I grab my bag and roll it to my room,setting it on my bed. I unzip my bag, flipping it open, and find Dante’s half-faced skull mask and the balaclava he wore in Salem Woods sitting on top of my clothes. An envelope with my name on it lay with it. I pick it up, my skin prickling with the memories from that night as I open it.
~For when you need to think of me at night ;) –Dante~
I lick my lips, slipping the card back into the envelope. I set the note down and pick up the mask. I didn’t get to touch it that night, and it feels like a good quality mask, not something cheap, but made to last. “He must have spent a lot of money on this.”
I hope I get to see it on him again.
I’m sitting at my desk, finishing up my writing for the day, when I hear my phone ding. I pick it up, hoping it’s Dante, and I’m only slightly disappointed when I see Olivia’s name on the screen:
I get a pop-up notification after reading Olivia’s text, saying I’m tagged in a video on VidTok. I click it, and it takes me to Wolfy’s page.
The video opens in an interrogation room, and Wolfy sits in the middle, a metal table before him. He’s wearing Detective Liam’s cosplay again. The lights flicker on screen, and he disappears, reappearing standing before the camera. He grabs the camera to make it look like he’s holding someone by the throat, and he speaks, his voice covered by a voice modulator: “Where is she? Where is my Vera?” The lights flicker out again. His caption says, “Ne vedem curând, dragostea mea.” It translates to, ‘I’ll see you soon, my love,’ in Romanian.
I look at the mask sitting on my bed, and back at the video on my phone. I bite down on my knuckle to keep myself from moaning. I’m utterly speechless, and I don’t know how I can look Wolfy in the face, hisreal face, on Friday andnotthink about Dante in the mask.
Good thing he’s coming with me so that I can fuck his brains out afterwards.
I comment on his video:
I squeal into my hand out of pure excitement. This can’t be my real life. I must have died at some point, and this is the afterlife, because there’s no way all this is happening to methe same weekend. Two insanely hot men fighting for my attention, one of them I’m fucking and potentially in love with, and the other is, honestly, kinda obsessed with me, and I think I like it.
I still have the ‘too-good-to-be-true’ feeling, but, if I’m being frank with myself, everything is too good to be true. Nothing is permanent in the long run; people die unexpectedly every day, and life's too short not to enjoy the fruits of it. My brain is just trying to self-sabotage to keep itself safe, but I don’t need to do that anymore. I’m safe with Dante; he proved it.
I deserve this type of love and care; it’s time my silly, sad brain caught up.
My thoughts of Dante have made me miss him. I open my messages and send him a text:
I squeeze my thighs together, biting my thumbnail. “God, he knows me too well already.”
Dante
Istare at the live feed from my hidden cameras in Luna’s apartment as she reads my message. “God, he knows me too well already,” she says, as she pockets her phone. I smirk, watching her flustered face turn a shade of the prettiest pink.
“Are you fucking listening, dipshit?” Alex shouts. I lift my head, meeting his heated expression. “You’re fuckingluckyyou left town this weekend. You were fucking sloppy, and the Costanzas had guys crawling all over the fucking city looking for you, Dante.”
I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. “They have a picture of my side profile, and that’s it. I gave them an alias. They have nothing to go on to find me.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t fucking find out, Dante, please use that fucking brain of yours and stop thinking with your dick. The reason I wouldn’t go after them is that they are loose cannons that fly off the handle—”
I stand, looming over Alex’s desk, getting in his face. “I’m afucking psychoif you haven’t noticed. You can look away all you want, but you know who I am, who Ireallyam. I–I love her, Alex. I shouldn’t love her, and I should let her go, but I can’t. I’m a selfish bastard, and you can hate me all you want for it, but I won’t change my mind. I will kill them all if I have to, just give me the names and locations.”
Alex shakes his head, “You would put a bounty on her head greater than you could afford. It would destroy you if she were hurt because of the lives we live.”
“It doesn’t matter, they will never be able to touch her,” I say, mimicking his head shake.
Alex scoffs, “Love has made you stupid, brother. I’ll send out two men to watch over her apartment while you clean up your fucking mess. You need to lay low; vanishing this weekend helped your case, but you need to become a ghost. They are hacking cameras around the city looking for your bike, my guy on the inside said you pissed them off by taking the fifty grand pot. They are looking to ‘teach you a lesson’, so they don’t know the real reason you were there in the first place, which helps us, but my guy has been sent out to collect the money.” Alex pauses, letting out a heavy exhale. “I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, but you didn’t cover your neck tattoos completely. They have specific descriptors of you, the snake on the side of your neck, and the tip of the wolf’s ears. You can’t be seen in public with her now, Dante. It’s all so much more complicated.” I swallow hard, processing Alex’s words. I fucked up.Bad. “I told you those tattoos were a stupid idea,” Alex says, sucking his teeth.
I let out a heavy sigh, slumping back down into the leather chair. “What do you need me to do?”
“Lay low, give the money you stole from them to my guy at a disclosed location in a few days, and it should go away. Do anything to sabotage this, Dante, and I won’t help you again. I’m doing this for her, not you, so if you love her like you say you do, don’t fuck this up.”
“If Luna is hurt in any way, I won’t promise that I won’t go after them, but I won’t involve you; you’ve made that very clear.” I push up from the chair and leave Alex’s office without another word. My rage sits simmering under my skin, and I need to get out of here before I explode.
I need to keep my mind busy for the next several days without Luna. If I want to keep her safe, I have to take this seriously and do everything the right way.
Alex is right about one thing: love has made me stupid.
I get in my car, speeding off to head to a hotel for the night. My phone dings with a message; I switch lanes and pull it out of my pocket.
