by RuNyx
She swallowed, feeling the heaviness in her breasts, her nipples standing to attention even though his eyes never wavered to them. Gliding her hands over his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles covered with his jacket under her palms, Amara slid her fingers into his hair for the first time, thrilling at being able to touch him like this.
“Kiss me, Dante.”
His eyes blazed as he put his left hand on the small of her back, steadying her, and tugged her ankle up, placing her knee over his shoulder. Amara felt herself lean back against the wall, her heart pounding as he widened her legs enough for the slit of her dress to gape. She felt him move, placing a soft kiss on the inside of her thigh, right where her thigh met her pussy, and for a second, she felt apprehension crawl over her skin.
Her palms began to sweat in what she identified as one of the first signs of her anxiety attack.
No.
Not now. Please, not right now.
Her chest got tight, her heartbeats spiking for another reason altogether. Her breaths started to come faster. Black crawled the edges of her vision, tar dripping into her lungs, weighing them down too heavily she couldn’t breathe.
Dr. Das’s voice entered her head.
Sex is natural, Amara. Your introduction to it was traumatic, so of course, that impacted you. You can enjoy sex but communicate with your partner. Let them know what’s working and not working.
What if he never wanted to do this again?
She closed her eyes, blinking rapidly.
“No,” she wasn’t even aware of the word leaving her as blackness swept over her vision.
He stopped immediately, his eyes coming to her. He took in her face, and whatever he saw there must have affected him because his gaze softened. He pressed a soft kiss to the side of her knee before putting her leg down.
Dante took off her flat, his fingers stroking over the arch of her feet, going to the underside, tracing the scars she had there, before slipping the shoe on her and placing her foot back on the ground.
Sense of balance shaken, for more than one reason, Amara held his shoulders for support as he did the same with the other foot, putting her flats in the box to the side.
Amara stood still beside the wall, her knees slightly shaking at the elevated height, as he straightened. Damn if the fact that he still towered over her didn’t have her lady bits tingling. She didn’t understand what had just happened. She wanted this man. She wanted to do naughty, wicked things to him and have him do naughty, wicked things to her. Her panic didn’t make sense. But then, it rarely did.
“I’m sorry,” Amara whispered, feeling her stomach twist, hating that she didn’t know if her refusal would make this her last opportunity to experience something like this with him.
She should have known not to underestimate the man Dante Maroni had become.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Amara,” he took a hold of her fingers and tugged her towards the center of the room on her tottering heels, supporting her weight, tapping something on his phone before pocketing it. “That’s not how this works.”
The opening trails of a song filled the room as he pulled her in, pressing her flush against his body, one hand holding hers, the other on the small of her back, in a familiar way he held her when they danced.
“How does this work?” she swallowed, asking his shoulder.
“It works with you stopping me when you need to, and me stopping. Or you telling me to keep going, and me going on. Simple as that.”
“And if I keep stopping you?” she voiced the one fear she had.
“Then I stop. No questions.”
Amara pressed her nose into his shoulder, inhaling that woodsy fire scent of his that she loved, feeling heady, feeling beautiful, feeling loved.
He began to sway them softly at first, and she tightened her hold on his shoulder to keep her balance.
“Let go, Amara,” he lined his lips with her ear, speaking the words against her lobe, his mouth brushing her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.
“Let go of everything inside your head,” he continued speaking, guiding her forward, then back. “Feel. Just close your eyes and feel. The music. This moment. Me.”
Amara felt her eyes flutter close, her heart racing. “What if I get hurt?” she whispered into his jacket.
He pulled back so she could see him, his eyes solemn, soft, sincere on hers. His face dipped closer and he pressed a soft kiss to her mouth.
“Then, I’ll kiss your scars.”
And just like that, the little of her heart she’d been holding onto was his.
That night, they danced. That night, they talked.
He told her how he wanted to buy the gallery one day in honor of his mother. She told him of her dream, of helping people heal. He told her about the pink-haired girl he’d had to kill. She told him she’d seen him bury the body. He told her about his brother and his love for building things. She told him about Nerea and how she was slowly accepting her.
He didn’t kiss her below the neck again. She didn’t ask him to.
That night was perfect.
And then, the morning came.
Amara waited in the woods, outside the shack where she had seen him years ago.
She was going to tell him about his father’s offer and let him handle it, as her mother had said.
She saw him walk out of the path, dressed in perfectly ironed grey pants and a black button-up, his sleeves folded over his forearms, his eyes on the shack behind her. Something dark passed in them before he looked at her, his face more stoic than she was used to.
“What happened?”
The hope inside her fluttered a little, but she pushed it down. “Your father made me an offer yesterday.”
She saw him frown before nodding at her to go on. She did, recounting the whole meeting, the offer, the threat, everything. With each word, something dark fell over his face. With each word, the vein on the side of his neck throbbed. With each word, his beautiful dark eyes got more and more closed.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the shack behind her, silent once she was done.
