“If you ever speak her name, I will pull your tongue out through your throat.”

I watched, frozen, as James’s face turned a dark red, then purple.

He was suffocating.

I saw the absolute lack of mercy in Dante’s eyes.

He was going to kill him right here, on the terrace of the Drake Hotel, and he wouldn’t even blink.

This was the man I had let into my life.

This was the protection I had agreed to.

“Dante,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Stop. Please.”

Dante didn’t look at me, but his grip loosened slightly.

“Run,” Dante told James.

He dropped James to the floor.

James collapsed in a heap, coughing violently and clutching his throat.

He scrambled to his feet, not looking back, and ran down the stairs of the terrace into the dark alley below.

Dante turned to me, his expression smoothing out.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk handkerchief, wiping his hands as if he had touched something dirty.

“Are you alright, Sophia?” he asked.

I looked at the handkerchief, then at his hands.