The Emperor (Dark Verse 3)

She was trying. Dante could see the toll it was taking on her mind, being in this place, tied to a chair, pregnant with their child.

Pregnant.

She was fucking pregnant and she hadn’t told him. Albeit he’d been playing dead for most of the time, it enraged him. That last time he’d gone to see her had been an impulse. He’d wanted to be with her, touch her, just one more time in case he actually died and never got that chance again. He hadn’t meant to see her, much less push her against the wall, fuck her raw, and leave. That had been a dick move, he admitted that. But they’d made a baby, their baby. Fuck, that did things to him, knowing the queen of his heart was going to be the mother of his child.

And what an amazing mother she would be. She had been raised by a loving woman and magnified it tenfold within her. Amara was a woman born with an instinct to nurture – the weak, the innocent, the helpless. She was soft and so fucking forgiving, or else she would have kicked his ass to the curb a long time ago. The fact that she had packed up and moved thousands of miles away to protect their child filled him with pride and warmth. She was a tigress with her cubs. Finding her in Los Fortis, knowing this time he was keeping her, knowing he didn’t have to leave her again, had been the single-most rewarding moment of his life. 

But that little blood on her thighs worried him. He knew there could be a little spotting, and this was an incredibly stressful situation, but fuck, Dante hated putting her through this. He hadn’t anticipated that they would take her, or that they would bring them to this location.

Although why had they brought them to this specific location? Something about that bugged Dante. 

Hopefully, Morana already had the mole singled out. She’d been monitoring every outgoing call and message from the compound since he’d been back. He just hoped the fuckers who abducted them came to interrogate him soon so he could get Amara out of the place. Knowing everything that had happened to her here, he couldn’t even imagine everything happening inside her mind right then. Her eyes kept zoning in and out as she fought her demons, the scar on her neck stark against her paling skin, her hands gripping the chair with white knuckles.

Dante watched her closely. Knowing she was pregnant changed things. If he saw the slightest sign of things becoming too much, he’d have to figure some way out. The idiots hadn’t even checked him for weapons, assuming he’d been unarmed since he’d been in bed shirtless. He had a nasty little surprise waiting for them.

As if on cue, the door to the room opened. Amara’s eyes flew to it as she jumped a bit, her grip on the chair tightening before she visibly took a deep breath.

Hold on, baby. Just a little longer, Dante urged her silently.   

Her breasts heaved under his shirt as she worked on her breathing, her eyes on the man who entered the room. Dante let his eyes go from her and focused on the man, switching gears in his mind. This was his interrogation.

Relaxing in the chair, he stayed silent as the stranger came in, wearing a black t-shirt and cargo pants and combat boots, a 9mm visible on his hip. It was a classic tactic – show the captive you were armed to instill fear of death. Dante was well-versed in these maneuvers. He stayed silent, watching the guy.

He squat down a few feet from him, ignoring Amara for now, focusing on him, which was good. He didn’t want them paying her any attention.

“Dante Maroni,” the man said in a singsong tone, the hint of an accent in his voice on the ‘t’. “In the flesh.”

“Oh, you’re a fan?” Dante chuckled easily. “You’ll have to free my hands for an autograph.” Let him think he had the power.

The man gave a grin, a fake gold tooth glinting on the side. Dante wished some stereotypes weren’t so cliché. “My bosses aren’t a fan. In fact, they aren’t very happy with you right now. You’re interfering with the business.”

Just the opening he needed. “You know, this is why people think mobsters don’t have manners. They could just have booked an appointment if they wanted to talk,” he drawled out casually.

The man tilted his head to the side. “Alright, so that’s how we’re playing this.” He straightened, walking towards Amara. Dante forced himself to stay relaxed as the man squat before her.

“You’re a pretty one,” he said conversationally. “I heard they did terrible things to you right here in this place. How does it feel to be back?”

