Chapter 20 Estella
Ipry my eyes open, a gasp catching in my throat, sharp and shallow. A faint headache blooms behind my temples, sending a dull, insistent throb through my skull. My palm slaps against my forehead, and I flinch at the clammy stickiness of sweat clinging to my skin.
It takes a moment to inhale fully, to realize that my silk robe is glued to me, damp and heavy with perspiration, molding to every curve, every tense muscle.
A creak of the floor ripples through the dark room. I freeze, eyes widening, straining to pierce the shadows.
Someone is here.
I can feel it—an invisible weight pressing down, a pulse of unease curling through my veins, sending shivers cascading along my spine. I shift, trying to orient myself, to outline the shapes around me, but nothing jumps out.
Another slow creak vibrates across the floor. My heart stutters, stalls, then bursts forward, hammering in my throat as a dark silhouette slides closer.
Through the fog clouding my brain, I move faster than reason should allow.
I slide off the couch, the thud of my knees echoing across the room, sharp pain shooting through me.
The dull ache spreads, pooling in my bones, as my eyes catch the movement across the couch where I had been just a second ago—a swing of something before the sound dulls, a tear of fabric ripping through the space.
A knife.
It gets pulled out the same second, and instinct snaps, panic curling through my chest as my hands fly up to shield my face.
A sharp slice rakes across my arm. Fire blossoms along my skin, and in that instant, I locate his hand.
My leg lifts, striking hard, and he growls, letting go of the knife as it clatters across the floor—metal on tile, loud and definitive—igniting a spark of hope that flickers weakly through my rising hysteria.
I just had to fall asleep in the living room, on the shadowed side of the apartment, where no light penetrates, where danger can hide in plain fucking sight.
Gasping, I twist, trying to scramble to my feet, but a hand fists in my hair before I can rise.
The grip is vicious, yanking my head back so hard a shock of tingling pain detonates across my scalp, a million electric sparks exploding beneath my skin.
I yelp, the last wisps of sleep burning away as adrenaline tears through the fog in my skull.
The light brush of his arm grazes my skin before it grinds hard against me, scraping, dragging, hurting.
“Get the fuck off me,” I hiss, fury sharpening every syllable as I slam my elbow backward, feeling it connect. He growls again, a sound fueled by his rising anger, but his hand only tightens, and the pain spirals, sharp enough to send a white-hot bloom straight into my brain.
I thrash against him, panic clawing its way up my throat.
My gaze darts wildly around the room, desperate to make out shapes, edges, anything that could anchor me—but the darkness is a suffocating void.
My eyes still feel swollen from sleep, refusing to focus, and the room keeps tilting, slipping, blurring.
His arm cinches around my neck. The pressure, like a python slowly coiling around its helpless prey. I choke, my palms sliding over the floor, the couch, his forearm—searching for leverage, a weapon, a weakness.
Nothing works. Every attempt feels small, sluggish, useless.
Thoughts flash through my mind, fast and frantic, each one darker than the last. I can feel myself dimming, the edges of my consciousness fraying. Concern sparks within me, fragile at first, then erupting violently.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to die.
Not half-conscious on a couch. Not strangled by a stranger whose face I can’t even see.
He could be anyone—a relative of a man I’ve killed, someone powerful, someone unhinged, someone with nothing left to lose.
And right now, he has everything, my life balanced between his fingers.
One thing I know for certain is that he is overpowering me, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
My face heats and tightens, my heartbeat slams against the inside of my throat, and consciousness thins at the edges like wet paper tearing apart. Primal fear surges through me, hitting with brutal clarity as the truth lands.
I will not see Dante again.
He made me feel something new, something sharp and exhilarating, something that refused to bore me.
Something that lit a spark I thought had died a long time ago.
And we never even had the chance to let it grow.
Now I am about to die, and whatever chance I had to turn my life into something different is slipping beyond reach, dissolving into the void that pulls at me.
His face floods my mind, memories racing in a rapid-fire blur.
Now I can feel what people mean when they say their life flashes before their eyes in their final moments.
But instead of my entire miserable existence, all I see is Dante.
