CHAPTER XVIII

It had been days since the incident. It had also been days since I was like this. Cold and unattached. Like an empty vessel forced to live out the days of a normal person except I no longer saw the purpose in it.

In the first few days, Dante tried to engage me in a conversation but I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes I just leave the room without a word. There was just too much energy needed in talking plus, I couldn’t really understand what he was saying anyway. Not when a lot was going on inside me.

Still, I felt him everywhere. Even though I didn’t talk to him, he lingered in the same room with me. His weight echoed the tiles under my feet. He didn’t let a day pass without letting me feel his presence. He loomed over me like a shadow. So close yet so out of reach. I could see the turmoil boiling behind his eyes but under all that, there was anger. It emanated from him; the need to punish me for leaving Lorenzo’s house and going to the club with Sharon. I knew my silence was wearing thin on his patience. It’s only a matter of days before he exploded.

I’d be damned if I were to stick around and wait for it to happen.

I looked down from the bedroom window to the green grass swaying gently against the cold breeze of the night. It seemed so soft like I’d just bounce off of it if I jumped. Dante was still out. He’d been gone all day. I should be glad but his absence only made me feel discarded.

Is he going to dispose of me now that I was broken? Just like what he did with James? Aim his gun at my head and pull the trigger with ease and without an ounce of remorse?

Giving one last glance back at the somber room, I finally put my leg over the window. Once my foot gained purchase of the ledge, I carefully pulled my body out the window and skirted sideways to get to the roof. My shallow breaths seemed to echo through the empty sky and the chilly air was not doing any favors to my nerves but before I knew it, my feet already reached the second-floor window ledge and the only thing left for me to do was slide down the column.

I automatically dropped to my knees as soon as my feet touched the ground like I’d been doing this my whole life.

Freedom.

“You continue to disappoint, fiorellino.”

The sound of his low masculine voice vibrated uncomfortably down my spine and I froze.

“Dante.” The name rolled off my tongue in a breathy whisper.

He shouldn’t be here, smoking like he had all the time in the world.

“What's next on the agenda? Where do you plan on going next, hmm?”

He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and stepped on its dying light. I wondered just how many lives he has killed with the same ease as if it’s another bug in his presence.

“What’s wrong?”

His cold expression suddenly scrunched in concern as tears of frustration leaked from my eyes.

“If you really care, you will let me leave. No questions asked.”

“If I really care I will let you know that my men are guarding every escape hole you can find in the city. You won’t even get past the gates before you find yourself upside down over someone’s shoulder. Now, you really want to go through that humiliation?”

“I don’t care. You may be the don’s son but you’re not invincible. You’re bound to fail at some point.”

A muscle ticked at his jaw. He didn’t like being reminded of it but I stared up at him, challenging him to contradict my words.

“And then what? Where would you hide in a city where everyone knows your name? One look at your face and your father’s enemies will not hesitate to throw you to the vultures to bring the families down. But not before they play with you, rape you, and pass you around their men until they break you and you’re nothing but flesh to be sold to the highest bidder. Do you want that?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I was taken back to the incident in the club. If it weren’t for him, that would surely be my fate.

And now I was leaving him again.

“I don’t think you’ve thought this through, fiorellino.”

“Come with me.”

“What?”

“We can leave all this. The killing. The never-ending feuds. Everything.”

He seemed genuinely confused as if I’d broken character. I didn’t know what made me say it but it was just there at the tip of my tongue. Waiting to be said as if it was the only solution to everything.

Dante didn’t seem to think so as his face hardened.

“I know your future might seem bleak to be married off to a man like me. You may never learn to love me and by that fact go your whole life never loving someone but one thing I can promise in this loveless marriage—” He moved closer to me and I immediately took a step back, his black depths threatened to drown me whole.

“I will never hurt you or let anyone touch a strand of your hair without their blood splattering to the ground.”

The words rang through my head as though I’d heard it all before. It held some disturbing comfort in it but this time, I ran. With no direction in mind, I pumped my heels hard against the ground with wild abandon, my muscles protesting at the sudden effort. I was never much of an athlete.

Just when I thought I was gaining distance, I tripped and found myself back in front of an old mansion.

My eyes widened in horror. It’s burning.

Heavy footsteps crunched behind me. A silhouette of a tall man descended upon me, stretching a length of rope in his fists. I couldn’t make out his face in the dark but when he spoke, I could feel a sinister smile lurking just beneath it.

“Found you.”

I jolted awake.

My top is plastered to me like a second skin as I soaked in my sweat and tears. I put a hand to my pounding heart. My nightmares were becoming more and more vivid each day that I could no longer tell what was real or not but that one felt like a memory of the past which was impossible because Dante was there. And yet, I swear I could taste the fear and despair in the back of my throat. The desperation and heat were still palpable in this suffocating air.

I pulled my face away from the window, the numbness fading away as I felt the sleep lines splayed across my cheek. My hand reached out to something beside me but it found nothing.

A glass of water maybe?

I decided to go downstairs and get myself one. I didn’t bother turning on the lights. The darkness had been my companion for the past few days. A familiar chill rolled down my spine as the beeping sound of the front door rebounded through the high ceiling. Dante finally came back. I knew it was him because he didn’t allow anyone to enter the house but him. Even Annalise was nowhere to be found.

But what greeted me in the foyer was not Dante. No, it was a woman. A strange woman.

Before I could ask for her name, she went limp on the ground and the sound that came out of my mouth surprised me.

“Mama!”

“I told you what would happen if you try to escape, right?”

The faceless man that haunted me in my nightmares stood before my mother’s body except it had a face now.

Black unforgiving eyes with a long scar on the left.

Dante.

I charged towards the open door.