“Bleak? Alex, please don’t patronize me. I just lost the only woman I’ll ever love, and I sold my soul to a gangster. This will never be over. There’s no future where she can ever be safe with me again.”
“I won’t let you do this alone; you and I will get you out of this. We’ve been giving each other the silent treatment for the last several years, but you’re still my brother, Dante. I can see how much you love her, and it’s why I want to help. You deserve happiness, brother, after all these years, you’resmiling again.”
“I can’t,” I say, putting my helmet on, ignoring Alex’s shouts for me to stop, but I don’t care. I mount my bike, firing it up, and speeding off into the early sunrise.
I have to let her go. As much as it’s going to rip me apart, I can’t do this to her.
Angry, desperate tears blur my vision, and I don’t stop them from falling. I need to feel this. I deserve this pain.
Luna
Iwake myself with a groan, my body is so fucking sore, my arms are radiating heat. I push myself up, straining, but I sit up to find myself in a t-shirt that’s not mine and an unfamiliar room.
I look around; the walls are painted a dark blue, and the morning light from the window behind me streaks across them, drawing my attention back to the bed. “Dante?”
Memories from last night come flooding back. I remember the shower and the car ride, but I don’t remember getting into bed. I remember the boat ride, Dante’s face in the doorway, and—
Greg.
I killed him.
The pain in my body makes more sense now. I look down at myself, fresh bruises riddle my arms and legs, and cuts on my feet. I look back at the bed, no Dante. I shift my weight, hanging my feet off the edge of the bed, standing, my legs and feet scream for me to get back in bed, but I need to find him.
“Dante?” I call out for him, but I hear no reply. I shuffle around the bed; my muscles are so stiff, but I don’t care.
I see the door, and hobble my way over to it, opening the door to a hallway. I follow the dark walnut floors, looking in all the rooms upstairs, but he’s not there. I make my way back down the hallway to the floating steps. There’s a living room with a large black leather couch in the middle at the bottom of the stairs. It all looks undisturbed, so I keep going and find myself in the kitchen.
Everything is bright white and soulless. Whoever owns this house has horribly bland taste. Everything is sharp, crisp, and oversaturated. It looks like no one lives here.
There’s a small hallway off the side of the kitchen. I follow it down, my limp getting better the more I move. The hallway opens onto a room with a floor-to-ceiling window that runs the length of the vast space.
A picturesque view of the entire woods bathed in the colors of autumn. It’s so beautiful it takes my breath away. I turn my attention back to the room and feel a knot in my throat, seeing that this isn’t justanyroom.
It’s a library.
The shelves are empty, but there aresomany of them. My eyes follow them all the way around the room; there’s not an open space for a single piece of wall art to be hung. The only things these walls have are shelves. There’s a ladder on the other side, with a track for it to roll wherever you’d need. I could live here, but the kitchen would need to go.
A door shutting jars me from my daydream, and I remember why I came in here.
Dante, finally.
It takes a second to move again, but I make my way back up the hallway and through the kitchen. I enter the living room and find Dante entering the house from a door on the side of the living room. I run to him, throwing my hands around his middle, breathing him in. My eyes prickle with tears, bergamot, and smoke overwhelming my senses.
Dante doesn’t hug me back; he’s stiff and so cold. “What’s wrong?” I ask, pulling back to see his face, but his eyes won’t meet mine. “Dante. Look at me.”
“It’s time I take you back to your apartment. It’s safe for you now,” he says, still not looking at me.
“What? Dante, stop. Look at me.” I reach up, trying to pull his face down to look at me, but he steps past me. “Do you expect me to go back to my life? After what I did?”
“You don’t have a choice, Luna. I won’t bring you into this life.” Dante says, facing away from me.
I scoff. “Oh, please. Save the heroics. You must have looked into my history, and that’s what drew you to me: a runaway stripper, the perfect victim. Easily manipulated andstarved for attention, and it seems she’ll let just about anyone in her bed, even her stalker.”
“Stop.”
“No. Because it’s true, and you know it. You saw something in me that every man has, vulnerability, say it, tell me the truth!”
“Yes!” Dante shouts, turning to me, standing over me. “Is that what you want to hear? I saw the weak, lovesick girl under the hard exterior who was desperate to be loved, desperate foranyattention that she would let a psychopathic stalker who kills people for a living into her pants. And being the selfish psychopath I am, I exploited that and made you scream my name, over and over, for my own fucked up self-satisfaction. You played right into my game, and you didn’t mind one bit, angel.”
