Chapter 328: Dangerous

KATYA POV

“We can go over the evidence together.”

Silence. The words settled over the room like a heavy blanket, pressing against my chest until it became difficult to breathe.

Beside me, Chiara was the first to move. “What?” she blurted, her fingers tightening painfully around mine. “No.”

Inspector Ricci regarded her calmly.

“No?” Chiara shook her head immediately. “I-I don’t think that’s necessary.” Her voice grew steadier with each word, as though she were convincing herself as much as the officers.

“We’ve already told you.”

“We weren’t there,” I managed to add, the lie tasting like ash on my tongue. “There must be some misunderstanding.”

Officer Bellini remained expressionless while Officer Ferraro simply watched us, his gaze heavy and unblinking, without saying a single word.

Inspector Ricci offered a patient, practiced smile. “I understand this may seem unexpected, Miss Chiara.”

“It is,” Chiara replied quickly, her panic thinly veiled by her defensive tone. “But we really haven’t done anything. We’ve never even—” She stopped herself before saying too much, pulling back from the edge of a confession.

“We don’t know why our names came up.”

“We’ve already explained everything.” I tried to support her, but I could barely bring myself to speak.

My mouth had gone completely dry. The room suddenly felt far too warm, the air thick and suffocating.

Far too small. The inspector closed her notebook gently, the soft thud sounding like a gavel in the quiet room. “This isn’t an arrest.”

Chiara frowned, her shoulders dropping a fraction. “…It isn’t?”

“No.”

“It’s simply questioning.” Ricci spoke slowly, carefully, as if handling skittish animals. “We’re asking everyone who may have been present before the incident.”

My heartbeat refused to slow. It hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped thing.

“There was a fire.” Ricci paused, letting the weight of the word hang in the air.

“And during the investigation…” Her eyes briefly lowered to her lap before returning to us, sharp and piercing. “…several deceased individuals were discovered in the alley behind the establishment.”

Dead. Bodies.

The words slammed into me so violently my vision blurred. The blood rushed to my ears in a deafening roar, and my fingers went entirely numb.

The pristine walls of the villa began to bleed away, and suddenly, I wasn’t sitting inside the safety of the living room anymore.

I was back there. The alley. The putrid smell of garbage and copper. The biting cold of the night air.

Blood. So much blood, turning black under the dim alley lights. One man sprawled awkwardly against the damp brick wall. Another lying motionless near the dumpsters, his eyes staring blankly at nothing. The impossible, horrifying stillness of death.

The way my stomach had lurched so violently I’d nearly been sick right then and there. And worse than the bodies—the memory that truly haunted me—was seeing how utterly indifferent Romeo had been.

He had been leaning so casually near those corpses, as if they were nothing more than discarded trash.

My breathing became shallow and uneven.

“Miss Katya?”

I blinked. The living room slowly blurred back into focus. The expensive furniture, the soft lighting, the police officers.

Inspector Ricci was watching me now. A flicker of genuine concern—not suspicion—crossed her features. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine.” I swallowed hard, trying to force the bile back down. The lie came out far less convincing than I’d hoped, my voice cracking slightly.

Beside me, Chiara squeezed my hand again, her palm sweaty against mine. “It’s okay,” she whispered, so quietly only I could hear.

Was it? Because it certainly didn’t feel okay.

Dead bodies. They knew. They knew about the alley. My thoughts spiraled uncontrollably, tangling into a knot of pure panic.

Nothing made sense anymore. If they knew about the bodies, we were in so much deeper than I ever realized.

The inspector continued speaking, her voice a distant drone. “As I said, neither of you are under arrest. We simply need statements to clear up the timeline. After that, you’ll be free to leave.”

Free to leave. It sounded so simple. So reasonable. Then why did it feel like my entire world was beginning to crack down the center?

Almost without thinking, driven by a desperate need for an anchor, my eyes drifted across the room.

To Romeo.

He remained exactly where he’d been since I’d entered the room, completely detached from the tension suffocating the rest of us.

One leg was crossed lazily over the other. A cigarette balanced effortlessly between his long fingers.

Smoke curled in elegant, lazy ribbons toward the ceiling, obscuring his face. His expression was utterly unreadable, carved from marble.

My mind snagged on a thought that refused to let go, dragging me under.

He was there.

My pulse stumbled, skipping a beat. Romeo had been at the club. He’d been in that alley. I’d seen him. I’d seen those men.

I’d seen… him.

He’d walked away from those broken, bleeding bodies as though he were simply stepping around puddles after a light rain.

A freezing chill crawled slowly down my spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

He killed them.

I was sure of it. Not because I’d watched the bullets tear through them—I hadn’t. But because somewhere deep inside, in a place I’d been too terrified to look… I knew.

Everything pointed toward him. Those men hadn’t simply dropped dead from fright.

Someone had brutally ended their lives.

And Romeo… Romeo was the only person I’ve ever seen who could leave a slaughterhouse like that without the slightest hint of panic, without a single speck of remorse.

Then, another thought struck me. It hit me hard enough that I almost gasped aloud.

If the police knew bodies had been found…

Why weren’t they questioning him? Why were they sitting here, intimidating Chiara and me with soft words and pointed questions… when Romeo had been there, too?

My eyes remained fixed on him, pleading, demanding, searching for some kind of sign. He didn’t acknowledge me immediately.

He simply took one slow, deliberate drag from his cigarette, the tip glowing a fierce amber, before exhaling a cloud of gray smoke.

Only then did those pale, icy grey eyes shift.

Meeting mine. There was absolutely nothing in them. No guilt. No concern. No hidden warning. Nothing.

Just that same impossible, terrifying calm that made him feel less like a man and more like a predator waiting out a storm.

It irritated me. It confused me. It terrified me. How could someone sit so comfortably, exuding such absolute peace, while the police discussed a mass murder only a few feet away?

Unless… Unless he already knew exactly what they knew. Or perhaps… he knew exactly what they didn’t.

The thought made my stomach tighten into a painful knot. Inspector Ricci’s voice pulled me back to reality again, severing the silent connection between Romeo and me. “Miss Katya?”

I tore my gaze away from him, my heart hammering against my throat. “Yes?”

“I know this is overwhelming,” her tone remained gentle, almost maternal, which only made the trap feel more dangerous.

“But we’d appreciate your cooperation.”

I nodded automatically. Not because I agreed to help them, but because I wasn’t entirely sure I’d fully processed the question.

My thoughts were still elsewhere. Still anchored across the room. Still sitting with the monster in the corner.

I watched the man who looked completely untouched by the fire, the deaths, and the law unfolding around him.

For the first time since meeting Romeo Salvatore… I found myself wondering something I hadn’t allowed myself to truly articulate before.

Not whether he was dangerous. I’d known the answer to that months ago; the danger radiated off him like heat from a furnace.

No… The question circling endlessly inside my head now was far more unsettling, leaving a cold taste of dread in my mouth.

How dangerous did someone have to be for the police to walk into his own house, and question everyone inside—except him?

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