Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dante
Sleep won't come.
I've been staring at the ceiling for two hours. Counting the cracks. Listening to the sounds of Marina's apartment settle around me.
The refrigerator hums. A car passes on the street below. Someone in the building above drops something heavy.
My side throbs with each heartbeat. The pain medication wore off an hour ago, but I don't want to call for Marina. She needs rest more than I need relief.
Fuck.
I need to use the bathroom.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Plant my feet on the floor. Push myself upright.
The room tilts. Steadies.
One step. Two. Three.
I make it to the door. Open it slowly.
The hallway is dark except for the blue glow coming from the living room. The television.
Marina's still awake.
I should go straight to the bathroom. Handle my business. Return to bed.
But my feet carry me toward the light instead.
She's on the couch. Knees pulled up to her chest. A blanket wrapped around her shoulders like armor.
Her eyes are red.
She's been crying.
On the screen, a ship cuts through dark water. Violins play.
Marina's thumb hovers over the remote. She pauses the movie when she sees me.
"Did you need something?"
Her voice is rough. Thick with tears she's trying to hide.
I look at the frozen image on the screen. The ship. The woman. The stars reflected on black water.
"Is that Titanic?"
Marina wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. "Yes."
"You're crying over a movie."
It comes out wrong. Flat. Confused.
She stiffens. "People cry at movies, Dante. It's normal."
Normal.
I don't know what that word means anymore.
I've seen men die. Watched the light leave their eyes. Pulled triggers and felt nothing but the recoil. I've buried bodies and washed blood from my hands and slept soundly afterward.
I haven't cried since I was twelve years old. Since I crawled out of that closet and found my mother's body on the kitchen floor.
Something broke in me that night. The part that makes tears. The part that feels things the way other people feel them.
But Marina sits here in the dark, weeping over a ship that sank a hundred years ago. Over fictional people who never existed.
I don't understand it.
I want to.
"Couldn't sleep," I say.
Marina studies me. Her eyes are still wet. Lashes clumped together.
"The pain?"
"No."
She waits.
I don't explain.
"We could watch something," Marina says. "If you want."
The offer surprises me.
Maybe Titanic did something. Softened whatever wall she's been building between us.
Or maybe she's just tired of being alone with her thoughts.
I know that feeling.
"Okay," I say.
I move toward the couch. Slowly. Each step measured. My wound protests, but I ignore it.
Marina shifts to make room. Not much. Just enough for me to sit on the opposite end.
I lower myself onto the cushion. The movement pulls at my stitches. I breathe through it.
"We can watch something else," Marina says. "If you don't want—"
"Keep watching what you were watching."
She looks at me. Uncertain.
"You want to watch Titanic?"
"I want you to finish your movie."
Her brow furrows. "You don't seem like a Titanic person."
"I'm not."
"Then why—"
"Because you were watching it."
The words hang between us.
Marina's lips part. Close. She looks away.
"It's almost over anyway," she says quietly. "The sad part's coming."
"The ship sinks. I know how it ends."
"Everyone knows how it ends. That's not the point."
"Then what's the point?"
She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Stares at the frozen screen.
"The point is that she survives," Marina says. "She loses everything. The man she loves. The life she was supposed to have. But she survives. She lives for eighty more years. She has children and grandchildren and a whole life that nobody expected her to have."
Her voice cracks on the last word.
She's not talking about the movie anymore.
I know it. She knows it.
"Marina."
"Don't." She holds up a hand. "Just... don't. I'm fine."
She's not fine.
But I don't push.
I've pushed enough.
"Play the movie," I say.
Marina hesitates. Then she presses the button.
The ship moves again. The violins swell. The woman on the screen stares out at the water like she's looking for something she'll never find.
I don't watch the television.
I watch Marina.
The way the blue light plays across her face. The way her jaw tightens when something sad happens. The way she pulls her knees closer to her chest, making herself smaller.
Marina's breath catches.
I don't understand crying over movies.
But I understand her.
And right now, that's enough.
Marina turns her head.
Our eyes meet.
She catches me staring.
I don't look away. Don't pretend I was watching the movie. Don't make excuses.
I just look at her.
Marina's lips part. Her breath comes faster.
"Dante."
My name sounds different when she says it. Softer. Like a question she's afraid to ask.
"Yeah."
She doesn't say anything else.
The movie plays on. People run. Water rises. The violins keep playing because that's what the musicians did. They played until the end.
Marina shifts on the couch.
Closer.
My heart stops.
She moves again. Inch by inch. Closing the distance between us.
I don't breathe. Don't move. Don't do anything that might spook her.
Marina reaches the middle of the couch. Pauses.
Her eyes search my face. Looking for something. Permission. Rejection. I don't know.
I give her nothing. No encouragement. No resistance.
This has to be her choice.
She lifts the edge of her blanket.
Extends it toward me.
"You're probably cold," she says. Her voice is barely a whisper.
I'm not cold. The apartment is warm. My blood runs hot.
But I take the blanket anyway.
Marina drapes it over both of us. The fabric settles across my lap. Across hers. Connecting us.
She's close enough now.
Marina hesitates.
Then she leans her head against my shoulder.
I stop breathing.
Her hair brushes my neck. Soft. So fucking soft.
The weight of her head. The warmth of her body pressed against my arm.
I can't move.
I can't think.
Twenty years of violence.
None of it prepared me for this.
Marina's head on my shoulder.
The simple act of being touched by someone who isn't trying to hurt me.
My chest aches. Not from the wound. From something deeper. Something I buried so long ago I forgot it existed.
