“It’s not fine,” I insisted, needing to pretend everything was okay and that my brain hadn’t just caught on fire. “It’s swollen shut! You could be risking your vision if you don’t get that inflammation down.”
I stood up, but suddenly realized how naked I felt. I blushed as I looked around for my nightdress.
Dante simply handed me his t-shirt with a lazy throw. “Here.”
I slipped it on gratefully and tried very hard not to take in a deep breath of him. Meanwhile, he pulled on his boxers and pants, then followed me out of the gym and toward the kitchen.
In the bright light of the kitchen, his injury looked even worse—purple and swollen, with a cut above his eyebrow that had crusted over with dried blood. I winced in sympathy as I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and wrapped it in a kitchen towel.
“Sit,” I ordered, pointing to one of the barstools.
Surprisingly, he obeyed without arguing. I stood between his legs and gently pressed the ice pack to his eye. He hissed at the contact but didn’t pull away.
“Hold this,” I instructed, guiding his hand to the ice pack. Then I gathered an antiseptic, cotton balls, and bandages from the first-aid kit under the sink.
As I cleaned the cut above his eye, I was aware of his gaze on me. With every passing second, my stomach fluttered. Why did treating him feel so much more intimate than it was?
“You’re quite the expert, huh?” he commented.
“It’s not hard icing an eye.” I levelled a glare at him that screamed ‘don’t patronize me’.
He laughed, and I smiled, and we fell back into a comfortable silence.
But after a while, that weight came back. The one where none of us were saying what we truly wanted to. I was nearly done when I felt like some things needed to be acknowledged.
“Dante,” I whispered, and his gaze flickered to mine. I gently put a Band-Aid on the cut above his eye, buying time.
He kept watching, and I sighed as I pulled back. “Thank you… for watching over me. I know you don’t have to.”
He gave me a half-smile, but it looked pained.
It got the bells ringing in my head, but I didn’t ask. Sometimes, asking meant trouble.
I cleared up and was about to turn away to put back the things when I felt his hand on my wrist. “Alisa, what happened that day at the courthouse? When I found you outside… I’ve never seen you like that.”
I swallowed hard, pulling my wrist free. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I can’t protect you if I don’t have the whole picture,” he said quietly. “Something happened there, and I think I deserve to know what it was, especially if it’s connected to the men who attacked us today.”
I froze. He was right. If the attack on his operations was connected to the auction, to my father’s schemes, then he did deserve to know. Besides, keeping this secret was eating me alive from the inside out.
“I have to tell you something,” I started, then had to stop and take a deep breath.
Dante went perfectly still. “What?”
“My father was the one who arranged for me to be taken.”
Dante paled.
I set down the first aid kit and stepped back, needing space for this conversation. “When I went to his office that day, I overheard him talking to the men who kidnapped me. He was angry with them because they put me on that auction blockinstead of delivering me directly to… to whoever he’d promised me to.”
Dante’s expression darkened with each word. “He sold you.”
I nodded, and the tears burned behind my eyes. “He called me ‘leverage.’ Said he’d promised me to some family as payment, and now he’s furious because I’m with you instead.”
Dante stood up and clenched his fists beside him. “Son of a bitch.”
“That’s not all,” I continued, the words spilling out now that I’d started. “I think some Bratva group is blackmailing him. He seemed scared, talking about how they wouldn’t be happy about me being your wife. He said they’d be lucky if Caspian just killed them for touching your wife.”