Dante watched Amara still, watching him like a hawk, her gaze never straying from the man. “You guys need to stop tying women up. It’s getting old.”

That’s my girl. Dante felt pride fill him as he watched her play, hyper-focused on the man.

The man laughed. “Feisty. You think your boyfriend here will give me answers if I do things to you, hmm?”

“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend,” Amara told the guy, staying calmer than Dante had hoped. “We just fuck occasionally.”

Like hell they did.

The man leaned closer to her. Dante tensed.

“In that case, fucking me in front of him shouldn’t be an issue.”

Oh, the bastard was good. But his girl was better.

“It would be,” Amara shrugged. “I’m allergic to assholes. Trauma and all, you know.”

The man let out a laugh, turning to look back at Dante. “I like her. Too bad I’ll have to hurt her to get you talking.”

Dante stayed silent, giving him a little smirk, ready to distract him so Amara could work on her knot inconspicuously. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. Bringing us both here, using her to threaten me. Nice.”

The man stood up, walking to a table on the side, with a toolbox. Dante watched as Amara paled, a fine sheen of sweat on her face as she watched the table. He watched her take a quick breath, and slowly tug her hands against the ropes, loosening them even more. His gut tightened. He needed to speed it up.

“So,” he started casually. “What do you want to know?”

The man turned to look at him, his eyebrows up his forehead in surprise. “My bosses had a warehouse of… goods in your city. Last week, it burned to the ground.”

Dante frowned. “That wasn’t me.”

The man nodded. “Didn’t seem like it. That’s actually someone else’s MO. But Tenebrae is an important center for our business, and your lack of cooperation has led to a lot of heavy losses for a lot of very important people. However, thanks to the goodwill of your father and his work for us, my bosses are willing to offer you a deal.”

Dante raised an eyebrow. “Again, you couldn’t have taken an appointment for this? You had to drag me out of bed and tie me up for that?”

The man shrugged. “We didn’t know how well you’d cooperate. She-” he nodded towards a slightly terrified, slightly determined Amara, who paused in her silent struggle to loosen the knot on her hands “-was just insurance. She’s been that for a long time.”

Dante quickly brought his attention back, leaving Amara to work on her ropes. Her wrists were slender and her scars made the skin around it smooth. She had a fair chance of slipping her hand out.

“What do you mean?” Dante asked, keeping him engaged.

The guy just smiled.

Dante felt his mind reeling, and he filed the information for later. He didn’t directly look at Amara but he could see in his periphery that she was gaining some momentum in her struggle.

“Okay,” he told the guy, keeping him focused on himself. “So, what’s the deal your bosses wanna give me?”

The guy smiled and squat down in front of him again, his hand in a fist. “Work with us and live. Simple.”

“What kind of work?” Dante asked, already knowing the answer.

“Your father was pretty active in the business,” the man went on. “You don’t have to be. Just allow us storage and transport through the city and we have a deal.”

“Storage and transport of kids?” Dante asked, his gut tightening.

“Smart man,” the man nodded.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I take that piece of prime pussy over there out to my men until you’re more… agreeable.”

Dante clenched his jaw but didn’t say a word, his hands fisting on the chair.

“Hey asshole,” the soft voice from behind made the guy turn. Dante saw Amara swing up the toolbox, her arms shaking with the weight as she smacked the man across the face with it.

The guy roared in pain, falling to the floor, clutching the bleeding gash on his head.

“You can’t afford this piece of prime pussy,” Amara heaved the metal toolbox again and brought it down hard on his skull, the sound of the loud crunch making Dante wince. The guy passed out, the wound on his head probably fatal. She stood there shaking, her chest heaving, hair wild around her face, rage flashing in her green eyes, cloaked in nothing but his shirt, looking like an avenging goddess. Fuck, he was such a goner.

“Amara,” he called out to her. “C’mon, baby. Others might be coming.”

