Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Dante
Pain drags me back to consciousness.
Not the sharp, screaming kind from before. This is deeper. A dull throb that pulses with every heartbeat, radiating from my left side like someone shoved a hot coal under my ribs and left it there to smoulder.
I keep my eyes closed. Take stock.
Soft mattress beneath me. The quiet hum of a refrigerator somewhere in the apartment. Traffic sounds filtering through windows.
Marina's apartment. Still here. Still alive.
Her face when she opened the door.
I shift slightly and immediately regret it. Fire lances through my side. I bite down on the groan that wants to escape, but something must show on my face because I hear movement from across the room.
"You're awake."
I open my eyes.
Marina sits in a chair she's dragged from somewhere. Kitchen, probably. She's changed clothes since... whenever I last saw her conscious. Dark jeans. A loose sweater that hangs off one shoulder. Hair pulled back in a messy knot. Dark circles under her eyes that tell me she hasn't slept.
She looks exhausted. Beautiful. Furious.
There she is.
"How long?" My voice comes out rough. Sandpaper over gravel.
"Ten hours." She doesn't move from the chair. "Dr. Marchetti said you'd sleep through most of the first day. Something about your body needing to heal."
Ten hours. I've been unconscious in her bed for ten hours while she was probably planning seventeen different ways to murder me the moment I could appreciate it.
My bladder makes itself known with sudden, urgent clarity.
Fuck.
I start to push myself up on my elbows. The movement sends fresh agony radiating through my torso, but I've had worse. I've definitely had worse. I just can't remember when.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Marina's on her feet before I can blink. She crosses the room, hands raised like she's going to physically shove me back down.
"Goddamn it, Dante. The doctor said three days. Three days of no movement. That means you stay in that bed until—"
"I need to use the bathroom."
The words stop her cold.
She stares at me. I watch the realization dawn across her features. Watch her process what I'm saying and what the alternative would be.
"No." She shakes her head. "Absolutely not. You can't—"
"Marina." I push myself up further, ignoring the way my vision swims at the edges. "I'm getting up."
"Like hell you are." Her voice rises. "You have a hole in your side. A hole, Dante. The bullet almost hit your kidney. If you tear those stitches open, if you start bleeding internally again—"
"Then I'll deal with it."
"You'll deal with it?" She laughs, but there's no humour in it. "You'll deal with it. That's rich. That's really fucking rich coming from the man who showed up at my door half-dead and expected me to just—"
She cuts herself off. Presses her lips together so hard they go white.
Something warm spreads through my chest that has nothing to do with the wound.
"There it is," I say.
"There what is?"
"You. Cursing at me." I manage to swing my legs over the side of the bed. The room tilts. I wait for it to steady. "If there's one thing I'm grateful for in this entire mess, cara, it's hearing you curse at me again."
Her eyes flash. Blue-green fire that I've been dreaming about for two years.
"You're grateful? You're grateful that I'm—" She makes a sound of pure frustration.
Marina's jaw works. I can see her running through options. Bedpan. Bottle. Something that would keep me horizontal and spare us both the indignity of what I'm about to attempt.
"You can't," she says finally. "You physically cannot walk to the bathroom. It's fifteen feet away and you can barely sit up without turning grey."
"Watch me."
I plant my feet on the floor. The cold hardwood sends a shock through my system. Good. I need that. Need something to anchor me to consciousness while my body screams at me to lie back down and never move again.
"Dante." Her voice drops. Warning. "If you make your condition worse than it already is, I will kill you myself."
I look up at her. She's standing close now.
I smile. It hurts. Everything hurts. But I smile anyway.
"I'd love to see you try, cara."
"Can I just—" She stops. Starts again. "Can I at least bring you a bottle? Something. Just so you won't have to get up."
I watch her struggle with the words.
"At least for today," she adds. Her voice is quieter now. "Please."
Please.
That single word costs her something. I can see it in the way her shoulders tense, the way she won't quite meet my eyes. Marina Reeves doesn't ask for things. She demands. She fights. She builds walls so high you'd need a helicopter to see over them.
She doesn't say please.
Not to me.
I nod slowly. "I can manage that."
The relief that flickers across her face is gone almost before I can register it. She turns and leaves the room without another word, her footsteps quick on the hardwood.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
The movement sends a fresh wave of pain through my side, but it's manageable now. Barely. I ease myself back against the pillows, taking the pressure off the wound, and let my eyes drift around the room.
Her bedroom.
Small. Clean. Organized in a way that speaks to control rather than preference. White sheets on the bed. A nightstand with a lamp. Closet door slightly ajar.
No photos on the walls. No personal touches except for a single plant on the windowsill, something green.
The room of someone who's ready to leave at a moment's notice.
Footsteps in the hallway.
