RUTHLESS VOW

Chapter Eight: Sleepless

I'd given up on sleep entirely by the time the clock struck two AM.

My room was too quiet, too perfect, too much like a beautiful prison. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dante's face in the portrait gallery—the raw grief when he'd spoken about his mother, the walls slamming back into place the moment he remembered who he was supposed to be.

The Don. The monster. The man who couldn't afford to be human.

I threw back the covers and pulled on a robe over my pajamas. The house was silent as I made my way downstairs, my bare feet soundless on the marble floors. I'd learned which boards creaked, which hallways the cameras watched most closely, which paths would let me move through the estate like a ghost.

I headed for the kitchen, craving tea and solitude and maybe some of the cookies the cook left out in the afternoons. What I found instead was Dante.

He sat at the kitchen island in the darkness, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, staring at nothing. He'd shed his suit jacket and tie, his white shirt open at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves. His hair was mussed like he'd been running his hands through it, and shadows pooled under his eyes.

He looked exhausted. He looked human. He looked like someone who carried the weight of the world and had forgotten how to set it down.

I should have left. Should have backed out quietly before he noticed me. But something in his posture—the slump of his shoulders, the defeated tilt of his head—kept me rooted in place.

"Can't sleep either?" I asked softly.

His head snapped up, and for a moment, I saw surprise flash across his face before it smoothed into something more guarded. "Elena. What are you doing up?"

"Same as you, apparently." I moved into the kitchen, keeping the island between us. "Insomnia."

"It's after two."

"I'm aware." I filled the kettle and set it on the stove, hyper-conscious of his gaze tracking my movements. "Does it happen often? The not sleeping?"

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then: "More than I'd like to admit."

I turned to face him, leaning against the counter. "Nightmares?"

"Sometimes." He swirled the whiskey in his glass. "Other times it's just... noise. Thoughts that won't quiet. Decisions that need to be made. People I've—" He stopped himself, his jaw tightening. "Problems that don't have clean solutions."

"The weight of the crown," I said quietly.

His eyes met mine, and something flickered in their depths. "Something like that."

The kettle whistled. I poured water over a tea bag, letting the silence stretch between us. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly. Just heavy with all the things we weren't saying.

"Why are you really awake, Elena?" Dante asked finally.

I wrapped my hands around the warm mug. "Thinking too much."

"About?"

"This place. This situation. Who I was before I came here and who I might be when I leave." I took a sip of tea, the heat soothing. "About you."

His fingers tightened on his glass. "What about me?"

"Trying to figure you out. You're not what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"A monster." I met his gaze steadily. "Cold. Cruel. Someone who would use me and discard me without a second thought."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know what you are." I moved around the island, drawn by something I couldn't name, until only a few feet separated us. "You're still terrifying. Still dangerous. But you're also... more. Complicated. Human in ways I didn't expect monsters to be."

Dante set down his glass and stood. The movement brought him closer, close enough that I could see the exhaustion etched into his features, the vulnerability he was trying so hard to hide.

"Don't romanticize me, Elena," he said quietly. "I'm not some misunderstood hero waiting to be saved. I've done things that would make you sick. Hurt people. Destroyed lives. The blood on my hands doesn't wash off just because you see fragments of humanity beneath it."

"I'm not trying to save you."

"Then what are you trying to do?"

"Understand you." I lifted my chin. "Because for some reason I can't explain, I want to know who you are. Not the Don everyone fears. Not the cold bastard who collects debts. But you. The man who misses his mother. Who can't sleep. Who looks at me like—"

I stopped myself, but it was too late. The words hung between us, dangerous and exposing.

"Like what?" His voice had gone rough, low. He took a step closer.

"Like I matter," I whispered. "Like I'm more than just a debt to be collected."

"You are." The confession seemed torn from him. " God, Elena, You're so much more than that. So much more it terrifies me."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "Dante—"

"Do you know what it's like?" He moved closer still, until I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "To spend years building walls, convincing yourself you don't need anyone, that caring makes you weak? And then someone walks into your office and shatters every defense you've ever built without even trying?"

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare up at him as he laid himself bare in a way I'd never imagined he could.

"You haunt me, Elena." His hand came up, hovering near my face but not quite touching, like he was afraid of what might happen if he made contact. "I see you everywhere. In my office when you're not there. In the halls. In my room at night when I can't sleep. You're in my head constantly, and I don't know how to make it stop. I don't know if I want it to stop."

"Then don't," I said, my voice barely audible. "Don't make it stop."

Something flared in his eyes—heat and hunger and desperate longing. His hand finally made contact, cupping my face with a gentleness that contradicted everything I knew about him. His thumb traced my cheekbone, and I felt the slight tremor in his touch.

"This is dangerous," he murmured.

"I know."

"You should run from me."

"I know that too."

"But you're not running."

"No." I turned my face into his palm. "I'm not."

For a long moment, we stood frozen like that—his hand on my face, my eyes locked with his, the air between us crackling with everything we weren't saying. I could see the war in his expression, the desire fighting with control, the hunger battling restraint.

Then he dropped his hand and stepped back, breaking the spell.

"It's late," he said, his voice carefully controlled. "You should try to sleep."

The dismissal stung, but I understood it. This—whatever this was between us—terrified him. Maybe it terrified me too.

"Will you?" I asked. "Sleep?"

"Eventually."

"Liar."

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "You're getting bold, Miss Russo."

"I've always been bold. You're just finally noticing."