She looked up at him with wide eyes, putting the toolbox to the side, her entire frame trembling from the adrenaline he could feel surging to the fore inside him. Hopping over the unconscious guy, she quickly came to him, her long, slender fingers shaking as she tried to undo the knot on his wrist.

“Give me those beautiful eyes,” he told her gently, knowing he needed to guide them out of it.

She stilled in her efforts, looking up at him.

“Good girl,” he praised her softly. “There’s a knife in my right sock. Raise up my pant leg and take it out.”

She leaned down, his shirt gaping open and even though it wasn’t the time to notice, he was a man. His eyes went there, took her in, satisfied that this was his woman. He felt her fingers doing the task nimbly before she straightened and started to cut at the rope under his wrist. He just needed one hand free before he wrecked these bastards.

This close, he could hear her loud breathing as she both panicked and tried to keep it down, and said the one thing he knew would distract her thoughts from the fear.

“I can’t wait to fuck you.” 

Amara paused, looking up at him with bewildered eyes. “Are you serious?! This is not the time for dirty talk, Dante Maroni.”

He gave her a little grin deliberately, staying calm and unaffected because he knew it would relax her. And he needed her to relax.

Amara muttered something under her breath before venting. “Why do they make this look so easy in the movies? You’re tied to this freaking chair with these ropes that just won’t cut and I’m one second away from a panic attack.”

“You’re doing great,” he told her, looking down at the scars on her wrists that were rubbed raw from her struggle, her knuckles white as she made progress with the blade. The rope was barely holding together with a few strands that would snap any second.

“Hey!”

A loud voice from the door jerked Amara. She spun around and Dante leaned to the side, to see one burly guy looking at them angrily. He came towards her, and Dante snapped his arm out, feeling the tension in the rope cut through his forearm, took the knife from her limp hand, throwing it across the room. His aim hit true, the blade lodging itself in the man’s neck as blood spurted out, him falling to his knees.

Amara scattered back a few steps even though she was clear of the blood, her face a mask of shock. He just hoped her mind survived their night together.

Undoing the knot on his other hand deftly, Dante quickly got out of the ropes, standing up and shaking his limbs and jumping twice to get the blood flowing.

First things first, he crossed the space between him and his girl, grabbed her beautiful face in his hands, and kissed her deep. “You are a fucking warrior queen, and I’m so proud of you,” he told her softly, seeing the effect his words had on her.

Her lips trembled in a slight smile. “You make me strong.”

Fuck, he liked that.

Giving her a smile, he pressed their foreheads together, his ears open to any external noise. “As soon as we walk out that door, you’re going to see a side of me tonight you’ve never seen before. I’m going to slaughter them, and you’ll have to see that. Think you’ll love me after?”

She gripped his wrists, nodding. “In sickness in health, in life in death, in murder in mayhem, isn’t that how it goes?”

He chuckled, giving her a small kiss, giving her the affection he knew she craved in her bones but rarely voiced, and pulled back. Leaning down, he stripped the 9mm from the first guy and his knife from the other, handing the gun to her.

“Keep this,” he told her as she took the weapon, her hands shaking. “It’s loaded and unlocked. Stay behind me. You see anyone coming at you, aim and fire. Space your legs apart so your frame is steady. The recoil is a bitch, so be prepared for that. You okay?”

“Won’t you need this?” she asked him, holding the gun with both hands.

He smiled, waving the sharp knife. “I’m good. Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

The biggest disadvantage was not knowing exactly how many people were on the premises once they got out the door. It could be two or ten or twenty, and while on his own it wouldn’t have mattered, he was protecting precious cargo and anything getting to her would make him very, very angry.

Heading to the door, he quickly leaned out to check both sides of the corridor.

