Dangerous Melodies - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

DANTE
The soft, haunting melody drifted through the mansion, pulling me from my study like a moth to a flame. I followed the sound, and for once, the noise in my mind began to quiet. The calculations and contingencies faded.
At the music room door, I stopped and leaned against the frame. Marisol sat at the grand piano. She didn’t even seem to notice me. Her entire world was in those keys, like nothing outside of them mattered. Her fingers moved across the keys with a kind of fluid grace.
Her expression was soft, touched by that rare blend of focus and peace I’d only seen a few times before. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, wrapping her in gold. For a second, she didn’t even look real.
But it wasn’t just her talent that held me there. It was the way her body moved with the music. She swayed with each note, her shoulders lifting and falling, her head tilting gently like every chord whispered something only she could understand. She and the piano weren’t separate, they were one. And what they created felt impossibly bigger than both.
I stood still, unable to move. She didn’t perform the song. She was the song.
I’d spent years training my mind to stay ahead, to stay sharp. Control the narrative. Anticipate the betrayal. It had become instinct. Cold, precise, necessary. But right now, standing in that doorway, all of that felt useless.
She unraveled me.
There wasn’t a word for the sound she made. It wasn’t performance, and it wasn’t confession either. It was something quieter. Braver. Like she wasn’t asking for anyone to hear her. Like she sang just to survive it.
And maybe that’s what gutted me most. That she didn’t need an audience. Not even me. She was singing the pain out of her body, and all I could do was watch.
I should’ve left. I should’ve given her the dignity of privacy. But I stayed, rooted there like a coward, like a thief stealing something sacred. I told myself she wouldn’t notice. That if I held still enough, maybe I wouldn’t contaminate the moment.
But it wasn’t just awe tightening my chest. It was fear too.
Because this was who she really was. And I’d seen glimpses. Sharp flashes through the cracks. But never the whole of it. Not like this.
And if I could see her this clearly, then maybe... she could see me too.
I wasn’t ready for that.
My hands flexed at my sides. I didn’t even realize I’d curled them into fists. There were so many things I wanted to say, but none of them would come out right. Not when she was like this. Glowing. Untouchable. Already halfway gone.
Then her voice rose: soft at first, then stronger, richer. It wrapped around me, slid under my skin, whispered straight through me. Each word landed with this raw, aching honesty that sent a chill down my spine.
She could hold the world in the palm of her hand … if she wasn’t still hiding from Marcos.
The thought hit hard, deeper than I expected. This wasn’t about skill. This was her heart, wide open. And it took everything in me just to keep breathing.
MARISOL
The last note trembled in the air, fading slowly as my fingers stilled. I felt him behind me before I even looked up. The shift in the room gave him away. The weight of his presence pulled at something inside me.
Our eyes met.
A smile tugged at my lips, instinctive, but the tightness curled low in my gut. He’d been avoiding me.
Ever since we’d come home early from the honeymoon, he’d moved like a ghost, close but unreachable. He blamed the business emergency, but his eyes didn’t meet mine. Not like before.
Something had shifted, and it troubled me deeply. I wanted to ask what had changed, to make him say it out loud. The words pressed against the back of my throat, brittle and dangerous, like speaking them would break us.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, keeping my voice soft.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Dante replied, his voice low, rich.
He crossed the room slowly, gravity bending toward me. I hated the effect he had on me.
“You look like you’re in another world when you play. And it’s … breathtaking.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear.
“It’s the one place where everything makes sense,” I murmured, my gaze dropping to the piano keys. “The chaos fades away, and it’s just me and the music.”
He nodded, and I could feel that he understood. He knew how I clung to this, how it held me together.
“We’ve been back for a few days, and I’ve been so caught up... I haven’t had a chance to really check in with you. How are you holding up?”
The question landed, sharp and unexpected. My breath faltered. I straightened, a flicker of steel threading through my spine.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, facing him fully now. “I don’t want to keep running. I want to bring down my fath—”
My throat closed up. The word tasted like ash.
“Roberto’s empire,” I corrected, forcing the name past the burn of betrayal. “It’s the only way I can truly be free.”
He didn’t say anything right away, but I saw it, the way he registered the slip, the pain behind it.
“That’s a dangerous path, Marisol,” he said carefully, “but not impossible. What do you have in mind?”
I took a deep breath. “I want him in prison. I want every asset seized and his entire network torn down, piece by piece. He took everything from me. Kept me trapped in that house, wearing a pretty mask while he pulled the strings.” My jaw tightened. “It would be poetic justice to see him rot in a cell.”
Dante’s expression shifted. “If we’re going to do this, we need to be smart,” he said. “We’ll find the cracks in his system and dismantle them from the inside.”
His gaze didn’t soften. It sharpened, cut right through me. And it hit like a match to dry leaves.
“Will you help me take him down?” I asked, my voice low but steady. It cost me to ask, but I needed to know. “You’ll help me fight back?”
He cupped my cheek, his palm warm against my skin.
“Yes,” he said. “Together. We’ll do it our way.”
Another thought rose, one that had been sitting in the back of my mind.
“You still have the file I brought,” I reminded him. “With all the evidence on Roberto. I’ll help however I can.”
He nodded, but there was something in his eyes that warned me it wouldn’t be easy.
Still, I wasn’t done. “You still have my cash and weapons,” I said, the words firm and even. “I want them back.”
His expression darkened. “No. You don’t need them.”
Anger flared sharply in my chest, clawing its way to the surface. My hands curled into fists before I even felt them move.
“I said, I want... them... back,” I repeated, each word hard and emphasized. My voice didn’t rise, but the weight behind it was impossible to ignore.
“And I said, N. O.,” Dante responded, spelling it out like I hadn’t heard him the first time. His gaze never wavered, bracing for the storm.
And I gave it to him.
Slowly, I pushed the bench back and stood, every motion a choice. My pulse jackhammered in my temples, sharp and relentless. The air between us thinned.
I stood, met his gaze, and fury surged: raw, blinding, alive.