Realization dawned on her. It was the same place he’d had to kill Roni. Shit.
A strong wind moved through the trees, pushing her hair around, chilling her arms. The clouds remained overhead, casting everything around her in a gloomy glow. Amara pulled at her scarf out of nervous habit, before stopping herself, the silence making her antsy.
Dante clenched his jaw, before finally spearing her with a look she had never seen from him.
And she knew.
He was going to break her heart. After all the promises, after everything, he was going to be the one to break her.
“It’s a good offer,” he said simply, and Amara felt something in her chest splinter.
She took a deep breath, looking down at the ground, her hands fisting at her sides.
“Even if I could risk my brother, which I can’t, my father’s right,” he told her, his words chipping small, little pieces inside her, “I’m young right now. One day, I’ll have to take over and marry someone more suitable for my status. That’s not a future for you. You can have a better life away from this place, Amara.”
How many times did people break before they stopped mending? The pain in her heart enveloped her body. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know herself. But god, it hurt. And while Amara wasn’t a stranger to pain, this one was another kind entirely, the kind that made her want to drop to her knees and howl at the unfairness of this, the kind that made her want to slap him across the face for daring to make her hope.
She stayed standing, hands fisted at her sides, keeping her eyes glued to the ground, the thin layer of snow, and the plants that were suffocating under it.
“I’m sorry, but I think we both lost sight of that,” his voice was harsh as he continued, but she didn’t look up. She couldn’t look up. Now right now. “We’re not a love story. We’re a tragedy in the making. There’s
no happy ending for us. I feel that you have a better future ahead of you, and you should take it.”
Each word hit the nail harder, not into her coffin but into her flesh, leaving it bleeding and raw and open.
Darkness frayed around the edges of her vision, her jaw hurting from keeping it closed tight. Amara closed her eyes, pushing her tongue to the roof of her mouth, willing the little trick to work.
Don’t let him see. Don’t let him see. Don’t break.
She should have known. She should have known they were too good to be true. Hadn’t she said to herself that girls like her didn’t end with guys like him? She should have never let herself believe the madness he had weaved into her soul.
“You should leave,” he told her.
She was going to. She was going to leave and never see him again.
Keeping her face to the ground, Amara walked away from the clearing without a word, wondering if there would ever be an end to the pain, realizing that there wasn’t much difference between true evil and true love. They snuck up on the vulnerable, gripped them by the throat, and left a realm of ruin behind.
Dante had been to Shadow Port previously for work and he was going again in two days, but it was the first time Tristan wanted to accompany him. He said it was because he wanted to look at some property in the city, but Dante knew he wanted to spy on the little Vitalio. Over the years, he had seen the man fall deeper and deeper into an obsession that would have been unhealthy had it not been the only thing sustaining him.
Dante’s own obsession, though not as mad as Tristan’s, burned just as hot, even if there was a difference. Morana Vitalio didn’t even know Tristan existed, and his girl had existed with Dante in her life for as long as he could remember. Where Tristan’s obsession was a visible thunderstorm, Dante’s was more like the wind – ever-present and life-sustaining but invisible. It could go from a comforting breeze that gave relief to the relentless wind that fanned the flames.
His obsession was born of an emotion he had not thought himself capable of. When it began, he didn’t know. Maybe it was the second she collided into him and fearlessly demanded his attention, or maybe it was when he held her broken body in his arms after searching for her for days, or maybe it was when she looked at him with mindless pain before slumping in relief; or maybe it was when he saw her trying to walk on her hurting feet, fall and push herself up again.
Dante didn’t know when he fell in love with Amara. He just did.
This was exactly why he sat in the Outfit restaurant in his city, watching as the mustached man across him, the man he’d finally located after four years of searching. The man swallowed his food, his eyes nervous. He should be very nervous.
“It was years ago, man,” the jackass said, his eyes shifty. “We just got the order to take the girl. I can’t remember anything else."
Something that had always bothered Dante about Amara’s abduction had been the lack of logic behind it. Had it been a normal kidnapping with the ransom, he could’ve understood that still. But with the level of torture she had endured, and from what her kidnappers had told him before he killed them, he knew she’d been targeted specifically. And it didn’t make sense. If someone had wanted Outfit secrets, Vin had been a better choice to take, instead of the young girl who wasn’t in the fold. Also, the fact that her kidnappers had been professionals, the kind that chewed on cyanide capsules in their teeth rather than give information.
Dante used the spoon in his left hand to twine the spaghetti on the fork, before putting the bite in his mouth, chewing slowly to both enjoy the taste and let the asshole in front of him sweat. They were seated in a corner away from the main part of the restaurant, and Dante liked that. Cleanup would be less of a headache. Although, nobody would dare come to them, not with his gun openly visible on the table.
