Chapter 36
DANTE
For a while, I lay here holding her, watching as the city lights flicker across the bedroom ceiling while her heartbeat stays steady against my ribs.
This is exactly why Gabriel said I was getting sloppy.
Because every time I’m around her now, the lines start blurring.
None of it feels separate anymore.
Leigh shifts slightly in her sleep beside me, her fingers curling loosely against my chest. My eyes immediately drop toward her.
Even asleep, she looks exhausted.
I bet it’s from all the different versions of herself she has to become throughout the day.
There’s tension still lingering faintly between her brows like her mind never fully shut off before she finally passed out.
Guilt settles heavily in my stomach afterward.
Because she trusted me tonight, even after suspecting I was hiding something from her.
She still let me hold her.
Every day, I question how the fuck I let myself feel this strongly about her. These feelings for her are so insane that I’d actually convinced myself that I could betray my own agency for her if it came down to it.
My assignment here was supposed to be simple.
Watch Gabriel Genovese, intervene if necessary, and build enough evidence to finally destroy his empire from the inside out.
That was it.
Instead, I spent years buried so deeply inside this family that somewhere along the way, I couldn’t remember what I was there for anymore.
Gabriel thinks I’m just another dirty cop on his payroll. Leigh believes it too. They all do.
But I’m not.
I was sent here for one purpose only.
Take down Gabriel Genovese and everybody tied closely enough to him to make the case stick.
I was supposed to stay detached while doing it too.
No emotional connections. No attachments.
Then Leigh happened.
And somehow, without even realizing it at first, she stopped feeling like part of the assignment and started feeling like the only real thing left in my life.
Now every decision I make feels split directly down the middle.
One side belongs to the FBI. The other belongs to her.
The worst part is that I know exactly how this story ends if I keep going down this road.
There’s no happy ending waiting for people like us. Not in this world.
Because in another life, another version of reality untouched by blood, violence and corruption, she could’ve been Everleigh Rivera instead.
But the world we actually live in is cruel like that.
It takes the one thing you’d burn everything down to keep, then places it directly on the opposite side of the gun.
I stare at the ceiling for another minute before finally making my decision.
Then slowly, carefully, I slide out from underneath her.
She stirs faintly beside me at the loss of warmth, but she doesn’t wake up.
“Sorry,” I whisper quietly.
I grab my pants up off the floor and pull them back on.
The room’s dark except for the moon outside the windows casting pale light across the bed behind me.
For a moment, I glance back toward her again.
My chest tightens hard enough to hurt, because I know deep down that there’s still time to stop this.
That there’s still time to walk back over there and climb back into bed beside her.
But then Gabriel’s words echo through my head all over again.
I grab my phone from the top of the dresser and quietly step out of Leigh’s bedroom afterward, easing the door shut behind me softly enough not to wake her.
I don’t go far, just down the hallway near the windows overlooking the city.
I stand there staring out across the glistening buildings while my hand tightens around the phone.
This is the point where I can still walk away.
But as usual, I ignore my better judgement and dial the number.
The call rings twice before somebody answers.
I close my eyes briefly before forcing the words out anyway.
“You’re good to move in on the target.”
The person on the other end pauses briefly, but then after a moment says: “Understood.”
The line disconnects immediately.
I lower the phone slowly afterward while staring out across the city.
Somewhere behind me down the hallway, Everleigh Genovese sleeps peacefully in her bed completely unaware that I may have just destroyed whatever trust she still had left in me.