Monomaniac

Chapter 24

Ophelia

I WAS HERE.

Thick as a shadow – one with the dead.

I am still here.

Shuddering with life – breathing him in.

All because he never gave up on me, on us. For his unyielding soul endured even as I floated halfway across the only ocean with no end in sight.

He, the alchemist of my soul, able to transform agony into a peace so wide and deep that it transcended death itself; offering me a love that I thought to be extinct in this unfeeling world while summoning in me what I, in my solitude, could not even fathom.

The sound of the car's partition rolling brings me back to the present moment; to a form of existence that, less than an hour ago, I firmly believed I would never have the privilege of reliving again.

Kane came, along with more people than I could count. I looked away.

I wonder if I'll ever fully recover from this catatonic state of being, now that I've come face to face with the dreaded thing everyone runs from – regardless of their status, life path, or whether they have a clear conscience or not.

A definitive energy that I have never really considered for myself, even though my life has revolved around this element that has freed me from the monotony of being and given me a purpose, a meaning behind my rootlessness – Death itself.

It's quiet here; the kind you won't find in any funeral home. The sort of silence that I feel will follow me with steady footsteps until I draw my last breath, now that I have tasted and ultimately expelled it.

I do not fear it, but I dread its ramifications; for escaping the greatest hunter this world has ever known must come at a price – one I will gladly pay.

He is worth it all, my Dante. Every drop of insomnia, of anxiety, of lingering torment that will creep into a new morn and make a home in my body.

And I'd relive it all, a hundred times over, if it meant hearing his breath gripping my insides in that second between life and death. I think that sound alone gave me the strength to take one of my own, to stay when it would have been so effortless to keep on floating.

There is this feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach that latches on to me as if it's found a host, whispering that this constricting tightness will never go away.

Nevertheless, all I want is him. So let the roses die if they must.

"Breathe, vita mia," my love croons as he brushes his nose against mine, holding me tighter to his chest. He meets my eyes, kneading the flesh of my bare thighs, his tender touch translating like a form of spiritual therapy on my skin after the inferno I had escaped from.

I sigh in spite of the growing pain, the anesthetic slowly wearing off and leaving the door wide open for the excruciating physical pain to follow. At this point, the after-effects of the chest compression feel like a dead weight that continues to pound against my sternum and ribs, making it difficult to breathe with each uneven bump of the rough forest terrain. And my head...

I grit my teeth, trying to suppress a groan as a sharp sensation that splits my skull in two blinds me, bringing forth fragments of those moldy spots and the putrid smell of the floor where he hit me after nearly –

"Shh, we are almost home," he whispers, running his lips over my eyelid and tightening his shirt over my nearly naked body. I inhale his familiar, smoky scent, gradually drawing me deeper into a plane where I am safe and loved. Where there is no evil.

"Why is your dress ripped?" he asks somberly. Too quiet, too still.

Slowly, through misty eyes, I lift my hand to his face and stroke the inked teeth on his cheek, paying particular attention to the discolored, dark spot on the outer corner I thought I'd never lay eyes on again.

"He stopped just before–" I try to voice the words, but I am too choked up with disgust and needled fear for what could’ve happened if it weren’t for my weak stomach.

"Did he touch you?" he asks dark-eyed, even though he just closed them while gathering the material draped along my thighs in a fist. I feel him brimming with molten fire, with unending frost.

He did see the bruises, the wound on my forehead that I can’t stop touching, the scars left by the earth as I was dragged to an early grave.

Still he asks, bruising himself willingly by wanting to know.

"Yes," I admit with a whimper, a solitary tear falling down my bruised cheek as blood-rimmed nails caress his scalp.

"Where?" he asks eerily, with a deadly calm that might frighten me if it weren't for the sense of protectiveness simmering under his skin like ink, making me feel both safe and wet, even in the grim rawness of the moment.

I can't find the words, so I take his hand in mine and guide it down my legs, up the sides of my thighs, until they reach my hips; not having the strength in me to go any higher.

"He didn’t…" my heart darkens at the thought.

Dante sees through me, like he always does and I remain naked, bare, his.

The whites of his eyes turn a pale red, ravaged and filled with bottomless wrath as his fingers stroke the skin of my hip back and forth, as if trying to soothe his inner demons.

With a careful hand, steeped in devotion and regret, as if he knew the concrete places where those sickening fingers had touched me, he slowly slides down my bra strap.

