Chapter 25 Dante
Austria, Vienna
My nerves are sparking like live wires. Anxiety leaks out of me in hot, frantic pulses, and the damn hood suffocates me, clinging to my head like a noose. I drag a hand across my face, pushing the loose strands of hair back into the fabric, trying to look less like I’m about to combust.
“Mein Herr, mochten Sie sonst noch etwas? Sir, would you like anything else?”
My head snaps to the side. A waitress stands beside me, worry tightening her features. Her gaze flicks to my untouched coffee—the full, cooling cup I haven’t so much as breathed on—and she probably thinks I’m displeased, ready to complain.
“Nein, mir geht es gut. No, I’m fine,” I say quietly, forcing a smile I barely feel. “Danke trotzdem. Thanks though.”
“Nun, falls Sie sonst noch etwas benotigen… Well, if you need anything else…” Her voice trails off as she scribbles something on her notepad with a pen.
Then she tears the paper free and places it on my table.
My eyes drop to it—numbers, hastily written, underlined once. “Fragen Sie ruhig. Feel free to ask.”
She turns, tossing a final glance over her shoulder before walking away. It takes my anxiety-fogged brain a full second to understand.
She just gave me her number.
I pick up the scrap of paper between two fingers and crush it into a tight ball. The small act snaps me back to myself for a heartbeat.
Feeling eyes on me, I turn, hoping to see him. But all I catch is the same waitress, watching me with a soft, disappointed ache in her eyes. I look away, irritation sparking through my chest.
I don’t have time for this shit. I’m not even supposed to be here.
We got a new target yesterday morning. I told Estella I’d scope out the area, make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises tomorrow. And that wasn’t a lie—not completely—since I will go to the cathedral.
But first, I have a meeting.
I still can’t put into words the shock that tore through me when Jason called and told me he was here.
No warning. No plan. We weren’t supposed to meet—weren’t supposed to risk it. They were supposed to stay invisible, exactly like we agreed.
But for some fucking reason, he decided he could just hop on a plane and show up here, unannounced, as if the world wouldn’t collapse around me the second he did.
It would’ve been easier if I lived alone. If there were no eyes waiting for me at home, no voice that noticed every shift in my breathing. But I’m not alone. Estella and I are practically fused at this point.
I can’t imagine living anywhere without her now.
It feels like the missing piece of me finally slid into place.
Our daily conversations have become so absurdly therapeutic that I still don’t understand how I survived before them.
I didn’t know I needed something like this, not until she gave it to me.
She just… gets me. In a way no one else ever has.
Sometimes we don’t speak at all. We just sit in silence, and somehow that silence fills the room instead of hollowing it. There’s no awkwardness, no judgment, no urge to escape.
It’s a quiet kind of safety. A soft, steady comfort. And I find myself terrified of losing it.
But the mission I’m hiding from her presses against me constantly, clawing up my spine, sinking sharp teeth into the back of my neck.
I know exactly how she’ll react. All I have to do is imagine myself in her place. Yes, she’ll explode. She’ll scream, she’ll rage, she’ll demand answers.
But that’s not what scares me.
It’s the silence that will follow the explosion.
The emptiness in her eyes. The disgust.
The betrayal.
That will carve into me deeper than the shard of glass that once pierced my chest. It will leave a scar I’ll never fucking recover from.
Estella has already given me so much of herself. She told me about her abusive father—what he did when he stumbled home, how her mother accused her of stealing him away, how she dreamed of running until her legs collapsed.
And when she opened that door, a few of my own memories barged in. Memories I didn’t ask for. Memories I thought were buried.
I remembered the days when my father beat me, locked me in a cage, insisting it was the only way I’d grow into a real man. I remembered the nights he starved me, the way he hurt my mother when she tried to protect me.
A ruthless piece of shit. A businessman obsessed with power, and we were the punching bags he unloaded on when he came back home.
I’d be lying if I said my mission hasn’t wavered because of the memories she brought back—memories that rip the foundation out from under everything I believed.
My family wasn’t perfect. They weren’t noble. They weren’t worth the loyalty I’ve been bleeding myself dry for.
And somewhere deep inside, shame burned like acid, because my mind tried to shield me from the truth, repainting the past in brighter colors, giving me a lie to hold on to.
