by Mariano, Sam
I guess I’m the fool for believing he actually let me go.
I didn’t believe it at first. I was paranoid, always looking over my shoulder. I was on edge every time the bell rang at my shop, alerting me to a new customer. Each time a well-dressed man walked through the front door, my stomach would sink and I would think that was the day Dante had come back for me.
For years I lived like a fugitive on the run from him. Then, finally, I allowed myself to move on. Finally, I recovered from him enough to let someone else into my life, into my heart. Finally, I let myself have some comfort instead of the self-imposed loneliness that resulted from constantly running from a monster who wasn’t even chasing me.
I convinced myself that I had been overly dramatic all that time, overestimating my importance to him. Monster or not, Dante Morelli has a lot to offer a woman, and there was never a shortage of women who noticed. Surely Dante had picked out another one once the bruise on his ego faded. Surely he didn’t even think of me anymore. Surely by then I had become just one more woman in his past—at least, that’s what Declan assured me on the nights when fear would overtake me, when something innocuous like the wind blowing a branch against the window terrified me, when I couldn’t focus on what we were doing, when I became unhinged in my mission to double check all the locks and look out each window to make sure he wasn’t outside. To make sure he hadn’t come for me.
When I was with Dante, he was my fairytale.
After I left him, he became my nightmare.
The line between the two is much thinner than people think. For me, it was so thin I couldn’t even see it until I accidentally stepped over it.
Today, on my wedding day, I feel like the last character alive at the brutal end of a ghastly horror film, almost numb as I look around at all the destruction I have wrought.
Because make no mistake, I wrought this destruction.
Deep in my heart, I knew Dante wouldn’t leave me alone. Deep in my heart, I knew he would never be done with me, but I let clueless people who didn’t understand that life convince me otherwise. I’m so helplessly angry at them for feeding me that reassuring bullshit, but I’m angrier at myself for listening. Those people didn’t know Dante. They meant well. They believed all their reassuring, stupid, wrong words.
But I knew better.
I knew him.
This is all my fault.
I dared run away from the devil and start a life without him, and now he’s going to burn me for that unforgivable sin.
Five Years Ago
FIVE YEARS AGO
Colette
I smiled up at Dante as he opened the car door, offering his big, strong hand to help me out. I didn’t need help, but I craved that man so much I seldom passed up a chance to touch him. Once I emerged from the car, his arm moved around my back and came to settle on my hip in a casually possessive gesture that reassured me he felt the same way.
“I like this dress on you,” he murmured in my ear.
I leaned closer and wrapped my arm around his waist, nestling into his side. “I’m glad.”
“I’ll like it even better later, when I’m taking it off you.”
Biting down on my bottom lip, I offered him a devilish smile. “You think that now. Wait until you see how many buttons it has down the back.”
Cocking a dark eyebrow, he slid me a look of mild displeasure. “You know I don’t have the patience for buttons.”
“It was on sale,” I told him, in defense of my purchase. “And it’s so pretty,” I added, running a hand down my hip.
“I’m gonna destroy it later,” he stated, and I knew he wasn’t just saying it the way some men would. I knew he meant it. “Enjoy those pretty buttons while they’re still attached.”
He’s such an obstinate brute, I thought. The mental image filled my head of him jerking my beautiful dress open, ruining the poor thing in his haste to get to my naked body… I couldn’t seem to muster much sympathy for the dress.
My stomach sank with anticipation and I bent my head to check his watch. Knowing what I had coming later, it seemed like dinner would take a million years.
Every Sunday we went to family dinner at his older brother’s house. The first time Dante brought me for family dinner I thought it might be awkward, given my history with his brother, Mateo. It was hardly a great love affair, but Mateo met me first. He was the first Morelli to set my heart to fluttering and my stomach to sinking. Before Dante’s dark eyes burned a hole right through me, Mateo’s did. His were the first hands that traveled the curves of my body, the first lips to brush mine in a darkened corner. Even though Dante ended up being the one to sweep me off my feet, I still had a soft spot for Mateo, and I was terrified my extremely possessive boyfriend might notice and take issue.