On the screen, the ship breaks in half. People fall into the water. The woman holds onto a piece of wood while the man she loves freezes to death beside her.
Marina's breath hitches.
I feel it. The small movement of her body against mine.
She's crying again. Silently this time. Tears sliding down her cheeks and soaking into my shirt.
I should say something. Do something.
But I don't know how to comfort people. I know how to protect them. How to kill for them. How to die for them.
I don't know how to hold them while they cry.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
I lean my head down.
Press my lips to her hair.
Marina gasps.
The sound cuts through me like a blade.
I freeze.
Fuck.
Too much. Too fast. I pushed too far.
I start to pull back.
Marina doesn't move.
She stays exactly where she is. Head on my shoulder. Body pressed against my arm. The blanket covering us both.
She doesn't run.
But she doesn't lean into me either.
I don't kiss her head again.
I don't want to scare her.
The movie plays on.
Marina
The movie keeps playing.
I should pull away, go back to my room, put distance between us like I promised myself I would.
But I don't.
I stay exactly where I am. Head on Dante's shoulder. His warmth seeping through the blanket. The steady rise and fall of his chest against my arm.
I feel safe.
Safe.
With a man who kills people for a living. A man who tracked me for two years. A man who showed up bleeding at my door and turned my carefully constructed life into chaos.
I feel safer right now than I have in two years.
It doesn't make sense.
Nothing about this makes sense.
On the screen, Rose floats on the wooden door. Jack's hand slips from hers. His body sinks into the black water.
I've seen this movie a hundred times. I know what happens. I know he dies.
But my eyes blur anyway.
Dante's lips pressed against my hair.
I can still feel it. The ghost of that touch. The way my whole body went still when he did it.
He didn't do it again.
He's barely breathing. Like he's afraid any movement will make me run.
He's right to be afraid.
I decided to run. I made a plan. Wait out the week. Let him go back to Chicago. Forget he exists.
But I can't stay away from him.
It's like fighting a professional boxer. Every time I think I've got my guard up, he slips through. Every time I build a wall, he finds a crack.
I'm exhausted.
I'm so fucking exhausted from fighting this. Even if it seems that I haven't fought it. I did. For years.
The rescue boats come. Rose survives. She lives for eighty more years. She throws the diamond into the ocean because some things are worth more than money.
The credits roll.
The music swells.
I don't want it to end.
I want to stay here forever. In this bubble. Where nothing exists except the warmth of his body and the sound of his breathing and the weight of the blanket covering us both.
But the movie ends.
The screen goes dark.
Reality crashes back in.
I take a breath. Start to pull away.
"Stay."
One word.
His voice is rough. Low. Like it cost him something to say it.
I freeze.
I should get up.
But I don't.
I settle back against his shoulder.
I stay.
We don't talk.
Minutes pass.
Maybe ten. Maybe twenty.
I lose track.
His heartbeat is steady under my ear. Strong. Alive.
I don't know what to do with that.
I don't know what to do with any of this.
"Dante."
"Yeah."
"Can I ask you something?"
His chest rises. Falls.
"You can ask me anything."
I shift slightly. Not pulling away. Just adjusting so I can see his face.
The light from the window catches his jaw. The stubble that's grown in over the past few days. The sharp line of his cheekbone.
He's beautiful.
I hate that he's beautiful.
"You said you fell in love with me," I say. "In thirty seconds."
He doesn't respond.
"But you've been with the Sartoris for twenty years," I continue. "You've met hundreds of people. Thousands. Women who are part of that world. Women who understand it."
Still nothing.
"How is it possible that you never fell in love before?"
Dante's jaw tightens.
"What were you?" I ask. "A nun?"
The question hangs in the air.
For a long moment, he doesn't answer.
Then he laughs.
It's a quiet sound. Rough. Like he's not used to making it.
"A nun," he repeats.
"It's a valid question."
"It's a ridiculous question."
"You're avoiding it."
He turns his head. Looks at me.
His eyes are dark in the dim light. Unreadable.
"I've been with women," he says. "Plenty of them."
Something twists in my chest.
I don't want to examine what that feeling is.
"That's not what I asked."
"I know."
He looks away. Stares at the dark television screen.
"I don't know how to explain it," he says finally. "I've had... arrangements. Women who understood what I am. What I do. They didn't ask questions. They didn't expect anything."
"That sounds lonely."
The words slip out before I can stop them.
Dante's body goes still.
"It wasn't lonely," he says. "It was simple. No complications."
"No feelings."
"No feelings."
I pull back slightly. Just enough to see his face properly.
"So you've never felt anything? For anyone?"
His jaw works.
"I felt things," he says. "For my family. For the Sartoris. Loyalty. Gratitude. The kind of love you have for people who saved your life."
"But not romantic love."
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
I don't understand.
Twenty years. Plenty of women. And he never felt anything for any of them.
But he looked at me for thirty seconds and decided I was the one.
"Why me?" I ask. "What makes me different?"
Dante turns his head.
Our faces are close now. Inches apart.
"I told you," he says. "You looked at me like I was human."
"Other people must have—"
"They didn't."
His voice is flat. Certain.
"People look at me and see a weapon," he says. "A tool. Something useful. Something dangerous. They see what I can do for them or what I might do to them."
He pauses.
"You looked at me like I was a person."
"I was terrified of you."
"I know."
"I hated you."
"I know that too."
"Then how—"
"Because underneath the fear and the hate, you still saw me." His eyes hold mine. "I don't know how. You did. It was like coming home."
My throat tightens.
"Dante—"
He reaches up.
His fingers brush my cheek.
I stop breathing.