Chapter 18 Dante #4
He radiates kindness in the pictures, like a man who would help a woman carry her bags, assist an elderly lady across the street even in a rush, or buy a child candy when their parents said no. But beneath it all, a faint glimmer slips through, revealing a side of him he keeps tightly locked away.
I glance at Bennett, now hunched over a renewed glass, downing it with the same urgency as before. He might not have fully known his brother, or perhaps he did and feared what others might see. That fear, that flicker, explains the glint in his eyes when Estella’s name first came up.
“He saw good in her,” he whispers, his voice heavy with a blend of disbelief and sorrow.
“She was aggressive, impulsive, violent, and had a mouth like a storm. She didn’t care what anyone thought,” he continues.
“No teacher could make even the slightest remark—she’d bite them before they even finished talking. ”
I turn the pages until I reach the photos that include her.
The images hold me fast, my stomach knotting as the tension winds itself tightly around each page.
A smirk rises at the edge of my lips, but I force it back.
She still carries fragments of it—her unapologetic mouth, her dark, impossibly sharp sense of humor.
My fingertips linger on the first picture, where she stands near William, hands tucked behind her back.
The image is marred by burn marks, but I don’t need clarity to feel her presence.
Her hair is loose and dark, falling around her pale, slightly skinnier frame.
Her face looks back at me, half-hidden beneath the scorch marks, and the weight of the raw symbolism presses against me.
I flip the page. Another photograph shows her with William, standing closer this time. The worry bites at me, sharp along its edges, though it has not yet grown into a full bloom.
“Her face was rarely clean,” Bennett mutters, reading my furrowed brows as I trace the dark splotches—bruises, faint and deep, a tapestry of purples, reds, and pinks. “She always got into fights. Didn’t teach her a thing. She kept being rude, always trying to prove something to everyone.”
“Do you remember anything about her family?” I probe carefully, leaning into the shadows of his hesitation.
“Of course,” he says slowly. “Everybody loved her parents. They were good people. Her father invested a lot in the community.”
Yeah. That explains the love everyone feels for them, the thin mask of perfection.
“I don’t know why she turned out the way she did,” he says, voice drifting, lost in thought. “Such a broken, violent child.”
“Where do you think she got her bruises from?” I press. “School?”
“A couple of times she fought other kids,” he admits, “but once they saw what she could do, they backed off. She was always separated. Everyone was afraid of her.”
A sharp, burning pain loops around my chest, tightening with every heartbeat. “What about her family, then? Were they doing this to her?”
“No, no, they were good people,” he says quickly.
Then his eyes meet mine, and I catch the lie, my lips pressing into a thin, tight line. He meets my gaze with nothing more than a casual shrug.
“I… I don’t know. I never paid much attention. I mean—” His head shakes, slow and confused. “I’m sure she acted like that at home too. Maybe they tried to teach her a lesson.”
For a man who built his life on studying the human mind, he’s fucking terrible at it.
Fury tears through me, hot and electric. My jaw clenches, teeth biting down, and I press the album pages so tightly my fingers turn white. I close my eyes, trying to expel the sickening truth.
I don’t need to be a genius to see what everyone else pretended not to. He knew. Everyone knew. Her parents abused her regularly, silently, and nobody intervened. Instead, they pushed her away, punished her violence without questioning why.
My heart bleeds for her. I know it can never truly honor all that she has endured, yet perhaps, she will sense that I share in her pain, that I understand the depths of what she has lived through.
“This is where William started appearing,” I murmur under my breath, eyes scanning the new batch of pictures. Each image shows him inching closer to her, the space between them shrinking with every flip of the page. My teeth press into my tongue to stop the thoughts that claw at the surface.
The photos shift to scenes outside school.
The first shows them in a park, autumn’s yellow-brown leaves carpeting the ground around the bench where they sit, steaming cups warming their hands.
Estella’s smile is radiant, bright as weak sunlight breaking through clouds, and it ignites a storm inside me, all mingling into a bitter swirl.
A storm of jealousy.
Worry.
Anger.
“Who took these?” I finally ask, tension slipping through my voice despite my efforts. I scrub my free hand across my face as if I could wipe away the ugly expression twisting me.