All my worrying was for nothing, though. Mateo was far from hung up on me, and shortly thereafter, he met Beth. Once he had a girlfriend of his own at the table, I no longer had to worry about Dante watching too closely and making a big deal out of nothing.
We were early to dinner that week, but I needed to see Beth anyway. Two purses dangled from my arm—a cute, black one that belonged to me, and a smaller silver one I needed to return to her. I borrowed it a few weeks earlier and kept forgetting to return it. Beth had been supremely unmotivated the past few Sundays anyway, so getting there early allowed me a chance to go upstairs and find her, maybe perk her up before we got dinner started.
I knew she and Mateo were having problems, but I also knew Mateo had no intention of letting her go, so the best thing I could do for her was try to get her excited about him again.
Given I had spent some time pulled under the spell of Mateo Morelli myself, it shouldn’t have been hard to remind his struggling girlfriend of all the really wonderful things about him. Even if I had never liked Mateo, I had plenty of practice handling my own high-maintenance Morelli.
Mateo is more difficult than Dante, though. As the oldest of the Morelli children, a lot of responsibility fell on Mateo’s shoulders at a young age. I don’t know the grisly details about his childhood, but I know there are plenty. Really, you need only meet him to figure he must have a fucked up past. The man is a puppet master, pulling the strings of his loved ones like we’re all here to perform a show just for him.
Given all that, I could understand why Beth was feeling a little burnt out. Mateo must be a very demanding man to love. Beth knew what she was signing up for, though. I’m sure he warned her like he warned me. Didn’t do much good for me, either, so I understand why she didn’t listen. It’s hard to focus on the underlying truth of a warning like that when it’s falling from such sensual lips.
Beth more than ignored the warning, though, she threw herself into the deep end. She treated their relationship like a race, and she needed to hurry up and win the gold before anything changed and she lost her chance. Only a few months into dating, Beth turned up pregnant. I think she assumed she was landing herself a whale, but what she got instead was a cage—gilded, and with a handsome, powerful captor, but a cage nonetheless.
It gained her a beautiful baby girl and the love of the most ruthless man in Chicago. It wouldn’t have been such a bad hand for the right woman, but Beth’s increasingly desperate disinterest in Mateo made me worry… maybe she wasn’t.
Still, since she was well and truly stuck, I considered it my duty as her almost sister-in-law to try and help her see the silver lining.
When we finally approached the front door of Morelli mansion, Dante opened it with the comfortable familiarity of someone who still lived there, even though he had moved out earlier that year.
“Was it strange growing up in such an enormous house?” I asked him casually, as we strolled inside.
Dante’s gaze flickered to me. “No. It was a normal house to me.”
Normal isn’t the word that comes to mind when looking around the palatial residence. It’s a home fit for royalty, and it suits Dante’s family because sometimes it feels like they are a royal
family—just with stolen crowns, ruling over a city that shouldn’t belong to them.
We were no more than through the front door and a little blonde maid came hustling into the foyer. Her blue eyes were wide and uncharacteristically haunted. Before I could ask what was wrong, a man with scars on the left side of his face came following after her.
“I told you—” Adrian stopped dead and stared at Dante. “What are you doing here?”
Dante’s gaze flickered from the maid to the man who works for his family, generally cleaning up messes. Adrian is also an old friend of Mateo’s, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be at family dinner, even though he isn’t technically family. “What do you mean, what am I doing here? It’s Sunday. We’re here for dinner.”
Adrian sighed, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah, Christ.”
Dante’s voice hardened, his next words snapping like rubber bands. “What’s wrong?”
I stiffened at his tone, but it was nothing I hadn’t witnessed before. I was more distracted by Adrian’s clear dismay. In my limited interactions with the man, I had never seen an unguarded expression on his face. In that moment he was clearly alarmed, so I knew it must be bad.
