Chapter 31 - You Hurt Me
1874 Words
It was finally time to come clean...
With this heart racing rapidly, Dante walked across the large and luxuriously furnished room and sat himself down into one of the matching comfortable leather armchairs.
The Don rarely ever used these particular chairs, they had been placed there to furnish his somewhat empty room, at the suggestion of one of his former interior decorators.
It was actually the first time he had ever sat down in one of them.
The unmistakable feeling of his pulse thudding loudly, over and over within his head began to consume him as he nervously contemplated what he was about to do.
Alexa wanted him to be more open with her. A request that up until now he had firmly refused her, due to the obvious dangers that it presented.
Knowing too much was dangerous.
Plain and simple.
And more than anything else, Dante wanted to protect Alexa. To keep both her and his unborn son safe from their growing list of countless enemies.
And he would quite literally do anything to ensure that would happen.
But right now, the Don had just willingly agreed to divulge his secretive plot to Alexa, with hopes of satisfying his furious fiancé. At least for the time being.
She wanted and in this particular case, deserved answers.
Dante would indeed inform her of the plans he and his men had organised on the night of the Gala Ball.
A plot to flush out a highly dangerous man. A rival Don who had been hiding out somewhere here in the city of New York.
And, like it or not, Sophie was Dante’s ticket to learning this mystery Don’s name.
“The woman’s name is Sophie Tarnell. She and I… we were together for a brief period of time. Shortly after I had chosen to end things between us, she became incredibly hostile and began stalking me.”
“Wait, she stalked you?”
Alexa cut in, seeming slightly interested in how that could be possible.
Dante nodded his head.
“She would often turn up at events and public gatherings that I was scheduled to attend in person. And during those events, somehow, she would happen to catch me alone…”
He paused, scoffing and shaking his head out of frustration before he went on.
“At first, I thought she was just being resentful. That she was just jealous of me ending things between us the way that I had... I was later informed that Miss Tarnell had been feeding information to someone else about me, my businesses and even informants working for me.”
Alexa seemed to hang on his every word, even from where she stood in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around her body in an effort to try and self soothe.
“Who did she tell?” she asked, purely out of curiosity.
Dante’s expression suddenly changed, becoming instantly icy-cold.
“It seems that I have a rival Don living somewhere in the city of New York. I learned it was him that Sophie was passing the information onto. God only knows what she got out of it…”
He shook his head and sighed.
“So, I plotted to draw both her and this mysterious Don out into the open. I had everything meticulously planned out, to take place at this evening’s Gala Ball. I knew that she would show up and when I got word that the Don was also in attendance, I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”
“Wait, this rival Don of yours came to the ball tonight? He was there somewhere?”
Alexa queried out of disbelief.
“Why would he do that? Wouldn’t that be terribly dangerous for him?”
Dante shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
“No idea.”
Taking this new information in, Alexa now felt the need to return to the topic at hand.
She wanted answers regarding this photographed kiss.
“Alright, so was it a part of this plan of yours to kiss Sophie as well?” she challenged.
Rolling his eyes, the Don shifted in his chair and let out a long, breathy sigh.
It was indeed time for him to get to the point.
“Everything was going perfectly. I had several men surrounding the patio and out of sight. Each of them prepared with a sedative for when the moment came… I even managed to get Sophie out there at one point.”
His head hung low as he went on, as if he were ashamed of what he would now admit.
“That was when she made her offer.”
“Offer?” Alexa found herself asking.
“What kind of offer?”
Licking his now incredibly dry lips, Dante continued.
“One kiss… one kiss and she would disappear. Leave my life entirely and sever her connections with this rival Don she’d been working with-”
Dante was suddenly interrupted by the sound of Alexa chuckling.
He glanced upwards; his brows furrowed inwards with disbelief as he looked to her in question.
“-And you actually believed her?” Alexa countered, clearly baffled by his foolish choice.
Once again, his head hung low shamefully.
The Mafia Boss was now showing just how remorseful he felt for being idiotic enough to have trusted someone like Sophie.
“At the time… yes. I suppose I did.” he admitted softly, a defeated tone lacing his every word.
Shaking her head, Alexa started walking across the room towards where he was sitting and found herself a chair to sit down in.