“There’s a staircase to the right,” came the soft words from behind him. “It goes down to an office of sorts and opens into… a garage,” her voice hitched on that last word. That’s where he’d found her and Tristan, in the garage. That’s where he’d picked her up in his arms and she’d fluttered her eyes open, anchoring herself to his heart with the trust in them. He doubted she remembered any of that, but he never forgot it, the way her small body had shuddered and her pained breathing had assaulted his chest like bullets. He knew what talking about this place, reliving her memories of escape was doing to her. And yet, she did it. Terrified as she was, she did it.

He didn’t understand how she could ever think herself weak.

Nodding once in acknowledgment of the information, Dante switched the gears in his mind, his body honed with years of training in tune with his mental commands, and stepped out into the barely-lit corridor. Trusting her to stay behind him, he crept forward, coming to a stop at seeing one guy near the top of the staircase. Prowling on quiet feet, he stepped behind the man, muffling his mouth with his hand, and slit his throat, laying the body quietly on the ground.

Jumping over the body to the stairs, he saw Amara staring at the dead guy, and gave her a hand to jump over him. She landed behind him and nodded at him to go on, and he turned around, descending the steps silently, senses on high alert.

He heard the noise at the bottom of the stairs, clocked two men, and swiftly came at one from the back, hitting the top of his skull with his elbow. Before the other guy could react, he leaned to the side, kicking him in the throat, while jabbing the first man in his femoral artery, letting him bleed. The second man raised his gun and Dante twisted, swiping at his knee with his feet, putting the blade with his mouth as he got a grip of the guy’s head and broke his neck. It happened within seconds, the speed and surprise in his favor, as he entered the office.

Two more guys disarmed and dead, he helped his woman over their bodies, looking out the glass on the exit door and into the garage.

There were at least six men that he could see, all similarly dressed in black as the others had been, and Dante took note of their positions, mentally mapping out the strategy to take them out.

“Dante,” the quiet, almost terrified whisper had him turning his neck to look at wide, green eyes. Following her gaze, he looked at the blood on her fingers, not understanding why that would scare her. Not until he saw her look down between her legs.

She was bleeding, and it wasn’t a drop this time.

His heart began to pound as she stared up at him, her eyes shimmering with tears.

No. 

The baby.

Fuck, no.

“Hang in there for me, Amara,” he gripped the side of her face with his free hand, smearing blood onto her skin, his voice coming out rough to his own ears. “We’re almost out, okay? I know this is stressful but you fucking hang in here with me.”

“Y…yes,” she stuttered, wiping her fingers on his shirt that she was wearing, exhaling out deeply. “Just get us out of here, Dante. We’ll be fine.”

They had to be.

He couldn’t lose their baby, not just minutes after knowing about him or her. But he knew he needed to get them out soon before they were in danger. If he opened the door, it would alert the men and while he could take a lot of them out with the knife, there was still a risk of someone getting to Amara. If he took the gun and quickly shot out a few and coupled it with the knife, it minimized the risk.

“Give me the gun, and shield your body with mine,” he instructed her. “If they somehow get me, get out of here. No matter what, Amara. Get yourself out.”

He saw the first tear fall, saw that she wanted to tell him no, but she understood. If she got out, she could get their child to safety and contact Tristan. She nodded through her tears.

He pressed his forehead to hers for a second, saying the words he’d told her countless times over the years. “You’re the beat to my heart, Amara.”

“And you’re mine,” she replied, her voice barely audible, her words tattooed on his skin.

Urgency infusing his bloodstream, Dante pulled away, embracing the adrenaline, and opened the door a fraction, enough to slip out. He snuck up behind the guy closest to him, cut his jugular open, and muffled his mouth, laying him down.

One guy looked over and Dante aimed, shooting him between the eyes, immediately taking a shot at another guy’s head, another’s knee, and another’s spleen. Two of the men ducked behind cars once the shots rang out.

Dante hid behind a pillar, leaving Amara with the gun again, indicating her to stay in place behind the pillar. She nodded and he slinked out, staying low, walking around the edges of the big garage to where he’d seen the men duck behind a blue Ford. Keeping his body alert but loose, he padded over the side, the knife gripped in his hand like an extension of his limb and came behind the car just to see one guy. A bullet zapped through his side, barely a graze but burning like a fucker, but Dante barely let it stop him, slashing the guy open, feeling the blood on his torso.