Adrian’s distrustful gaze drifted to me before returning to Dante. “I need to talk to you in the study.”
Away from me. I wasn’t offended. I knew the traditional Morelli men were raised to keep the women out of business matters, and I wasn’t interested in those, anyway.
Glancing back at me, Dante told me, “Wait here.”
Touching Dante’s arm, I nodded. We didn’t exchange any words; we didn’t have to.
I felt bereft as soon as my fingertips left his well-muscled arm. Ordinarily I always felt insulated from the worst parts of their lifestyle, but with Adrian’s urgency, I had to wonder if there was danger lurking. Was it even safe to be there? I figured it must be. It was hard to imagine anywhere safer than Morelli mansion, with its gates and surveillance, not to mention the army of capable, merciless men either living there or visiting for Sunday night dinner. I always felt safe at Dante’s house knowing he would protect me, but I was probably even safer at Morelli mansion.
The maid rushed down the hall away from us. Adrian looked after her, but since Dante stood there waiting to be debriefed, Adrian didn’t chase her.
My mind raced with what could be wrong, but I told myself I’d know soon. Or I wouldn’t, but Dante would, and I’d be able to tell just being near him if the situation was under control or something worth worrying about.
All alone in the foyer, I considered taking a seat on the upholstered bench, but then my gaze drifted to the ornate double staircase. Imagining the men would be in the study for a while, I thought about going to find Beth so I could give her purse back. Beth was Mateo’s live-in girlfriend, the mother of his baby girl. If there was a threat, he was bound to make sure she and Isabella were safer than any of us.
Decision made, I cast a glance back at the study before heading up the stairs. Dante did tell me to stay put, but he knew I was bringing Beth’s purse back, so if he came out of the study before I made it back, he’d know where to find me.
It was a long walk to Mateo’s wing of the house. An errant wave of unease moved through me as I approached his closed bedroom door, but I wasn’t sure why. I paused outside and knocked lightly. No one called from the other side, but I figured Beth could be in the master bathroom or the walk-in closet getting dressed for dinner. She might not have heard me. Turning the knob, I pushed the door and eased it open slowly enough for someone to protest if I wasn’t invited—and slowly enough that, just in case Mateo had come upstairs for a pre-dinner fuck, I would hear them and be able to flee with no one the wiser.
No sex noises, no sharp warning not to come in, so I peeked my head inside. My gaze searched the room for Beth and promptly found her. In bed? It was nearly dinner time, what was she doing in bed? I didn’t want to wake her so I almost turned around and left, but before I could pull the door closed, I saw him.
Directly across from me, Mateo Morelli sat on the floor. I had never seen Mateo sit on the floor before and that alone jarred me, but everything about the sight before me was unsettling. Mateo always stands tall with broad shoulders that can easily carry the weight of the whole Morelli world—and it sure can be a heavy one. He is always well put-together in a stylish-without-trying suit. He always oozes an aura of capability and command with never so much as a whisper of vulnerability.
So it was an incredibly foreign sight, him sitting on the ground looking lost and disheveled. He was still wearing the black slacks and snowy white shirt he must have been wearing with his put-together suit, but his tie was gone, the top button of his shirt popped open and a little wrinkled, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His head was leaned back against the wall, his dark hair mussed like he’d run his fingers through it too many times, and there was an almost vacant look in his deep brown eyes. He was staring straight at me, but I felt like he couldn’t even see me.
“Mateo?” I could hear the concern in my own voice. I was too far out of my element to mask it. I let go of the door and took a hesitant step forward.
At the sound of his name on my lips, his dark gaze focused more clearly on mine, but he didn’t speak. The emptiness I saw in his eyes only a moment earlier seemed to dissipate and I saw a storm brewing in its wake. My heart galloped in my chest. I swallowed, ignoring my prickled instincts and reassuring myself, there’s no danger here.
I took in his scattered appearance again, then I took a closer look at Beth on the bed.
