Her voice.
Christ.
Her voice cuts through the fog like a blade. Clear and sharp and real. I close my eyes. Let it wash over me.
Two years. Two miserable fucking years of watching her from the shadows, and her voice still does this to me.
I should leave.
I should turn around, go back down those stairs, call the number, do the smart thing. She told me to stay away. She meant it. And here I am, bleeding on her doorstep like some wounded animal crawling home to die.
This isn't fair to her.
I push off the doorframe. Take a step back.
"Dante."
My name. Just my name. But it's enough.
Silence.
Long. Heavy. The kind of silence that stretches into forever.
I wait for her to tell me to leave. Wait for the sound of her footsteps walking away. Wait for the rejection I deserve.
Instead, I hear the locks.
One. Two. Three.
The door opens.
And there she is.
Marina Reeves.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I try to speak. Try to explain. Try to say something—anything—that makes this okay.
Instead, my knees buckle.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is her face.
There she is.
CHAPTER THREE
Marina
Dante collapses at my feet.
For three seconds, I don't move. Can't move. My brain short-circuits, stuck in a loop ofthis isn't happening, this isn't real, this is a nightmare and I'll wake up any second now.
Then I see the blood.
It pools beneath him, dark and spreading, soaking into the carpet of my hallway. The copper smell hits me and my stomach lurches.
"No. No, no, no."
