CHAPTER 8
1640 Words
The rain hadn’t stopped all night. It thudded against the glass like a warning, soft, steady, relentless. Alina sat curled on the edge of the leather couch, arms around her knees, wrapped in one of Dante’s oversized black shirts. It smelled like him. Like danger and comfort and things she didn’t want to remember.
“You haven’t said a word,” came his voice from across the room. Low. Controlled. Too calm for the storm that lived in his eyes.
“I didn’t ask you to bring me here,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You didn’t have to,” Dante replied, stepping forward slowly, like she was something wild that might run. “The second you ran from me, you signed your death wish. And I’m the only one standing between you and that wish coming true.”
She flinched. Not because of his words, but because of the truth in them.
“You say that like you care,” she muttered.
He knelt in front of her, his scar catching the dim light. That damn scar, it always made her heart ache before she could stop it.
“I do care,” Dante said, voice rough. “I just don’t know how to care gently.”
Alina stared at him. His eyes weren’t soft, but they weren’t cold either. They were... haunted. Like hers.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said. “Then let me reintroduce myself.”
He reached out, fingers grazing her ankle. She pulled back instinctively, but he didn’t flinch. Just stayed there, eyes locked on hers.
“I’m the man who burned half this city trying to find you. I’m the man who hasn’t slept right since you left. And I’m the man who will kill anyone who looks at you like they want what’s mine.”
She swallowed. “I’m not yours.”
“You were. You still are.”
Her heart screamed. Her mouth didn’t move. She couldn’t speak, because some sick part of her wanted to believe it.
“Tell me to leave,” Dante said softly, deadly. “And I will.”
Silence.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he added. “Say it, Alina. I dare you.”
Her eyes welled. Damn him. Damn him for knowing exactly where to cut.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
He smiled. Slowly. Darkly. “Liar.”
And then he kissed her.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tender. It was punishment. It was possession. It was everything they’d left unsaid bleeding through teeth and breath and heat.
Alina broke it first, shoving him back with a gasp. “Don’t,” she said, trembling. “You don’t get to come back into my life like this. You don’t get to break me again.”
Dante stood, fists clenched at his sides. “You think I came here to break you?”
“You always do,” she said, her voice cracking.
He stared at her. Then walked to the wall, slammed his fist against the wood hard enough to splinter it.
“You think I wanted this scar?” he snapped. “You think I chose to suffer while you played ghost?”
Her breath caught. “What happened?”
He turned, shirt soaked from the storm he brought in with him. “You left. And a week later, I got ambushed by someone who knew exactly where to strike. Someone who knew me. Knew us.”
Her stomach turned.
“You think you’re safe out there?” he said, walking back. “There are worse men than me in this world, Alina. And one of them wants to see you dead. He’s using you to get to me.”
Her knees weakened.
“Who?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Just handed her a phone.
On the screen was a message, sent an hour ago:
You shouldn't have brought her back.
She’s your curse. I’m your consequence.
—M
“Who the hell is ‘M’?” she asked, heart pounding.
Dante’s jaw clenched. “Someone I should’ve buried years ago.”
She looked up at him, trembling. “And now?”
“Now?” he said, voice like steel. “Now I burn the rest of this city if I have to, to keep you alive.”
And for the first time since she ran, Alina wasn’t sure what scared her more.
The monsters chasing them.
Or the man willing to become one just to keep her.
The phone slipped from Alina’s fingers, thudding softly onto the carpet.
She couldn’t breathe.
M.
Just one letter. But it felt like a noose tightening around her neck.
“Who is he?” she whispered.
Dante didn't move. His eyes darkened, but he said nothing.
“Dante.” Her voice cracked this time. “Tell me. Please.”
He stepped forward, hands curling into fists. “You remember Matteo?”
Her blood ran cold.
The name was a ghost from years ago. One of Dante’s closest friends. A man she had once trusted, even laughed with.
“He’s dead,” she said, voice shaking. “You told me”
“I thought he was,” Dante muttered. “I made sure he was. But he played me. Faked his death. Disappeared after our last job in Milan. And now... he’s back. And he wants everything I ever touched.”
Her chest tightened. “Including me.”
“You were never just something I touched,” Dante said harshly. “You were the only part of me that wasn’t rotten.”
She looked away. “Then why did you let me go?”
Silence fell.
Outside, thunder cracked. The lights flickered.
“I let you go,” Dante said slowly, “because I thought I was the reason you couldn’t sleep at night. Because every time you looked at me, I saw fear. And I’d rather rip my heart out than be the reason you flinched.”
Alina’s eyes filled with tears. “And yet here you are. Again.”
“I came back,” he growled, “because if Matteo gets to you, he won’t just kill you. He’ll make sure I hear every scream you make before he does.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “So this is protection? Or possession?”
Dante stepped closer. She didn’t move.
“Both,” he said. “I don’t know how to love halfway. Not with you.”
Her breath caught.
Suddenly, the window shattered.
Glass sprayed across the room like bullets. Alina screamed, ducking as Dante threw himself in front of her. They hit the ground hard.
Gunshot. Another. Close.
Dante pulled a pistol from under the couch. Typical. He’d never stopped living like every second could be his last.
He crouched low and pressed her down beneath him. His chest heaved against hers.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
She nodded, eyes wide.
He moved like a shadow, silent, swift, lethal.
Seconds later, the house alarm blared. Somewhere outside, tires screeched. A black SUV roared past the broken window, vanishing into the night.
Dante returned with blood smeared down his arm.
“You’re hurt,” she gasped.
“Not mine,” he muttered.
He locked the doors, checked the cameras, and killed the alarm.
Only when everything was still again did he sit across from her, breathing heavily.
“They know where you are,” Alina whispered.
“They’ve always known. I wanted them to.”
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“I used you as bait,” he said flatly.
Silence.
“You what?” Her voice broke.
“I knew he’d come for you,” Dante said. “He wants to hurt me through you. So I gave him a trail to follow. But I didn’t expect him to strike this soon.”
She backed away. Her heart cracked in places she didn’t know still existed.
“You used me?” she whispered, barely able to say the words.
His jaw tensed. “To protect you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t get to use that excuse.”
She stood. He followed.
“I trusted you once,” she said, voice trembling. “I let you in. I gave you everything. And when it got too real, too hard”
“I didn’t leave you,” he growled. “You left me.”
“I had to!” she shouted. “You were becoming someone I didn’t recognize. You were burning the world down, and I was the one holding the match!”
They were nose to nose now, breathing hard.
“You think I stopped burning?” he whispered. “I’m still on fire, Alina. I just learned to smile through the smoke.”
Something inside her broke. She turned away, he grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t walk away from me again,” Dante said, voice low. “I’m not the same man you ran from.”
She looked at him, and for a moment, she saw it. Not the killer. Not the criminal.
Just a man. Tired. Haunted. Still in love.
She didn’t speak. Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips softly to the scar on his face.
He froze.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a surrender. A scar-for-scar kind of love.
“I’ll stay,” she whispered. “But not for you.”
He raised a brow. “Then for who?”
She looked him dead in the eyes. “For the girl who loved you before you became a monster.”
And just like that, he was silent.
Because she didn’t say she stopped loving him.
She just didn’t know if that girl still existed.
- Writer