“Some are selfies. Some were taken by me and his daughter,” he answers.
I freeze, brow lifting. “You… you were with them?”
“I never wanted to be. I kept telling William something was off about her, but he didn’t listen.
He made me spend time with her so I’d finally see how good she really is.
It only made me more concerned.” His finger points to a puddle in one photo.
“If you look closely, you can see my sour face. Pure torture.”
I swallow, forcing the next question past the tightness in my throat. “But why was William so determined to prove she’s not what she seems? What did he see in her?”
“It’s complicated.” I narrow my eyes at him, silent pressure mounting, and he exhales heavily. “She was giving up on school—grades falling fast. Her mother came, begged teachers for help, but everyone stepped back. William… he extended a hand.”
“So he helped her outside of class?”
“She’d come to our home. He became her mentor. I had my own work, my life, but sometimes I was there when she visited. She made it clear she didn’t like me right away.”
I pause, staring at the picture of Estella curled in a checkered blanket on the couch, a mug cradled in her hands, marshmallows floating atop what I assume is hot cocoa.
“How did she make it clear?” I ask, my gaze never leaving the photo.
“She kept glancing at me with contempt. Rolled her eyes whenever I walked in on them.”
Shock stretches my eyes wide, while fury coils within me. I freeze in place, my nostrils flaring as the thick anger rises. “Walked in on them?”
“Not like that,” he protests weakly before slapping a hand to his forehead and leaning against it, appearing drained by the weight of the conversation.
“William had a special approach. He didn’t just want to teach her—he wanted to reach her, to connect.
To be the one person she could trust in a sea of those who didn’t understand her. ”
“And it worked,” I state, the tension in my chest tightening further.
“It did. Once, I eavesdropped on the conversations they were having. She said her house was always cold, that she didn’t want to go back, so William… he paid special attention. Used to make her a cup of tea, cocoa, or coffee, then they’d sit, talking, until it slowly drifted into their studies.”
“He was kind to her,” I whisper, testing the words on my tongue with a flicker of unease. I feel it—the unspoken, the invisible weight of all he leaves unsaid—and I cling to the hope that this man will bridge the gaps, keeping me from jumping to conclusions.
“He was. Too kind,” he admits, eyes darting nervously around the apartment, never settling, like he’s afraid of something lurking in the corners. “But it got ugly with time. So ugly that—” He swallows hard, the words catching in his throat. “You know what happened.”
“Did you notice something? A change in her behavior? Before everything went wrong, there must have been signs.”
“Oh, there were,” he laughs, a hollow smile twisting his face. “You know what’s interesting? Those outside Gravemoor think William ended his life because of the death of his daughter. But that wasn’t the whole story.”
I lock my gaze on him, absorbing every word, every subtle tremor in his voice.
“His wife, Amelia, was incredibly sick. Chained to the bed, wasting away while some disease devoured her. The doctors couldn’t name it. We spent everything we had bringing in specialists, the best of the best, and even they couldn’t save her.”
He lets his gaze fall, and the lines of pain carve themselves deep into his face.
“She was barely alive, but William wouldn’t give up. He loved her more than anything. Worked near her bed, ate with her, talked with her, even when she couldn’t respond. And then, Iris entered their lives. Not long after, Amelia died.”
A heavy pause hangs in the air, and a faint chill snakes up my spine, prickling along each vertebra. “You think Iris killed her?”
He wags a finger at me. “I don’t think. I know.
” He tugs at the collar of his shirt as if it’s choking him, growing more uncomfortable with every second.
“She was chained. Could barely move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t scream.
But her heart was beating. That machine…
the beeping was what kept us clinging to hope, the only thread that said she might survive. ”
He throws his arms wide, the gesture almost frantic. “And then Iris comes in, and shortly after, she dies. How? Apparently, Amelia wanted to end it all and just reached for the main cable and pulled it from the socket. A person who could barely fucking move just pulls the plug.”
I narrow my eyes, a hurricane of thoughts ripping through my mind. I glance at the pictures again, at her vibrant, seemingly innocent face staring back at me. So full of life, yet holding secrets in plain sight.
She had been there so much with William, part of every moment. In each photo, she’s there—visiting, present, slipping herself into his life as much as he had slipped himself into hers.