This time he did smile, and the transformation was breathtaking. For a moment, he wasn't the cold Don or the feared mafia boss. He was just a man, tired and lonely and achingly human.

"I've noticed everything about you from the moment you walked into my office," he said quietly. "Every single thing. That’s the problem."

Before I could respond, he turned away. "Stay. Finish your tea. I should go."

"Dante, wait."

He paused at the doorway but didn't turn around.

"Talk to me," I said. "Just... stay and talk. Please. Don’t go back to whatever room you’re not sleeping in and torture yourself alone."

For a long moment, he stood perfectly still. Then, slowly, he turned back.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Anything. Everything." I gestured to the island. "Tell me something real. Something you’ve never told anyone else."

He studied me for a long moment, something vulnerable and uncertain crossing his features. Then he moved back to the island and reclaimed his seat. Not close. But not running either.

"Alright," he said. "We'll talk."

And we did.

For hours, we sat in that kitchen as night bled into early morning, trading pieces of ourselves in the darkness. The conversation flowed easier than it should have between captor and captive, between Don and Debtor.

He told me about growing up in this house, about his father's cruelty disguised as strength. How Antonio Moretti had beaten weakness out of him before he was old enough to understand what he was losing. About his mother reading to him in secret, teaching him that gentleness wasn’t the same as weakness, even though she’d paid for that softness with her life.

“She used to leave books on my pillows,” he said, staring into his empty glass. “My father forbade them. Said literature made men soft. But she’d sneak them to me anyways. Poetry. Philosophy. Stories about heroes and honor. His jaw tightened. “She died still believing in those heroes. Still thinking the world had room for goodness.”

“You think it dosen’t. Not in my world.”

“I know it doesn't. Not in my world."

"Then why keep her picture?" I asked. "Why build a shrine to her memory if you think she was wrong?"

He was quiet for a long time. "Because even though her softness got her killed, even though my father crushed every gentle thing about her... she was the only person who ever loved me without conditions. Without fear. Just... loved me." His eyes met mine. "And I've spent eighteen years trying to become someone worthy of that love, even though she's not here to see it."

My throat tightened. "She'd be proud of you."

"Would she?" His laugh was bitter. "I've done things she would have wept over. Become everything she warned me not to be."

"You've also protected your sister. Built something from the ruins your father left. You're not him, Dante."

"No," he agreed quietly. "I'm worse. My father was cruel because he didn't know better. I'm cruel even though I do."

I told him about my father then—about the gambling, the schemes, the way he'd chase dreams that always crumbled. About being twelve and learning to forge his signature on bills because he'd forgotten to pay the electric company. About loving him desperately even while resenting the burden he'd placed on my shoulders.

"He gave you that necklace, didn't he?" Dante asked, his gaze dropping to the gold chain at my throat. "Right before he died."

My hand went instinctively to touch it. "Two weeks before. He was so insistent I wear it. Said it would keep me safe." I laughed without humor. "Turns out the only thing I needed protection from was his debts."

Something flickered across Dante's face—guilt, maybe, or something darker I couldn't read. But it disappeared before I could examine it.

"He must have loved you," Dante said quietly. "In his way."

"I know he did. That's what makes it so hard."

We talked about books then, trading favorites and debating classics. He loved Russian literature—Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, stories about suffering and redemption. I preferred mysteries and thrillers, anything with puzzles to solve.

“Of course you do," he said, and this time his smile reached his eyes. "You can't resist trying to figure things out."

"Is that what I'm doing? Trying to figure you out?"

"Aren't you?"

"Maybe. Is it working?"

"Too well." The smile faded. "You see too much, Elena. It's dangerous. For both of us."

"Then maybe you should stop letting me see it."

"I don't know how to stop." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "You're the first person in years who's looked at me and seen a man instead of a monster. How am I supposed to hide from that?"

Dawn began to creep through the windows, painting the kitchen in shades of gold and rose. We'd been talking for hours, but it felt like minutes. Like time had suspended itself for just this moment, just this conversation.

"I should go," I said, though I didn't move. "Let you get some rest."

"Will you?" he asked. "Rest?"

"Maybe. If I stop thinking about this conversation."

"That makes two of us."

I stood, and he did the same. The kitchen island still separated us, but the distance felt smaller now. Like something had shifted, some barrier had dissolved.

"Thank you," Dante said quietly. "For staying. For talking. For not running when you should have."

"Thank you for letting me in. Even if just for tonight."

His eyes held mine, dark and intense and full of things I was afraid to name. "It wasn't just for tonight, Elena. That's the problem."

Before I could respond, before I could cross the space between us and do something reckless, he turned and left.

I stood in the kitchen for a long time after, watching the sunrise paint the sky in colors I'd forgotten existed. My tea had gone cold hours ago, but I didn't care. Something had changed between us tonight. Some wall had cracked, some defense had fallen.

Dante Moretti was letting me in, piece by careful piece. And God help me, I was letting him in too.

I finally made my way back to my room as the estate began to wake. As I passed through the halls, I felt the camera lenses tracking me, and I wondered if Dante was watching. Wondered if he'd watched me walk away, if he'd fought the urge to call me back.

I would learn later, much later, that he'd stood in the kitchen doorway for twenty minutes after I left, staring at the space I'd occupied. That he'd returned to his room and pulled up the security feed showing my door, watching until he saw my light go out.

Making sure I was safe.

Always making sure I was safe.

Some walls were crumbling faster than others.

And neither of us knew how to stop the fall.