His eyes meet mine. There’s a calmness in his face that feels too practiced, too deliberate. He wears it like armor, hiding the tremor beneath. He tries to seem composed, detached, unaffected by everything around him. Yet the stiffness in hisshoulders and the occasional twitch in his face, as if the mask might slip, give him away.
In our line of work, what you feel doesn’t matter. But I’ve learned that people always leak at the seams.
My curiosity gnaws at me. We’ll be spending more time together, and I can’t help but wonder what’s under his surface. He’s got the nerve for the job, that much is clear. But guts don’t last forever. Most people come here for the rush, the taste of danger, until the thrill turns stale and they’re left empty. Disposable.
I wonder which type he is.
Will he live this life the way I do—breathing it in until it consumes him—or will he burn out, scrambling for an exit when the weight becomes too heavy?
“I was lost in my thoughts and grabbed a hot kettle,” he says finally. He lifts his hand, turning it over, studying it like he doesn’t quite believe himself. “The flesh is still sensitive. That’s why I wear a bandage. Don’t worry, I can still hold a weapon.”
He twists his lips, the tip of his tongue flicking out to wet them. The motion is subtle, almost reflexive, unguarded in a way that makes him seem smaller, more human. My eyes catch it, lingering on that tiny, fleeting detail, and a thought wedges itself into my mind before I can push it away.
I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. To press my lips to his, to follow the curve of his mouth with mine, to trace the seam of his lips with a tongue that learns the secrets he buries beneath his calm, controlled exterior. The thought coils through me, stirring a heat I hadn’t expected, and for a moment, I feel the pull of something dangerous, intimate, and utterly consuming.
Dante is a man wrapped in intrigue, a contradiction made of nerves and restraint. His restless energy used to annoy me, but now, the more time we spend together, the more that energy feels familiar.
Almostcomforting.
I’ve never spent this long in anyone’s company before. Usually, by the end of the day, they were dead at my feet, leaving only their silence to fill the space where their companionship used to be.
But Dante is different.
There was a time I thought about killing him—dreamed of it, even.
Now, I find myself wondering how he’d taste.
The sound of rustling fabric breaks my train of thought. He pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Want one?”
I arch a brow. I remember him smoking back in Mexico, but never after. “I can’t understand if you’re a smoker.”
He slides a cigarette between his lips, the gesture smooth yet absentminded. “Rarely,” he confesses. “Only when I’m too nervous or annoyed. But those feelings have toreallyget under my skin before I light one.”
I tilt my head, watching as he flicks the lighter. The flame flares to life, painting his face in warm gold. He leans into it, the end of the cigarette glowing a fierce orange before dimming again. A few embers fall onto his jacket, hissing faintly as they die.
“I can see you’re as annoyed as I am,” he observes, his voice muffled around the filter.
A smirk curls on my lips. “You’re very observant, aren’t you?”
He exhales, smoke spilling past his mouth in a slow, deliberate wave. “Just a fact,” he says casually.
It’s strange to hear someone acknowledge what I feel without judgment, so strange that it sends a sharp jolt through me. The cold air bites at my skin, but beneath it, a different kind of heat coils, thrumming along my nerves.
I bite down on my bottom lip, holding back the smile that threatens to escape, and feel my pulse spike. The tension in my core tightens as I watch him lift the cigarette again. The tip flares, glowing bright between his fingers. He draws a long, measured inhale, then exhales a thick curl of smoke into the crisp morning air.
For a moment, the world narrows to that ribbon of smoke, the rise and fall of his chest, the shape of his mouth, and the taste of vapor lingering like a secret I want to know.
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually tried a cigarette before,” I confess. It is not a lie, though it feels like one. Vast stretches of my past are gone, swallowed by darkness, leaving only shards of moments I cannot fully hold.
The scars on my shoulder are a map, proof that something once existed—something I cannot otherwise recall. Everything else drifts in fragments, fleeting glimpses of a home, a mother’s face, a father’s voice, moments that might have meant something, dissolving the instant I reach for them. Memory slips through my fingers like grains of sand, leaving behind only the ache of absence and the faint, persistent echo of who I was supposed to be.
Whenever I pry too far into the corners of my past, the pain follows. It starts as a dull, thudding pulse behind my eyes, subtle at first, like a warning whisper I choose to ignore. Then, it grows, swelling into a tempest of rage I cannot name, a fire that scorches through my skull and leaves me trembling.
I have learned, over countless attempts, not to chase it. The past is nothing but noise, fragments of shadows and half-remembered echoes that have no power over me anymore. What matters is the shape of myself in this moment, the person I have forged from the wreckage.
“Interesting,” Dante says, his voice edged with faint amusement. His eyes study me, tracing the lines of my face asif searching for a tell, a hidden smile. “Now I feel like a bad influence on you.”
A laugh tears itself from my chest before I can stop it, rattling through my ribs and spilling warmth into the cold morning air. His lips twitch, curling into a faint, wicked smirk that flares and vanishes before I can fully register it, like a spark of something untamed.