But lies eventually rot. And mine started to stink.
Even when the thorns of the real picture began to pierce through the painted canvas of the lie I’d built, I kept pretending I didn’t feel the sting.
I couldn’t remember. I refused to remember. And if it weren’t for Estella, I would’ve walked through the rest of my life blind, content with shadows.
A sharp jingle from the cheap metal bell above the entrance slices through my thoughts. I turn my head, slow and wary, irritation sparking in my chest when I spot Jason stepping inside.
He makes a beeline for our booth, sliding into the seat across from me with all the grace of someone who thinks he’s welcome. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, unbothered. “Traffic was a bitch.”
“I’ve been waiting twenty fucking minutes,” I snap, not bothering to mask the razor-edge in my voice. Jason stares, his eyes widening. He’s not used to me sounding like this.
“Relax, man. You’re all tense,” he mutters, unzipping his backpack and rifling through it for something.
Paranoia coils tight in my gut. My gaze flicks around the small, polished café—quiet people, soft chatter, the same waitress avoiding looking in my direction after her failed attempt earlier. Nothing dangerous. Nothing suspicious.
And yet the guilt gnaws at me.
Because I shouldn’t be here.
Because I’m hiding this from Estella.
It feels wrong, as if each secret I swallow leaves a splinter lodged under my skin. We’ve spent weeks spilling our truth into each other’s hands, offering every ugly piece… and here I am, carving out an exception.
Jason finally pulls out a battered yellow folder, opening it and tapping the first page with two fingers. “Remember this guy?”
I lean forward. The image stares back at me—a man in his mid-forties, fatigue etched into the wrinkles around his eyes. I read the name, and memories flicker like a light bulb struggling back to life.
“One of the informants,” I say slowly. “Why?”
“He’s dead,” Jason answers, his tone dropping lower. “They did a damn good job burying it. But I cracked their system and found the autopsy report. Someone poisoned him.”
I shrug, my brain still trying to catch up. “Was it one of the assassins?”
He shakes his head immediately. “No. They’ve been on edge ever since Ezra died. And Estella’s been the one they send on the sensitive missions. They don’t seem to trust anyone else with poison work. But you’ve been keeping an eye on her, right?” he presses.
Oh, yes. I’ve kept more than an eye on her.
“Yes,” I say, voice firm, leaving no room for doubt. “It’s not her.”
Jason lets out a quiet, satisfied breath before sliding the paper back into the folder and snapping it shut. “Ezra’s death pulled the string,” he says, voice dropping like he’s delivering a prophecy. “Someone’s gnawing at the system from the inside. I think we’ve got an ally.”
His words hang between us, heavy and electric. I sit there, letting them sink in, letting my mind claw through the implications.
This all started after we went underground, which means someone inside The Order didn’t just notice the shift—they decided to act.
To help us. Or, at the very least, to make it look like they’re helping.
Or maybe it’s all a coincidence. A flimsy, pathetic explanation, but still a possibility.
The Order has existed for decades—they’re masters of choosing the right people and discarding the wrong ones. If I really think about it, this feels less like assistance and more like a cleanup job. A way to sanitize their mess by killing off the people who know too much.
It proves what we always suspected: everyone inside is disposable.
One thing I know for sure: Cane has started acting strangely.
After the attack on Estella, he promised to deal with it, but there has been no news.
He gave us an assignment here and the one for Halloween in advance, but he didn’t show up as he usually does.
He called Estella and told her to meet his trusted man.
When I asked her why he was doing this, she brushed it off, saying that sometimes he can trust someone else to handle the job.
Very rarely, but possible.
Still, it does nothing to stop the unease that crawls under my skin, like a relentless buzz that refuses to be silenced.
My gaze drifts to the man in the photograph: Harry Brown. I remember him from our early research days—a reliable informant, loyal, deep in the system for years.
And now he’s a ghost. The Order is burying him so thoroughly that the world is meant to believe he never breathed at all.
“You don’t look so happy,” Jason mocks lightly, tilting his head, trying to read me. “And now that I’ve given you the main news, we need to talk.”
I push my spine straighter, sinking into the booth with a sharper posture. “I’m all ears,” I reply, tone dry enough to grate.
Jason lifts a hand and signals to the waitress. She approaches quickly, though her steps stiffen when she reaches our table.