The Woman In His War

Chapter Eighteen: The Library Encounter

"She moves through this compound with more access than the operational situation requires," Marco said. "The courtyard, the library, the upper level sitting room." A pause. "Even your floor."

"She hasn't been on my floor." Dante argued.

"Okay." Marco looked at the road. "But she's been in your operations room and Nico's corridor. She was also awake when you came back at three in the morning and you sat with her until… " He stopped. "The point is that the boundaries of her captivity have been expanding in ways that are not operationally motivated."

Dante said nothing.

"And the men have noticed," Marco stated. ”Something is different and everyone in that building can feel it."

The city glowed at the horizon. A car passed on the road two hundred meters away with headlights sweeping the treeline and gone. The compound behind them was lit, quiet and full of people who had noticed something that Dante had been telling himself was manageable.

"That's alright, Marco" Dante said.

Marco was silent for a moment. Then… "Is that all?"

"That's all. I need a space right now.”

“Okay, sir.”

Marco turned and walked back through the gate. He knew something was wrong and even Dante was confused at the moment but just wouldn't admit it. Dante stood on the road alone for another twenty minute. The cold had worked all the way through his jacket now. He felt it in his hands, his jaw and between his shoulder blades where tension always settled. He turned around and went back inside.

The compound was quieter than when he'd left it and the night rotation had reduced the staff to its minimum: two men on the gate, one on the upper level and the rest stood down until morning. The corridors had the dim quality of a building that had pulled its light inward, conserving itself for the dark hours. His footsteps on the stone were the loudest thing moving. He passed her door and the tray was still outside it, untouched, the same way Luca had described it. He went to the kitchen for some water before heading to the operations room to check the files he still hadn't read. The kitchen was dark when he pushed the door open that he needed to reach for the light switch on the left side of the frame and his hand found it at the same moment the figure at the far counter turned around. They both went completely still and silent.

Serena was in a grey shirt, he recognized from the compound wardrobe with dark trousers. Her hair was down and loose around her shoulders the way it was when she wasn't performing anything. She had a glass of water in her hand and her feet were bare on the cold kitchen floor. They were both startled for the first few seconds in the dark, but Dante found the light switch. The kitchen came up warm with the amber of the undercabinet lights he'd had installed because the overhead was too harsh for a room people used at all hours.

"I thought you weren't eating," he said.

"I wasn't hungry earlier." She set the glass on the counter. "I am now."

He crossed to the cabinet above the sink while keeping to his side of the kitchen like they were both avoiding each other delibrately. He took a glass down, filled it at the tap and drank. Serena was still at the counter. He set his glass down and didn't want to go out first.

"Serena." He called, without looking towards her. "What you said in the library… "

"I meant it." She interrupted him before he landed.

"I know. That's not what I was going to say."

Dante turned around and looked at her. She was closer than she'd been thirty seconds ago. It was not dramatically. Just the natural compression of a small room when two people stop navigating it carefully and simply exist in it. Close enough that he could see the her eyes in the amber light. Her eyes were dark amber. It was the color he had first noticed when they met across the crowded gala. He also held her gaze. And all of a sudden, the intention and action that he had been managing with increasing difficulty for weeks spiked. Dante took one step toward her but she didn't move or flinched. Her lips were parted slightly and stared at her mouth with lust. His eyes moved from her lips to her eyes repeatedly for a few seconds. He heard a bird chirping in the distance. Only then did he realise the situation he was with Serena. He took a step back first and moved his eyes away from her.

The kitchen was very quiet and the inch between them was the most dishonest inch in the compound and both of them knew it but neither of them said so.

"You should eat something," Dante said quickly.

Then he left the kitchen awkwardly.

Serena stood in the kitchen after the door closed and pressed her hands softly on the counter. She stood in the kitchen startled for two minutes before she decided to take a glass of water and left.

She was not going to sleep tonight and already knew Dante wasn't either.