The moments with him surge forward, vivid and overwhelming.
I hear his voice, feel the warmth of his skin, and even catch the trace of his scent.
That scent swells, rising above everything else, thick and real, so potent I can almost taste it.
Then, a sensation strikes me like a sudden breach from underwater, as if someone yanks me toward the surface and lets me take in a clean, desperate breath.
My palms crash against the floor as I brace myself, a raw cough scraping out of my throat, the burning ache still clinging to my skin.
The weight crushing me disappears, torn away by something stronger, and cold air rushes to fill the space he held, wrapping around me like a stark, icy embrace.
The man groans, followed by a heavy thud, then a scuffle.
I turn my head, squinting through the dark, trying to make sense of the shapes and movement, but the shadows swallow everything.
A sharp crack slices through the air, unmistakably the sound of bone giving way, and the metallic bite of blood follows, faint yet undeniable.
Still coughing and dragging in ragged breaths, I crawl toward the light switch, the one that always felt close, yet now seems impossibly distant.
Behind me, the dull impact of fists striking flesh echoes through the room, each hit packing a violent finality, each sound stripping the life from the body that attacked me.
Finally, my fingers hit the goddamn switch.
Light floods the room, and I whip my head back toward the scene.
My eyes widen, stretching like giant saucers, as I take in Dante looming over the man whose face I won’t even recognize, shredded into a bloody mess.
Each punch sends a spray of red across the air, painting the man’s face over and over again as Dante drives his fists relentlessly.
I can’t see his eyes clearly, but I feel it—the blaze behind them, the raw energy radiating outward.
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t pause; every ounce of his attention is fixed on the man beneath him and the rhythm of his fists.
His hands move so fast they blur, each strike fueled by something beyond reason.
Strands of hair fall across his forehead, crawling into his eyes like delicate, stubborn spiders, but he’s completely oblivious.
The room hums with taut tension, stretching to the breaking point, while the metallic scent of blood mingles with sweat and the unmistakable, intoxicating trace of Dante. My eyes lock on him, unable to look away, drawn in as the beast inside him fully awakens.
The man’s body twists and shudders under the assault, but Dante isn’t convinced. He only sees red. He doesn’t stop, even when blood flakes into his own eyes, even when he can no longer see anything at all.
My tongue darts out, wetting my lips as the last remnants of panic evaporate, leaving only a thick, simmering warmth pooling low in my stomach.
I cannot tear my gaze from him, fascinated by the raw, untamed ferocity he exudes.
That man may have seemed strong before, but he is nothing compared to Dante.
Veins pulse along his arms, blue threads mapping intricate patterns over tanned skin.
Light catches a bead of sweat on his temple, and I feel a rush, a strange, uncontainable desire to lean in and taste it.
My bottom lip is trapped between my teeth while a small smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.
He is a wild storm, raging without restraint, obliterating the man who dared to attack me. He came at the perfect moment, like a fierce, unstoppable force, and in that instant, I understand something undeniable.
He’s mine to witness, and no one, nothing, will come between him and me.
Still sprawled on the floor, I shift my weight, and a subtle slickness gathers between my legs.
The sensation startles me, but not as much as the realization that Dante notices it—the change in my breathing, the shift in my body, the silent turn in my thoughts.
His fists finally fall still, and he lifts his head.
Our eyes collide, and a sharp gasp cuts up my throat.
It feels like I’ve just witnessed something forbidden, something no one was ever meant to see.
A part of him he’s kept buried so deep the world had no clue it existed.
If someone had reminded me of the awkward, unsure Dante from before, I would have sworn he wasn’t capable of this.
But now, after seeing it with my own eyes…
He was completely swallowed by rage. Not resisting it—embracing it. He let the darkness inside him rise, let it claim him, let it tear through him.
And yet, when he looks at me, something in his expression softens—just barely, just enough to let me see the man beneath the fury. But the gleam in his eyes remains, bright and sharp, a flicker of danger he can’t hide.
For a moment, it feels like I’m staring directly into myself—the reflection of all my broken edges, all my wounds left wide open to the cold of this world.