34. Brooke
Brooke
The mattress creaks when I shift.
The mattress is thin, the walls cold, and the single bulb overhead buzzes like it’s fighting to stay alive. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time folds in on itself when no one screams, when no one touches you without permission.
This silence is unfamiliar.
Unnerving.
Safe.
I sit with my back against the wall, knees drawn up, eyes on the rusted bars. I could sleep with the door open and still wouldn’t leave. Not yet. Not until I remember how.
The lock clicks.
Not loud. Not sharp. Just… final.
Dante stands above, lowering a ladder down into the rectangular opening. He doesn’t look at me at first—he never does. His presence is a storm held in check. Controlled violence. Rage on a leash.
But not for me.
Not yet.
He lowers himself in.
He places a thermos on the ground. Something warm. I can smell the cinnamon from here. Oatmeal, maybe. I blink at it.
He sits across from me, legs folded, forearms on his knees.
“You sleep?”
I shake my head.
He nods, like he expected that. His eyes drift across the cell—at the cracks in the stone, the scars on the floor. I wonder if he knows what happened here before. If he knows who else has been locked in this cell. I wonder if he has memories here, or if it is all for me.
I wonder if he is here to watch me.
To make peace with his demons.
“Lucien says you haven’t spoken much.”
I swallow. “I don’t have much to say.”
Dante’s voice is low. “You’ve earned the right to be quiet. But when you’re ready… I want to know you.”
I look up. “Why?”
“Because you’re not just a replacement. You’re not a symbol or a tool or some broken girl he left behind.” His jaw tightens. “You’re a person.”
It takes me a moment to believe that.
Another to let myself respond.
“I was in foster care,” I say finally, voice barely above a whisper. “They weren’t bad people. Just tired. They killed themselves when I was a teenager. Pills and a note.”
Dante’s eyes flicker.
I press on.
“I didn’t stay after that. Didn’t want to go through the system again. I lived in a shelter for a while. Then nowhere. Then… there.”
There.
The word tastes like ash.
Dante doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pity me. That’s why I can say it.
“I used to sleep behind this bodega in winter, in New York. That’s where my foster family lived. The heat from the exhaust vent would keep me alive. I used to pretend the fumes were music. That if I just closed my eyes, the city would sing me to sleep.”
Something shifts in his expression.
Not grief.
Not empathy.
Recognition.
“I know that song,” he murmurs. “I lived under an overpass for three months. Ate cold beans with a stolen spoon. Thought if I held my breath long enough, I’d disappear.”
Silence settles between us like a blanket. Not heavy. Not empty.
Shared.
“I didn’t think I’d make it out,” I whisper.
“You did.”
“I’m not out.”
Dante leans forward. “But you’re not there anymore either. And as long as you’re here, I’ll make sure you stay out of hell.”
My eyes sting.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Because someone should’ve done that for my sister. Because no one did it for you. You’re my sister too. And because if I don’t, I’ll never stop being the man who let Damien win.”
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking again.
Dante stands, crosses to the cot. He doesn’t touch me. Just sets the thermos closer and slides a folded hoodie across the sheets.
“It’s clean,” he says. “And warm.”
He pauses at the base of the ladder.
“Tomorrow, I’ll bring more food. Maybe we’ll talk again.”
I don’t say yes.
But I don’t say no.
An d as he shuts the door behind him, for the first time in years, I don’t feel like a thing.
I feel like someone.
Someone who might have a purpose.
* * *
I wake up cold, even though the hoodie Dante gave me is still wrapped around my shoulders.
There was a time when waking up alone was terrifying.
Now it just feels like a reminder.
Of what I lost.
Of what I survived.
Of what I still want, even though I shouldn’t.
Damien.
I press my hand to my chest and try to breathe past the ache. The worst part isn’t what he did to me. It’s how he made it feel like love. How I only tasted him once, and it felt real. How I learned to mistake his violence for devotion.
Some nights, I ache for the way his voice dipped when he said my name.
Like I was his favorite thing. I was the new Harmony.
Like I was his. I was his new queen.
Even if it wasn’t real. I wanted it to be.
The lock clicks.
My breath catches.
But it’s not him.
It’s Dante.
He enters the room like he did yesterday, slowly down the ladder. Cautious, calm. Carrying something warm again. Scrambled eggs this time. A soft roll. A bottle of water.
He crouches beside me and doesn’t speak right away.
Maybe he knows.
Maybe I wear it too plainly today.
“I didn’t sleep,” I say, voice hoarse.
“Me neither.” He hands me the food, but I don’t touch it. “Want to talk?”
I nod.
Then I break.
“I miss him.”
It slips out like a secret. Like a wound ripped open by accident. “Not the man he is now—but the version of him I thought I had. The one who whispered to me when the world went quiet. The one who said I belonged.”
Dante doesn’t interrupt.
“I know he used me. I know he hurt me. But I don’t know how to want anything else.” I hug my knees. “Sometimes I think I don’t know how to live unless someone’s controlling me.”
“That’s not weakness,” Dante says quietly. “That’s survival.”
I stare at the floor.
“When he branded me, I didn’t even cry. I just… let him. Because I thought that maybe if I hurt enough, I’d finally be worthy of the love he kept dangling just out of reach.”
Dante sits beside me, closer than yesterday. Still not touching me. But solid. Present.
“I keep waiting for you to tell me I’m disgusting,” I whisper.
“You’re not.”
“I let him—”
“You survived him.”
The tears come before I can stop them. Hot and bitter and ugly. “I don’t know who I am without him. I don’t know how to exist without being someone’s… thing.”
My voice breaks on the last word.
“I want to be used,” I choke out. “Not by him. Not anymore. But by someone who doesn’t lie when they say they care. I want someone to tell me what to be. What to do. I want to be good for someone who won’t destroy me.”
There’s a long silence.
Then warmth.
Dante wraps his arms around me—not tight, not possessive. Just enough to let me fall apart.
I sob into his shoulder, the sound wretched and childlike. He holds me through it, one hand braced gently against the back of my head, the other steady on my spine like he’s trying to hold the pieces of me together.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be.”
“I don’t even want sex. I just want… someone to tell me who I am.”
“You’re Brooke,” he says. “You’re strong. You’re still here. And one day, when you’re ready, you’ll find someone who sees you. Who might want to own you, but will love you for who you are.”
I shiver against him.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. “You don’t have to trust me. But I have someone I want you to meet.”
My brows pinch. “Who?”
“My wife, Evelyn.”
I blink. “You’re married?”
His lips twitch. “You say that like I just confessed to a crime.”
“I just didn’t expect—”
“She’s the reason I believe people can survive in lightness and in darkness. And I think… I think you’d like her. She’s been through her own version of Hell, too. Not to your extent, but… she will under stand.”
I hesitate. “Would she want to talk to me?”
“She asked to.” He nods. “Said she knows what it’s like to feel like you don’t own your own skin.”
The tears come again, quieter this time. Like rain instead of thunder.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Dante brushes the hair from my face. “I’ll bring her tomorrow.”
And just like that, something shifts.
Not everything. Not enough to undo the damage.
But maybe enough to begin.