My entire world had just collapsed.
I reached a busy intersection and raised my hand to hail a cab, not even knowing where I’d go.
Back to Dante’s, of course. Where else?
I felt cold and pressed my arms around myself. I had nowhere else to go. After everything, Dante was the only safe space I had, and all this time, it was him I called dangerous.
The irony made my heart lurch.
Dante had never pretended to be anything other than what he was. My father had let me think he was my safe place my entire life.
A black SUV screeched to a halt beside me, and my heart lurched into my throat. Had they followed me? Were they taking me to be sold off now?
The passenger door flew open, and Dante himself jumped out, his face tight with fury.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, grabbing my arm. “Do you have any idea—”
He stopped abruptly, finally seeing my face.
“Alisa? What happened?”
I opened my mouth to tell him off, to pull away, to run again—but instead, a sob escaped. And suddenly I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t stand.
Dante caught me before I fell, his arms coming around me like steel bands.
“Hey,” he said, his voice softening. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Chapter 9 - Dante
I led Alisa through the front door as gently as I could, but the worry stormed through me. I ushered her with my hand at the small of her back, and she barely looked up from the floor, allowing herself to be led like cattle.
What the hell happened today?
I was ready to tear the city apart to look for her. When her bodyguard called, saying she’d vanished, I had felt terror unlike any before.
But finding her outside the courthouse with tears streaming down her face, looking like someone had just died, had knocked all that fury right out of me.
Whatever had happened in there had shattered something in her, and suddenly, my anger at her disappearing act seemed about as important as yesterday’s weather forecast.
“Alisa, here,” I said, guiding her toward the living room couch. She walked like she might collapse at any moment, and her silent compliance freaked me out even more.
Alisa literally never listened to me.
“I think you need a drink,” I suggested softly as I moved to the bar and poured her one. She looked like she needed something strong, and frankly, so did I.
When she disappeared, the first thing I did was put a trace out on my ad-hoc card, the one she uses. When I got an alert that it had last been used to pay for a taxi service at her father’s office, my mind immediately went to the worst-case scenario.
By the time I arrived, I had mentally prepared for war, believing that Alisa must have told her father everything about being kidnapped.
Never in a million years had I imagined I’d find her wandering the streets, looking broken and lost, with tears falling down her cheeks.
I poured two whiskeys and carried the glasses back.
“Here,” I said, forcing the drink into her trembling hands.
She took it without looking up, her eyes still fixed on the floor, as though she wasn’t really here. She clutched the glass tight, but didn’t drink.
Alisa always loved a good scotch.Always.