My tender breasts kiss the still air as an offering for his eyes only.

They flutter close, before he lowers his head and brushes his dry lips over my hardened nipple, resting them there while we both whimper at the contact. So warm.

I draw him closer, my entire being melting as he sucks on the tip painstakingly slow, his tongue flattening over my cold skin and bringing to life all of my nerve endings. Alive, I am alive.

He stays there, unmoving and hardly breathing, as if resting after a lifetime of war. Of loss.

I feel his other hand snaking between my legs, parting my thighs with the tenderness of a shared secret, his fingers ghosting over the top of my lingerie before pulling it aside. Cleanse me.

I moan, he groans.

Fingers, now soaked with need caress raw flesh. Teeth graze over tainted skin. Eyes meet and comprehension comes easily, as well as the tears.

Pull me in; make me cry out in a pleasure heightened by our united sorrow. Let me take roots in your strength while I wrap my legs around you.

But this is not about pleasure. No.

His fingers don't seek out my flesh in an attempt to arouse the kind of carnal indulgence that might make me forget for a few moments what has been done to me. He does it because he's searching for asylum in my body.

After all, what does a soul ultimately need but to find a resting place when its world is reduced to ashes?

Despite everything, the walls of our home have no broken windows, no muffled screams drowned in barrels of vices, no bitter tears in the face of betrayal. They seek to heal, to keep what would otherwise vanish, to worship what has been stained by filthy hands.

They remain loyal when everything eventually leaves.

He looks at me while I look at him, a silent understanding engulfing us both. Through the other, we now live inside fences made of bones that protect us from everything that wounds – from a world that wants us dead, but somehow keeps us alive.

Hunger. Reflection. Despair. Awe. Humanity. Love.

I come.

Silently leaving behind the scarred thing that lives in my heart, as he opens the doors of both the past and the future – the former dissolves, the latter remains elusive.

I can breathe now that he lowers my battered body and soul under his heavy sheets. On his cold bed, in his no longer lonely bedroom, in our tomblike chateau.

This way, I can allow myself to drown safely.

My blood is still, tacit, undetected.

I shed my skin. I sleep. I don’t rest. I can’t.

I wake, not saying a word. Why would I in these brief seconds of stolen awareness? He's not here.

But his scent lingers in my hair. And tears I don’t remember shedding dampen the pillow beneath my throbbing cheek. Where are you my love?

I float in molten unconsciousness, waking up in places and memories I swore never to visit again, existing in a handful of lifetimes at once. Through it all I feel nothing but exhaustion and a heaviness that drags me further down.

At time I sense a wet cloth brushing over my skin, my misty eyes always seeming to linger on the spot where the needle pierces the vein just before pure evil yanks me back to the crawling space I had just escaped from.

Demonic eyes follow me no matter how hard I try to evade them; peering through the crack in the closet door and disappearing only for their owner's heinous claws to pierce me from the ceiling while slowly descending. They dig a hole in my chest while all I can do is watch and mutely suffer.

At times, his form crawls towards me and lands on my torso like rotten fruit, piles of what he is made of burying me alive. I have no room to breathe, to move, to take shelter from his diseased presence that follows me from every corner, at all times.

He drags me out only to play with my limbs as if I were a living puppet, painfully stretching them out as if they are made of dough.

Earlier, he licked the side of my face with a split tongue, and I was powerless, because he sewed me into the bed frame with a needle made of my own remains. When he was finished, he ripped me open only to do it all over again.

Nothingness, embrace me.

Now, he buries his fist in my stomach as if he's trying to hollow me out; not digging for something in particular, but for his own sick pleasure in unearthing the terror he's left in me earlier.

I want to hide, but he is always here, keeping me still.

"How does it feel to be dead?" he asks, soaking in my fear like a sponge created to absorb the torment of others.

"Are you cold? Like all the others before you?" he bares his teeth and peels raw skin; thickened skin.

"I like you like that – immortalized in your weakness, unable–"

Something in the vicinity interrupts his sickening monologue, causing him to vanish just as suddenly as he appeared. He will come back, he always does.

Make it end, let us rest.

Penelope has been here all along, watching from the farthest corner of the bedroom, her head touching the ceiling as she levitates. Her torment, a half-sister of mine.

She floats towards me like a forgotten memory, her blue veined hand barely touching my forehead before she dissolves in a luminous veil I’ve witnessed in many forms since I was six.

