Chapter 186
Chapter 186:
“It’s for your own good!” Buck shouted from the other side. “Sit tight p>
His footsteps crunched away over the gravel, retreating steadily back toward the main house.
Then silence.
Eliza turned slowly, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. The studio was exactly as her mother had left it — frozen in time, buried under a decade of neglect. Covered canvases stood along the walls like draped figures, ghostly in the shadows. The smell of turpentine and old oil paint was nostalgic and suffocating in equal measure.
She ran to the windows. Boarded up from the inside. She threw her weight against one of the planks and pulled. It held. Nailed tight.
𝗧𝘩𝘦 bеst 𝗿𝗲𝗏iе𝘸𝘴 𝗼ո 𝗀𝗮𝗹ո𝗈𝘷еl𝗌.𝘤𝗼m
She was trapped.
The silence in the art studio was oppressive, broken only by Eliza’s ragged breathing and the wind threading through cracks in the stone walls. She had backed up until her spine pressed flat against the cold plaster, her eyes fixed on the heavy wooden door. Behind her back, both hands gripped the neck of a glass Mason jar packed with dried paintbrushes and turpentine. It was a pathetic weapon against a man like Dante Luna. It was all she had.
The lock rattled.
Not the fumbling of someone searching for the right key — the confident, unhurried turn of someone who owned the place.
The door creaked open on rusted hinges.
Dante Luna stepped inside. He was a mountain of a man, his presence instantly consuming the air in the small room. He wore a suit that cost more than the building he was standing in, but it did nothing to conceal the brutality beneath his posture. He smelled of expensive cigars and something underneath — cloying, rotten — that turned Eliza’s stomach.
He pulled the door shut behind him. The latch clicked with the finality of a prison sentence.
“So,” Dante said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to travel through the floorboards. His eyes moved over her in the dim light, lingering on the fear in hers. “This is the little artist p>
“Stay back,” Eliza said. Her voice trembled, but it held. She tightened her grip on the jar. “I’ve reviewed the proposal for the land transfer. The zoning laws in Havenport won’t permit a commercial casino. The deal is dead, Mr. Luna. There’s nothing for you here p>
Dante laughed — a wet, ugly sound that bounced off the high ceiling. He took a step closer, his boots grinding against the grit on the floor.
“You think this is about land, princess?” He shook his head, a cruel smirk settling onto his lips. “The deal isn’t about zoning permits or square footage. It’s about leverage. And right now, you are the leverage.” Another step. He was too large for the room. “Buck owes me considerably more than a plot of dirt. Since he’s short on cash, he offered collateral p>
“I am not property,” Eliza said.