Swallowing down his bite, he deliberately picked up his glass of wine, a decadent red, and swirled it in his hand, his eyes on Gilbert, the man he’d finally found. What the fuck kind of a douche name was Gilbert?
“I swear I don’t know anything, Mr. Maroni,” the man swore profusely and Dante shook his head.
“See, Gilbert,” Dante took a sip of the wine. Ah, so good. “I don’t like people who lie to my face. I know the hit went from you to those boys. So, I’m giving you one more chance. Who told your boys to kidnap the girl?”
Gilbert slugged down his drink, wiping his hand on his palm. “Look, I really don’t know.”
Dante pursed his lips, indicating the man’s drink. “You know the whiskey you just enjoyed so much? It’s poisoned.”
“What?!”
Dante calmly twined another forkful of spaghetti and continued talking. “It’s an extremely rare blend of venoms. Very hard to acquire, to the point I actually had to hire a very skilled thief to get it for me, especially for occasions like this. But that’s beside the point. Three little drops. I’d say you have five, maybe ten minutes top.”
“What do you mean?” the man panicked, his face sweating.
“Unless of course, you get an antidote,” Dante helpfully pointed out, “which happens to be in my jacket pocket.”
The man in front of him adjusted on the chair, breathing heavily.
“In about two minutes your system will start to shut down,” Dante picked up his glass again, leaning back in his chair. “You don’t have a lot of time, Gilbert. If I were you, I’d be singing like a canary.”
“It was a phone call,” the man huffed out, squirming on the chair now. “He didn’t give his name, just transferred all the money and told us to interrogate the girl.”
“Interrogate her about what?” Dante asked calmly as the man tugged at his collar.
“Everything. He said she had some information and we had to break her by any means possible and call him back with the info.”
“And did you?” Dante looked down at his watch. “Call him back?”
“No,” the man started to shake. “She didn’t break.”
Fuck, no, she didn’t break. Not his fierce warrior queen.
Dante didn’t ask for the number. After so many years playing the game, he knew well enough how things worked. The number would be a dead end.
“You gotta give me something if you want to live,” Dante said in a singsong voice, seeing the hands on his metal watch.
“I just know he worked for a group, alright?” the man panted, sweating profusely. “Some kind of guild or syndicate or something. Give me the antidote, please!”
A few patrons in the restaurant looked at the table, at both the men and the gun on the table, before looking away. They all knew this was an Outfit establishment.
Dante chuckled. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Gilbert. You gave your boys the permission to torture a fifteen-year-old kid.” He leaned forward, the rage inside him simmering. “Did you know she was mine?”
The other man’s eyes widened as he sputtered. “No, no. I swear I didn’t know she was yours. I never would have taken the job if I knew.”
Dante picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth. “Well, at least you know exactly why you’re dying. Goodbye, asshole.”
He saw the man shake, spasm, and fall over the table, a white froth coming from the side of his mouth. Dante nodded to the manager, dropping a wad of cash for the wide-eyed waiter. “Tell the chef the food was fabulous. And keep the change.”
While the men involved in her torture were all dead, the man who had ordered it was still at large. And Dante wasn’t going to rest until he found him.
A month passed.
Dante didn’t see her again, at least not where she could see him. He went to Shadow Port, vetted the apartment she would stay in and her neighborhood, the classes she would be taking, and her professors. He got a flat in Tristan’s building and told him to keep an eye on her when he was in the city. Satisfied, he came home, hoping to see her around the compound before she left.
But she rarely got out of her apartment that last month. He knew she ached for him
, not knowing his ache bled worse. It was only through her mother that he knew the day she got her degree and packed her bags. He saw her mother and Vin drop her at the airport, checked to see when her flight landed on his phone and called the guy he had planted in the apartment across hers, confirming that she had arrived safely.
He would not see her again. He would let her go and let her live her life. But he would be damned if he ever let anyone crush her spirit.
And once she was physically away from his father’s wrath, Dante went to bargain with the devil.
“Where’s Damien?” Dante barged into his father’s study, slamming his palms down upon his desk.
His father frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
He built rage inside him, black, bitter. “Cut the shit. Where is he?”
Lorenzo Maroni blinked at him, leaning back against his chair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dante breathed in, calling for all his patience. “I went to see him, only to get there while a fire burned the fucking property down. Why does every home he’s in burn down, huh? I’ve spent hours searching for him, through bodies and survivors, and he wasn’t there. So, dear father, where the fuck is my brother?!”
He saw his father grab his phone from the table, standing up as he dialed someone and started to pace. Dante waited, the acid inside his veins just looking at the man eating him alive.
“Damien Maroni,” his father barked into the phone. “Where is he?” Pause. “No, he’s not at the facility. There was a fire.” Pause. “Yes, I want him found.”
He turned towards Dante, his eyes steady. “I don’t know where he is but he will be found.”
Dante leaned forward, his eyes deadest on the man. “You better hope so, father. Or you and I are going to be having a very different conversation.”