DANTE'S POV
I couldn't take her back to the hospital. Not because I don’t care about Lucas — God knows I do — but because Aria is fraying at the edges, held together by nothing but adrenaline and stubbornness. If I leave her under those lights, surrounded by machines and fear, she’ll break. And if she breaks tonight, I won’t be able to put her back together before everything else comes crashing down.
So I take her somewhere quiet. No guards at the door. No cameras watching her sleep. No men waiting for orders in the next room. Just a quiet apartment overlooking the city — borrowed, anonymous, temporary. Safe for one night. That’s all I can promise her right now.
She doesn’t say a word on the drive. She sits curled into herself in the passenger seat, my jacket wrapped around her like a
