"Yes."
"Tell me," I say to Alejandro. "Tell me everything."
Marina
The safe house apartment is cold. Sparse. A couch that smells like dust and a folding table with nothing on it. The guards positioned me here and told me to wait.
So I wait.
I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
The door handle turns.
I freeze. My heart stops beating. The guards outside didn't knock, didn't announce anyone. Which means?—
The door opens.
Dante steps through.
He's alive.
"Marina."
His voice breaks something inside me.
The tears come without warning. They pour down my face in hot streams, and I'm sobbing before I can stop myself. Ugly, gasping sobs that shake my entire body. I never believed he would come back.
But he's here.
Dante crosses the room. His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest. I bury my face in his shirt and cry harder. He smells like sweat and cold air and something metallic I don't want to identify.
"I'm here." His hand strokes my hair. "I'm here, cara. I came back."
"I thought—" The words choke in my throat. "I thought you were dead. I thought he killed you."
"No." Dante's arms tighten around me. "No, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
I cling to him like he might disappear. My fingers dig into his back, feeling the solid warmth of him. Real. Alive. Not a dream or a desperate hallucination.
The sobs slowly subside. I pull back just enough to look at his face. His eyes are dark. Hollow. Something happened in that warehouse. Something that left marks I can't see.
"What happened?" I wipe my face with shaking hands. "Tell me everything."
Dante's jaw tightens. He guides me to the couch and sits beside me, keeping one arm around my shoulders.
"Alejandro is just a man who wants more money and territory," he says. "That's all this is. Business."
I stare at him.
"Business."
"He thinks I owe him for killing his cousin years ago." Dante's voice is flat. Controlled. "He wants compensation. Money. And he wants me to do two jobs for him. Undercover work."
The words sound rehearsed. Practiced. Like he's reciting lines from a script.
"And then he'll leave you alone?"
"Yes."
