Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dante
Iwake to the sound of footsteps.
Marina stands in the doorway. She holds a glass of water in one hand and two pills in the other. Her face is blank. Closed off.
"Time for your medication," she says.
I push myself up against the headboard. The movement sends fire through my side. I grit my teeth and don't make a sound.
Marina crosses to the bed. Sets the water on the nightstand. Drops the pills into my palm without touching my skin.
"Take them," she says.
I do.
She watches me swallow. Watches me drink half the water. Then she turns and walks out without another word.
The door clicks shut behind her.
I stare at the ceiling for a long moment.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. The cracked screen lights up. Three missed calls from Lorenzo. Two from Nico. A string of text messages I don't bother reading.
I dial Lorenzo's number.
He picks up on the first ring.
"You're alive." His voice is flat. Controlled. The voice he uses when he's deciding whether to kill someone.
"Barely."
"I know." A pause. "The doctor called me. Said you lost enough blood to fill a bathtub."
I close my eyes. "That's an exaggeration."
"Is it?"
Silence stretches between us. I can picture him in his office. Sitting behind that massive desk. Jaw tight. Eyes cold.
"The right thing to do right now," Lorenzo says slowly, "is ask you why the fuck you didn't go to the doctor. Since you could walk."
I don't answer.
"Or why the hell you didn't just call me. To inform me that you'd been shot. That the job went sideways. That you were bleeding out in the middle of Denver."
"Lorenzo—"
"But I'm not going to ask those questions." His voice drops. Dangerous. "Because you almost died. So I'm going to wait. And when you're feeling better, I'm going to knock you the fuck out myself."
I almost smile.
Lorenzo has always tried to be tough on me. Since we were teenagers. Since his father took me in and gave me a place at the table. He plays the role of the hard boss. The man who makes soldiers piss their pants with a single look.
But the truth is that he can't.
Not with me. Not with the people he loves.
Lorenzo Sartori is built to provide care more than he gives punches. He just doesn't like anyone knowing it.
"I'll look forward to it," I say.
"Don't test me, Dante." But some of the edge has left his voice. "What the fuck happened?"
I shift against the pillows. The wound throbs with every heartbeat.
"Webb was ready for me," I say. "Had a man waiting. Armed. The moment I mentioned the debt, he made a move for the back door. His muscle came out shooting."
"And?"
"I put them down."
Lorenzo is quiet for a moment. "Webb is dead?"
"Should be. Took a bullet to the throat. Bled out on his office floor."
"Should be," Lorenzo repeats. "That's not a confirmation."
"I was busy trying not to die. Didn't stop to check his pulse."
A long exhale on the other end of the line. I hear him shift. The creak of leather.
"I sent a team to Webb's building," Lorenzo says. "An hour after Marina called."
I wait.
"Someone cleaned the place before they got there."
The words hit me like a second bullet.
"What?"
"No bodies. No blood. No shell casings. Nothing." Lorenzo's voice is hard now. All business. "The office looked like it had been professionally sanitized. My men said it smelled like bleach."
I stare at the ceiling. My mind races through the possibilities.
"That's not possible," I say. "There was blood everywhere. Webb's throat was—"
"Dante." Lorenzo cuts me off. "I'm telling you what my team found. Which was nothing."
Silence.
"Either Webb is alive," Lorenzo continues, "or something else is going on. Someone knew about the meeting. Someone was watching. Someone moved fast enough to clean a double homicide before my people could get there."
"Who?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out." A pause. "We're looking for Webb. So far, nothing. No hospital records. No credit card activity. No movement on any of his accounts. If he's alive, he's hiding. If he's dead, someone made him disappear."
I close my eyes. The pain medication is starting to work. The edges of everything going soft.
"This wasn't random," I say. "Webb knew I was coming."
"I know."
"Someone tipped him off."
"I know that too." Lorenzo's voice is quiet. Deadly. "And when I find out who, they're going to wish they'd never been born."
I believe him.
"What do you need from me?" I ask.
"Right now? Nothing. You stay where you are. You heal. You don't do anything stupid."
"Lorenzo—"
"I mean it, Dante." His tone brooks no argument. "You almost died. The doctor said if you'd lost another pint of blood, you wouldn't have made it. So you're going to lie in that bed and let Marina take care of you until I say otherwise."
Marina's name on his lips makes something twist in my chest.
"She didn't sign up for this," I say.
"We'll talk more when you're stronger," Lorenzo says. "For now, rest. And Dante?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you get shot, you call me first. Not after. Not when you're already dying on some woman's doorstep. First."
The line goes dead.
I let the phone drop onto the mattress beside me.
Someone cleaned Webb's office.
The pain medication pulls at me. Drags me toward sleep.
But my mind won't stop turning.
Webb was a tech entrepreneur. Small time. He shouldn't have had the resources to set up an ambush. Shouldn't have had connections to make a crime scene vanish.
Unless he wasn't working alone.
Unless someone bigger was pulling his strings.
I stare at the ceiling until the drugs finally win.
Marina
I stand at the stove, stirring a pot of soup that I made from scratch. Dr. Marchetti's instructions echo in my head. Clear liquids for the first twenty-four hours. Then soft foods. Nothing heavy. Nothing that will strain his digestive system while his body fights to heal.
I found a recipe online. Something simple. Chicken, carrots, celery, a handful of herbs. The kind of thing my mother used to make when I was sick as a kid.
I don't know why I'm trying so hard.
The soup simmers. I ladle it into a bowl. Add a few crackers to the side of the tray. A glass of water. The antibiotics he needs to take with food.
I stare at the tray for a long moment.
This is strange.
All of it.