Marina reappears in the doorway holding an empty plastic bottle. She crosses to the bed and sets it on the nightstand without ceremony.
"There." Her voice is clipped. Like she's a nurse dealing with a difficult patient rather than a woman who just spent the night keeping a man she hates alive.
"Thank you."
"Are you hungry?"
The thought of food makes my stomach turn. "No."
She nods like she expected that answer. Disappears again.
I close my eyes. Count my breaths. Try to catalogue the pain—where it's sharpest, where it's dull, what movements make it worse. Information I'll need if things go sideways and I have to move fast.
The mattress dips slightly.
I open my eyes to find Marina perched on the edge of the bed, a bottle of water in her hand. She holds it out to me.
"You need to drink. A lot." Her tone brooks no argument. "Now that you're awake, you should get as much water in you as possible before you fall asleep again."
I take the bottle. Our fingers don't touch. She's careful about that.
"In two hours, I'll bring you more pills." She stands, putting distance between us.
I unscrew the cap. Take a long drink.
Marina watches me.
I watch her back.
I've never been good at talking. Words are tools I use for work—negotiation, intimidation, the occasional charm offensive when the situation calls for it.
I take another drink of water.
She doesn't move.
I should say something. Apologize. Explain. Give her something that makes sense of why I'm here, why I came to her door instead of calling the family doctor.
But the words won't come.
So I just drink my water and watch her watch me, and neither of us says a goddamn thing.
Marina
I take a step back from the bed. Then another.
"I'll leave you alone," I say. "To do what you need to do with that."
I gesture vaguely at the bottle on the nightstand. My cheeks burn. This is not a conversation I ever imagined having with Dante Castellani.
He nods once. His face gives nothing away.
"If you need anything," I continue, already backing toward the door, "just call out. I'll be in the living room."
"My phone."
I stop. "What?"
"Where's my phone?" His voice is rough. Strained from the effort of staying conscious.
"Your jacket maybe?" I remember Dr. Marchetti peeling the blood-soaked leather off him, tossing it aside to get to the wound. "The doctor took it off. It's in the living room."
"Bring me the jacket."
I turn and walk out of the bedroom without another word.
The jacket is draped over the arm of my couch. Dark leather, expensive, ruined now by the blood that's soaked into the lining. I pick it up by the collar, holding it away from my body like it might bite.
Back in the bedroom, I drop it on the bed beside him.
Dante reaches for it with his right hand, keeping his left arm pressed against his wounded side. His movements are slow.
He finds the phone in the inside pocket. Pulls it out. The screen is cracked but it lights up when he touches it.
"When you need to reach me," I say, "you can text. I'll write down my number."
Dante looks up at me. Something flickers in those dark eyes.
"I have it."
The words hang in the air between us.
I stare at him. "You have it."
"Yes."
"You have my phone number." I hear my voice go flat. "The phone number I got two years ago. After I moved to Denver. After I changed everything about my life specifically so that—"
I stop myself.
Close my eyes.
Breathe.
When I open them again, Dante is watching me with an expression I can't read. Patient. Waiting. Like he knows exactly what's coming and he's bracing for impact.
"I'm not doing this right now," I say. Each word comes out clipped. Precise. "I'm not having this conversation now."
"Marina—"
"No." I hold up my hand. "You're going to rest. You're going to heal. And when you're not actively dying, we're going to have a very long talk about how the hell you know where I live and why you have my phone number."
He's quiet for a moment. Then his lips curve. Just slightly.
"Okay, cara." he says.
That word again. He said it earlier, when I was cursing at him. Cara. The way it rolls off his tongue, soft and warm, like it means something.
I don't know what it means.
I'm not going to ask him.
"Rest," I say instead. "I'll bring your pills in two hours."
I turn and walk out of the bedroom. Close the door behind me. Lean against it and press my palms flat against the wood.
My heart is pounding.
I push off the door. Cross to the couch. Sit down and pull out my phone.
My fingers hover over the screen for a long moment before I open my messages and find Sophia's name.
What does cara mean?
I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
The response comes faster than I expected.
Oh god
Then, a moment later:
Why?
I stare at the screen. Type back:
Just tell me
Three dots appear.
It means "dear" or "darling" in Italian. Like a term of endearment.
I read the message twice.
He keeps calling you that?
I don't respond.
Marina. Is Dante calling you cara?
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I don't know what to say. Don't know how to explain that yes, he's calling me that, and I don't know why, and I don't know what it means that my chest tightens every time he says it.
Another message from Sophia:
It's what Lorenzo calls me sometimes. When he's being... soft.
Soft.
Dante Castellani doesn't do soft.
I turn off my phone and set it face-down on the couch cushion.
I'm not thinking about this right now.
I'm not.