The bedding was an absolute mess. Blankets hanging half on the floor, a bunched up bedsheet, pillows thrown everywhere. It was a disaster. Beth often left the bed messy, but this was next level, even for her. It looked like a fight or a fuck took place. Knowing Mateo, I assumed it was the latter. Maybe they had a round of particularly rough, exhausting sex and she was recovering. Maybe he was having a crisis, realizing their relationship wasn’t fulfilling him no matter how hard he tried to force it.
Maybe I should have kept the purse and stayed downstairs.
Whatever was going on, I supposed I should be there for him. He was practically family. I cleared my throat and took a few steps closer, but first I glanced at Beth again to make sure she was sleeping and not just resting. If she overheard me talking to Mateo about their relationship problems, she would probably get cagey and snipe at me despite my good intentions.
“Did you guys have a fight?” I whispered to Mateo as I put the borrowed purse down on the bed.
His dark eyes looked haunted. One corner of his mouth tugged up. “I suppose you could say that.”
Utterly paranoid she would wake up, I looked her way again. It occurred to me maybe I should try to lure Mateo out of the bedroom and into their living area across the hall. I’d feel more comfortable talking to him with more privacy.
That time when I looked at her, though, something felt off. From a distance I hadn’t noticed the way her arm hung stiffly to the side. I tilted my head, moving forward unconsciously. The closer I got, the harder my heart began to beat. She wasn’t moving, not at all. Her chest wasn’t moving the way chests move when a person breathes.
All the signs were there, but I couldn’t connect the dots, not until I reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t move, and she was cool to the touch. Not cold, but definitely cooler than she should be. And pale. She was cold and pale.
My stomach dropped, but it couldn’t be. It was impossible. Beth was too young to die. I had to know, and even though logically I knew I could just voice my fears aloud and Mateo would tell me, I reached my hand to her neck to check her pulse.
She didn’t have one.
Gasping in horror, I jumped and started backing away from the body. Oh, my God. Beth couldn’t be… dead. I was tempted to feel for a pulse again, but I knew it would be pointless. I already checked and there wasn’t one. It wouldn’t come back. Somehow… somehow Beth was dead. Every
thing was coming together at a horrifying pace. My brain understood that she was dead, and that’s why Mateo looked the way he did, but how? Why?
Her recent unhappiness and disinterest in Mateo and the life they had together sprung to mind. I knew she was unhappy, but God, she couldn’t have been that desperate, could she?
Would she really kill herself to get away from him? To hurt him? I could imagine those spiteful thoughts going through her pretty head when she was being dramatic, but I couldn’t envision her actually acting on them. Who would give up their life just to spite someone they used to love? Mateo couldn’t have known she was that desperate. Surely if she had gone to him, if she had told him it was that bad…
I was struggling to process it all myself, but one loud, clear instinct emerged from the befuddlement. Mateo. I needed to go to Mateo. Oh, my God, did he just find her? He must be completely traumatized.
Swallowing, I looked over at him still sitting against the wall. He knew I was over there, but he wasn’t looking. Maybe he couldn’t look at her again. Maybe he just couldn’t deal with my grief on top of his own.
Conscious of that, I tried to put a lid on my own feelings. I was still reeling, but I wasn’t the one who had just lost my partner. I could deal with my own feelings later. Beth was my friend, but she was the mother of his baby.
My stomach plummeted, a new horror gripping me. “Oh, my God. Where is Isabella?”
“Isabella is fine.”
Mateo’s voice was rough, raw in a way I’d never heard it before. My heart split for him. Without wasting another second, I went over and slid down the wall beside him, curling my legs behind me so my body was facing him. I had no idea what to say. What could I say in that moment that would even matter?
I didn’t know, so I touched his thigh, wanting to offer comfort but without even a clue as to how. He turned his head and met my gaze. I knew my eyes were full of sympathy. His were full of loneliness that wasn’t entirely new, and it broke my heart.