Having another person in my apartment. Hearing someone else breathe in the next room. Knowing that when I walk down the hallway, I won't be alone.
I've been alone for so long.
Waking up by myself. Eating by myself. Watching television by myself. Going to bed by myself.
I don't date. I tried, once. A guy from work asked me to coffee. He was nice. Normal. Had a normal job and a normal smile and normal hands that probably had never held a gun.
We sat across from each other at a café downtown. He talked about his hobbies. Hiking. Craft beer. Fantasy football.
I smiled and nodded and felt absolutely nothing.
When he leaned in to kiss me goodnight, I flinched so hard he stepped back like I'd slapped him.
I never called him again.
I don't have friends either. Not real ones. I have colleagues at the nonprofit. People I eat lunch with sometimes. People who ask how my weekend was and accept my vague answers without pushing.
But no one I call at midnight when I can't sleep. No one who knows about the scars. No one who's seen me cry.
Just Sophia. And I've been avoiding her calls for weeks.
I pick up the tray.
The weight of it feels strange in my hands. I'm not used to carrying food to someone else. Not used to taking care of anyone but myself.
I walk down the hallway. My footsteps are quiet on the carpet. The apartment is silent except for the soft hum of the refrigerator.
I stop outside the bedroom door.
Take a breath.
Push it open.
Dante is sitting up now. Propped against the headboard with pillows behind his back. His phone is in his hands. He's typing something. His thumbs move across the screen with practiced ease.
He doesn't look up when I enter.
I stand in the doorway, holding the tray, watching him text.
Someone is on the other end of that message. Someone he's talking to. Someone who matters enough that he's using his limited energy to communicate with them.
A girlfriend, maybe.
Of course he has someone. A man like Dante doesn't spend two years alone. He's not broken like me. He's not hiding in a one-bedroom apartment, pretending to be normal while the walls close in.
He probably has a woman in Chicago. Someone beautiful and confident. Someone who knows what he does for a living and doesn't care. Someone who waits for him to come home at night.
Someone he chose to text instead of me.
The anger rises before I can stop it.
Hot and irrational and completely unfair.
It's not Dante's fault that I'm not living a normal life. It's not his fault that I flinch when men get too close. It's not his fault that I check my locks three times before bed and sleep with the lights on and wake up screaming from nightmares I can't remember.
He didn't do this to me.
Daniil did.
But Dante is here. In my apartment. In my bed. And he's texting someone else while I stand in the doorway holding soup I made because a doctor told me he needed soft foods.
I clear my throat.
Dante's head snaps up. His eyes find mine immediately. Dark and sharp and too aware.
"Soup," I say. My voice comes out flat. "Doctor's orders."
I cross to the bed. Set the tray on the nightstand beside him. The bowl clinks against the wood.
Dante puts his phone face-down on the mattress.
"You made this?" he asks.
"No, I ordered it from the soup fairy." I step back. Cross my arms over my chest. "Yes, I made it. Dr. Marchetti said clear liquids first, then soft foods. This is soft food."
Dante looks at the tray. At the soup. The crackers. The pills lined up neatly beside the glass of water.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
"Don't thank me. Just eat it."
I turn to leave.
"Marina."
I stop. Don't turn around.
"Sit with me."
The words hang in the air between us.
I should say no. I should walk out of this room and close the door and go back to my couch.
But my feet won't move.
"I'm not hungry," I say.
"I didn't ask you to eat." His voice is low. Rough from sleep and pain medication. "I asked you to sit."
I turn around slowly.
Dante is watching me. His phone is still face-down on the mattress. His hands are empty now. Resting on his thighs.
"Why?" I ask.
He doesn't answer right away. Just looks at me with those dark eyes.
"Because I'd like you to," he says finally. "You being here. We don't have to talk. Just—" He stops. Swallows. "Just having you here."
Something cracks in my chest.
I want to curse him. I want to tell him he has no right to ask me for anything. No right to lie in my bed and look at me like I'm something precious when he's probably been texting his girlfriend in Chicago this whole time.
But the words won't come.
Instead, I look at him.
He's pale. Too pale. The color has drained from his face, leaving his skin almost gray against the white pillowcase. Dark circles ring his eyes. His jaw is covered in stubble that's past the point of attractive and into the territory of neglect.
I think about the soup cooling on the nightstand.
If I leave, he might not eat.
He's stubborn enough to let the soup go cold. To skip the pills. To lie here in silence and pretend he doesn't need anything from anyone.
But if I stay—
If I stay, he might actually pick up the spoon.
"Fine," I hear myself say. "I'll stay. But only if you eat," I add quickly. "All of it. The soup, the crackers, the pills. Everything on that tray."
Dante nods. "Deal."
I look around the room. There's nowhere to sit except the bed itself. The chair I usually keep in the corner is buried under a pile of clean laundry I haven't put away yet.
I could stand. Lean against the wall with my arms crossed and watch him eat like a prison guard.
But that feels wrong somehow. Too hostile. Too much like I'm punishing him for something he hasn't done yet.
I grab the chair. Shove the laundry onto the floor. Drag it across the carpet until it's positioned beside the bed. Close enough to reach the tray if I need to. Far enough that I'm not touching him.
I sit down.
Dante watches me the whole time. His eyes track my movements like he's memorizing them.
"Eat," I say.
He reaches for the tray.
He picks up the spoon.
The first bite is tentative. He brings it to his lips. Blows on it gently. Takes a small sip.
I watch his throat move as he swallows.
"Good," he says quietly.
"It's soup. It's not complicated."
"You made it."
"I followed a recipe online. Anyone could do it."
He takes another bite. Then another. The spoon moves steadily between the bowl and his mouth.
I sit in the chair with my hands folded in my lap.