stripped away the last of my nerve. Curling my hands into tight fists at my sides, I scrambled to hold onto my pride, my mind screaming at me not to let him bend me to his will. Falling back on sheer bravado, I forced out a shaky lie. "I don't know what you're talking about. These... all of these are fake."

A dark laugh rumbled in his chest as his eyes locked onto mine, stripping away my bluff in half a second. God, I wished I knew what kind of monster I was dealing with. Years ago, when rumors of my pregnancy first leaked, I had successfully spun a story of malicious slander and doctored medical records to fool the tabloids. It had worked on the press, but standing in front of Dante, I was dangerously out of my depth.

Letting out a mock sigh, he drummed his fingers against the polished wood of the desk, his tone dripping with dark amusement. "Perhaps we should bring your boy here to settle the debate. Unless you have a better way to prove it, my pretty girl?"

Lucas was my ultimate vulnerability, the one nerve I couldn't protect. Still, I forced myself to believe he was only bluffing to rattle me. My son was tucked away safely under the watch of my closest friend and my father's private security detail; there was no way Dante had actually tracked him down.

Schooling my features into a mask of defiance, I marched straight up to his desk, closing the distance between us. A flicker of entertainment crossed his face at my sudden aggression as I ground my teeth together. "Listen to me very carefully, Dante Di Marco! I don't give a fuck how massive an investor you are or who you think you are. I will never—ever—be your mistress. If you want to dump these pictures onto the public, go right ahead. I'll tell every outlet in the country they were photoshopped to ruin me, and we'll see whose word holds more weight."

I sucked in a sharp breath as his mouth curved into a mocking sneer, pouring gasoline on my temper. Drawing myself up to my full height, I made sure every syllable rang clear and steady. "And if you come near me again, I'll walk straight to the press and tell them you tried to rape me, Mr. Dante. Don't mistake me for some helpless girl you can bully. You might have enough money to buy the world, well, my family isn't broke either."

Spinning on my heel, I stalked toward the door, disgusted to my core by a man who wanted to break me into his personal sex toy. Yet the exact second my fingers wrapped around the brass doorknob, the deafening roar of a gunshot shattered the room.