"Light," I hear the faint echo of her voice moments after her spectral silhouette disappears entirely from the barren room.

Finally, she has found peace.

No one can find me but how I want to be, to be, to be…found.

And so, time slithers down my skin as her departure reminds me of what I saw just before –

"Tesoro," I hear the sound of love embodied in my ear, his breath lingering over my heated skin. "Come back to me," Never let me go.

How I adore it – being this vital, this essential in a way that begs for me to be present beyond the gaping distance that separates me from this world.

Only we – the souls who know loneliness closely, could ever understand the potency, the importance of being chosen by the ones we choose in a sea of faceless bodies. Of being seen for who we truly are and still wanted in our most undiluted form. There is no greater intimacy.

I feel Dante's whole body envelop mine like a blanket as I lie on my stomach. Ever so carefully, he presses his chest to my back, wraps his calves around my ankles, his soul – a shield.

Under him, I find a glimmer of peace as our breaths align, along with a sacred comfort in his weight on top of my whole being, protecting me from both evil incarnate and the one he thankfully cannot see.

I'm flooded with warmth, with the good dark, devoid of fear of what cannot be contained; feeling so far away from what seemed so real not a second ago, though I remember it all. I wonder if I will ever forget.

"I’ll erase him from your skin, from your memory. He will no longer exist, I swear to you," Dante says, running his foot along my leg with a tenderness that makes my soul expand tenfold.

"Where have you been?" I ask turning my head and brushing my nose to his, looking for answers in those mysterious coal eyes of mine.

"You've barely been conscious for the past three days, mia cara. The doctor did everything he could, but you needed time to rest and I had to–" he pauses, swallowing not only his words, but also apparent pain.

"What happened? Did he escape? Did he–?"

"No, you'll never have to worry about him again. You're safe, now and always," he says instantly, pressing me tighter to him and although I believe him, there's a sorrow in his voice that I can't identify.

I turn in his arms, now taking in his anguished face. Even though I expected this, it still shakes me to the core.

In the seconds I study his mournful gaze, my soul fills with a question I am afraid to ask. Nothing good can come out of such grim energy.

"I didn't leave your side until this morning, but I had to attend..." he flexes his fingers around me, blinking his eyes as if trying to hold back tears. "Tommy is dead."

"H-how? When?" I ask in disbelief, my hands searching his skin as if to help me understand the horrific meaning of his words.

Somehow I lived through that night, yet someone else died. God.

"Travers came for him before he took you. He injected a large dose of a lethal toxin that killed him in less than a minute. Tommy used his last moments to save Aurora," he pauses heavily, resting his head on my breastbone. "I just got back from the funeral."

My hands still in his hair, trying to grasp the words, but I find it barely possible. A child has been left without a father, a man who was a force to be reckoned with was taken out like it was nothing, a brother is now no more. And for what? For what?

"Dante…I–I am so sorry, my love. This only happened because of me," I tremble with tears that won't cease to fall, trying to understand the chain of events that brought us here; the meaning of it all and why life continues to smother us with loss when all we ever wanted was to be left in peace.

"No – you had nothing to do with it," he says gravely as he shifts us both on our sides, his forearm tucked under my head becoming a pillow that absorbs the guilt stemming from my savior complex.

"Look at me," he demands softly as he wipes away my tears.

I avert my eyes, not daring to meet the ones of the man I love. I am the sole reason his soul brother died, only because he took part in a plan whose ultimate goal was to save me. I feel powerless in the face of the immensurable pain I caused, the guilt –

"Don’t hide from me, mia ombra," he says with an empathy I feel undeserving of as he wraps his steady arms around me and tucks my head under his chin.

What am I doing? This is not about me; he is the one who should be receiving comfort and consolation.

"Shh," he croons, running his hand along my back, while rivers pour from my eyes down his neck. "I've been there, you know? The guilt of being the one who survived can eat you alive if you allow it. Not understanding the meaning behind it all – the sheer absurdity. And yet, we've both been there before and we'll survive again. Together."

"If I hadn't taken this case, maybe I could’ve preven–"

"No, things escalated and got out of control. If anyone's to blame, I'm the one you should be pointing your finger at. He was by my side that night, as he has been most of our lives. We've seen and gone through a lot worse than that miserable specimen rotting away in the basement. It was my mistake that he escaped and got to spill more blood," he says, with a faraway look in his solemn eyes and ever-resilient spirit.