He straightened to find the last guy, only to feel him at his back.

He turned, throwing the knife at him as the guy fired. Falling to the floor and rolling to evade, the wound on his side burning, he heard another shot ring out and his stomach tightened.

Straightening, he saw the last guy on the floor, a knife in his chest and a bullet in his head, and looked up to see Amara standing behind him, shaking like a leaf with the gun in her hand.

She had just shot the guy to save his ass. She had protected him. His terrified Amara.

Fuck.

He strode to her just as her knees gave out, her cheeks wet with tears. Taking the gun from her juddering hands, he picked her up and put her over his shoulder in a fireman carry, uncaring of all the blood except the one between her legs, and walked to the Ford.

Opening the door, he put her in the passenger seat, watching as the adrenaline and stress sent her body into shock, and sprinted around, hotwiring the car. Reversing out, going over one of the bodies, he turned to look at Amara, to see her staring blankly out the windshield.

“Amara,” he called her, watching as her eyes came to him.

“How’re you holding up baby?” he asked her, keeping his voice soft and his eyes on the road, déjà-vu hitting him as he took the same route to the hospital that he’d taken fifteen years ago.

“You have so much blood on you,” she remarked, her voice slightly strained.

“I look hot in blood, don’t I?” he joked, slightly relieved as she cracked a smile. “Although if it comes to liquid, I prefer the chocolate syrup you covered me in that one time and then went 69.”

The distraction was working, her mind like clay in his hands, gullible to his suggestions, molding in the direction he wanted it to go.

“We had fun that night,” she remembered, her eyes softening on him.

Oh yeah, that had been an incredible night. “We can try it again later.”

She stayed silent for a long second as they sped by. “We’re losing the baby, Dante.”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he pushed the car to the limit, his chest caving in at her words. “Don’t say that, Amara.”

“I’m bleeding too much,” her tone resigned, defeated, and it cut him.

“Yeah, and you will be fine,” he grit out. “Don’t you dare give up. Not now. Not after all this.”

“I’m so tired, Dante,” she whispered, and something in her voice made his gut clench.

“I know, baby.”

“I just want to sleep.”

No, this wasn’t good. “Just stay awake a little longer, yeah? Keep me company. We’re almost there.”

“You know,” she began. “I used to have nightmares in the beginning about that place. That someone would drag me there again, and I wanted to die before it ever happened.”

Fuck, he wanted to murder every asshole who had been involved all over again.

“But I never understood why they took me,” she mused, her fingers playing with the hem of the bloodied shirt. “I was no one. And yet, they kept asking me questions like I knew so much.”

He let her talk, glad that she was staying awake.

“They asked me if they should tell you your little girlfriend was there,” she huffed a laugh. “I wasn’t anything to you then.”

She was wrong. “You were always something to me. I just didn’t know what it was.”

“I don’t even know when my feelings for you changed,” she continued, adjusting in her seat. “I used to dream you would be my first kiss, you know. But it was a dream. You were so far away.”

“I’m not anymore,” he pointed out, and she turned her head to look at him, her green eyes somber.

“You saved me from my nightmares then, and you saved me from them now,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

Hit by the emotion in her voice, Dante kept his eyes on the road, taking her bloody hand and kissing it. “You’re mine, Amara. Mine to cherish, mine to protect, mine to love. We may not be husband and wife to the world but I have been married to you in my heart for eight years. And no matter what comes at us, we will get through it together. We build our empire together. No more running. Promise me.”

“Even if we lose the baby and I can’t give you any more?”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “Even then.”

Swallowing, she pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “No more running.”

With that, he swerved into the hospital emergency parking and prayed for both his woman and his child to be safe.