Chapter Twenty Six
Nina's POV
Dante didn't blink.
For a second, the room was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
"Maybe if you train me and give me a damn gun," I had said, chest heaving, "then I'll man up happily putting some bullets in your head."
His jaw flexed.
Then he moved.
One second he was across the room. The next he was right in front of me, his chest almost touching mine, his eyes dark and hard.
"Careful, Nina," he said softly. "You're asking for things you don't understand."
"I'm not scared of you," I shot back, even though my stomach was tight.
He laughed once. No humor. "You should be."
His hand shot out, fingers closing around my arm. Not gentle. Not soft. He yanked me forward so fast I stumbled into him.
"Hey—let go—"
"Fine," he growled. "You want guns? You want to 'man up'? Let me show you what that actually looks like."
He dragged me toward the far wall.
I'd been in this room for weeks and never noticed anything strange about it. It was just an office. A very expensive, very dangerous office.
But now Dante pressed his thumb against a section of wood panel that looked the same as everything else.
A soft click answered.
The wall slid open.
Cold air rushed out, smelling like oil and metal and something sharp.
"What the hell…" I whispered.
"After you," he said.
He didn't wait for me to move. He pulled me through the hidden doorway and down a narrow stairway. The lights turned on by themselves, one by one, like the house knew where we were.
The deeper we went, the colder it got.
My bare feet slapped against the steps. My arm burned where his fingers dug into my skin, but I didn't pull away.
I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
At the bottom of the stairs, the hallway opened into a huge underground room.
My mouth fell open.
Guns. Everywhere.
Rifles lined the walls in perfect rows. Pistols sat in padded cases on metal shelves. There were knives, grenades, boxes of bullets stacked like bricks. Tactical vests, helmets, thick black boots. It looked like a private army's warehouse buried under the house.
"How many guns do you need?" I breathed.
"As many as it takes," Dante said. His voice echoed off the concrete. "You think this life is a movie? You think it's a game where you say some tough words and suddenly you're a killer? This is real, Nina. This is what you're begging to step into."
I swallowed.
He let go of my arm long enough to reach for a handgun on one of the tables. He checked it fast and clean, like he'd done it a thousand times.
Then he tossed it at me.
I reached out on instinct.
The gun hit my palms. The weight dragged my arms down. It slipped right through my fingers and clattered to the floor, the sound so loud it made me jump.
Dante smirked. "You can't even hold it."
"I just wasn't ready," I snapped. My cheeks burned.
"Pick it up."
I glared at him, but bent down and grabbed the gun.
It was heavier than I expected. Cold. Solid. Mean.
My hands shook.
He watched every tiny movement.
"Still feel like putting bullets in my head?" he asked.
"Yes," I lied. My voice came out thinner than I wanted.
"Good." He snatched the gun back from my hands like it weighed nothing. "Let's take this outside."
"Outside?" My brain tripped. "What do you mean outside? We're underground."
He didn't answer. He just walked to the far end of the armory, still dragging me with him.
Another door waited there. This one was thick steel. He typed in a code, scanned his thumb, then pulled it open.
Hot light burned my eyes.
I squinted and stepped through.
We were outside.
A hidden slice of beach stretched out in front of us, tucked behind the house like a secret world. The ocean glowed bright blue under the sun, waves rolling in slow and calm. Fine white sand warmed my feet.
But there was nothing peaceful about what Dante had built here.
Wooden posts stood in the sand, lined up in a row. Human-shaped targets were nailed to them—some flat, some thick, some with clothes on. One of them wore a suit, dark and neat. From far away, in that light, he looked a little like my father.
My stomach twisted.
"Welcome to the private range," Dante said. "This is where we practice not dying."
He stepped forward until he stood between me and the targets. He rolled his shoulders, his injured arm stiff but still working.
"You wanted to man up," he reminded me. "Pay attention."
Without warning, he raised the gun.
The first shot exploded through the air.
I screamed and clapped my hands over my ears, but it didn't block the sound. It crashed through my bones, rattled my teeth, made my heart jump.
He didn't stop.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Shells hit the sand. Wood splintered. The targets jerked with every impact. Dante's arms didn't shake. His aim was clean, smooth, deadly. Even with a bullet wound still healing in his shoulder, his body moved like it was born for this.
My head rang. My chest hurt.
"Stop!" I yelled, but my voice sounded small against the gunfire.
He didn't hear me. Or he ignored me.
The gun roared again. And again. Sand sprayed. The air stank of gunpowder and burned metal.
I backed away. The sound dug into my skull like claws. It was too much. Too loud. Too real.
Without thinking, I turned and ran.
I didn't know where I was going. There was nowhere to go. We were on their private beach, cut off by high rock walls and hidden from the world.
I just knew I had to get away from that sound, from those shots, from that version of him that moved like death itself.
I made it maybe three steps.
Arms slammed around my waist from behind.
My feet left the ground.
I screamed, kicking out, but we were already falling. Dante's weight took us both down.
We hit the sand hard.
We rolled.
The world flipped. Sky, sand, his face, blue water, then sky again. My hair flew into my eyes. His hand slid over my hip, my thigh, my lower back as he twisted our bodies to keep me from hitting the ground too hard.
We tumbled until his back slammed into the sand and the breath whooshed out of him.
I ended up on top.
For a second I just lay there, stunned, my heart pounding so fast I felt dizzy.
His hands were clamped around my waist, fingers digging into my sides to keep me from slipping away. My shirt had ridden up during the fall, bunched above my ribs. The warm breeze hit my bare skin.
I followed his gaze down.
My chest was pressed right over his face, my breasts almost spilling out of my bra, the thin fabric doing nothing to hide how hard my nipples had gone from the shock and the rush of it all.
His nose brushed the curve of my breast as he sucked in a slow breath.
I froze.
He looked up at me from under dark lashes, his eyes hot and wild and very, very awake.
We were tangled together in the sand, my legs spread over his hips, his hands locked on my body, my bare skin against his mouth.
The gun lay forgotten a few feet away.
For one long, burning second, the only sounds were the ocean, my ragged breathing, and his heartbeat thudding hard under my hands.