After lowering herself down into it she turned to face him, as if waiting for him to continue as she asked her next questions.
“So, what happened to this rival Don? I mean, did your plan to lure him out work? Did he ever show?”
Pursing his lips tightly together, Dante shook his head slowly from side to side in response, signalling no.
It had obviously angered him, and the tense posture of his body was evidence enough of this.
“And Sophie?” Alexa queried.
“What happened to her?”
Once more, Dante shrugged his shoulders.
“After we kissed she just... disappeared into the crowd.”
He paused, lifting his hand up and running his fingers through his dark locks.
“But I swear… if I ever see that woman again, I will kill her with my bare hands.”
Now, with his entire story laid out for her, Alexa felt a little more satisfied. But the hurt from what he had done still remained.
Dante had willingly allowed another woman to kiss him and as much as Alexa wanted to forget it and move on, the jealousy was eating away at her.
“Thank you for opening up to me, Dante.” she finally spoke, breaking the surrounding tension for but a moment.
“It means a lot to me that you’d do that.”
Sliding forwards so that his knees were almost touching Alexa’s, Dante leaned forward to close the gap between them as he spoke, looking directly into her eyes as he did.
“I never meant to hurt you, bella…” he admitted sincerely.
“I could never hurt you.”
Frowning, Alexa sat backwards suddenly, widening the gap between them substantially.
“But you did, Dante… you did hurt me.” she reminded him.
“Not only did you willingly kiss another woman, but you lied to me about it. You tried to hide it from me.”
For once the all-powerful Don was at a loss for words as he slowly began to sit back into his chair.
His expression showed just how truly devastated he had felt in that moment.
She was right.
He f****d up.
Without another word, Alexa suddenly rose from her chair and began heading towards the doorway in silence.
Seeing her intent on leaving, Dante suddenly became desperate as he too rose from his chair and called out to her.
“Wait, where are you going?” he demanded.
Pausing by the door, Alexa turned her head to the side and spoke to him over her shoulder.
As she did, her expression showed just how much this was hurting her too right now.
“I’ll be in one of the guest rooms…” she announced.
“Alexa…”
He spoke, shaking his head slowly, as if it would convince her.
“Please don’t go.”
But she had already made up her mind.
“Goodnight Dante.”
Her voice cracked slightly as she fought back her tears before then reaching out, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway.
The sound of the door closing behind her was almost too much for Dante to bear as he was forced to stand and watch her disappear.
Leaving him all alone.
-
It wasn’t hard for Alexa to find one of the three guest rooms located in the penthouse and once she had, she had herself a nice warm shower before getting dressed into a comfortable cotton nightgown and climbing into the freshly made sheets.
Pulling the covers up over her legs and chest, she lay back against the headboard of the massive bed and sat in silence for a while.
Contemplating where to from here.
Yes, Dante had f****d up… badly!
He had betrayed her trust and their relationship by kissing someone else.
Especially an ex-girlfriend of all people!
But she couldn’t find it within herself to hate the man for it.
No matter how enraged she was with him right now, or how much she wanted to go and beat the s**t out of him with a baseball bat until he was a bloody mess on the floor, she couldn’t even pretend to hate him…
She still loved him.
Curling herself up into the bed and pulling the blanket up until it covered her from the shoulders down, she surrounded herself with pillows and got herself comfortable.
But then a sudden and unexpected wave of emotions came washing over her, letting loose the mass of tears that had been waiting to be unleashed this entire time.
As she began to cry, warm tears began rolling down the sides of both her cheeks, landing on the pillow beneath her head.
And as she sobbed uncontrollably, all alone in one of the guest beds, Dante sat at his office desk watching the image of her on the large screen of his desktop with a frown upon his handsome face.
He was the one responsible for her pain.
He made the mistake that had led her to feel this way.
He had betrayed her trust.
The guilt was almost unbearable now as the Don sat watching her in silence, the sounds of her sniffs and sobs the only thing that could be heard in the entire office.
In that very moment, Dante vowed to never again cause her pain.
He would do whatever it took to prevent that from happening.
Dante swore that no matter what, he would find a way to make things right between them once more.
Somehow, he would find a way to fix this.
He had to…
Losing Alexa would ultimately kill him.
- Writer