"There are no words Dante…" I cry, struggling to keep my eyes open and face reality's cruel hand while flooded with regret.

"Shh, I have you," he holds me tighter.

At times like these, I wonder how a man can contain such depths of pain and still have the strength to take another's.

I feel the tendrils of his sorrow crushing along my body with the silent violence of a wave massacring a forest to pieces.

"Let me give you a bath. I wasn’t able to clean you properly other than your surface wounds," he says, cupping the back of my thighs.

"You took care of me?" I ask in awe, my heart swelling at the thought of him being so selfless in the midst of mourning.

"Of course I did. I wouldn't let anyone else touch you," he says against my lips, barely caressing them, although I can feel their ghost in the soles of my feet.

"Were there complications?"

"You suffered a mild head trauma and your lungs need special attention for a while after prolonged oxygen deprivation. The chest pain after compressions will stay with you for at least a month," he says as he brushes the hair out of my eyes and swallows what seems to be seething anger at what I've experienced, though he tries to shield me from it. "I was a minute away, two at most amore."

"But you found and saved me by the power of sheer love. Thank you for giving me life," I whisper, remembering his roses, his message, his immense impact in not only saving me once more, but also giving me a reason to live.

"From now on you will know no evil, mia ombra. No language could convey what I felt, how terrified I was…" he shakes, burying his nose in my hair.

"I know, I know my love," I hold him to me, thanking the sky for having the chance to.

"You’ve been so brave, so strong," he says while peppering my face with kisses. "I am so, so proud of you."

"Forgive me for not being there for you today," I say into his neck as he lifts us both off the bed. I cling to him like a living ivy – filled with sadness instead of poison, because I can't bear to part from him. Not now, not ever.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, vita mia. We have to accept that sometimes life just happens and we have to deal with it, no matter how much each step hurts," he says, placing me on the cold surface of the black marbled sink as he draws the bath, just as lost and exhausted as I am.

The muscles on my entire body scream as I turn to look at my reflection, barely visible in the darkened room. I should abstain from mirrors, but at this point I care little about my outer appearance. What I'm looking for is something else entirely.

Unlike my former self, this time, as I examine my bruises in the mirror I see a man beside me. One who loves me boundlessly, who will protect me until the very end and whose loyalty knows no measure of time and space when it comes to us. A man who killed for me.

I will heal. After all, he is my balm.

* * *

"Aunty Ophelia, you're awake!" Aurora greets me from the bottom of the stairs with Coblina in her arms and a smile that exudes the kind of genuineness that only a child could portray.

"How are you feeling sweetie?" I ask as she carefully passes my beloved familiar to me. I try to force a smile for her sake, but I fear it looks nothing like hers.

Aurora is now fatherless, all alone just as I once was. Then why does she seem so serene when her world as she knew it has been reduced to a memory?

"I think I have the flu. But don't worry, Coblina's been with me since you fell asleep. She's so warm I don't need my heated blankie anymore," she says, beaming at Dante as he closes the distance between us and wraps an arm around my waist.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" he asks for my ears only, before he leans down to Aurora's level. He whispers something in her ear, eliciting an excited squeal as she takes off running in the direction of the kitchen. Poor, sweet thing.

"I felt suffocated all of a sudden and the balcony was further than the door," I say apologetically, slipping my fingers inside the back of his shirt, desperately needing the comfort of his skin on mine.

"Anxiety, it was bound to happen. Always talk to me, I need to know how you feel at all times, Ombra," he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, his fingers skimming over my neck and tracing the very same blood now mixed with his.

"She doesn’t know?" I swallow, not bearing the thought that such a young, innocent child has to learn so early in her life, that nothing is promised. That no one is ever truly safe.

"After much thought, we tried to tell her, but I don't think she really grasped the harsh reality of what happened. I took her to his open casket myself and she still refused to believe it," he says, looking lost in thought at the floor.

"How could she not?" I ask, remembering the days following my own tragedy. The denial, the anguish I didn't know how to contain. Poor child.

"She looked at him briefly, then told me that the man in the box was not her father. That he is too pale and sleeps with his mouth open, no exceptions," Dante says, shaking his head as he leads us down the corridor. "I haven't had the heart to tell her more than once that he is indeed her father. She was adamant and I think you and I both understand best that she needs to hold on to her childhood for a while longer."

"I love you," I say, unable to contain the pure emotion at the sight of his empathy and kindness, when the world wants to shape him into anything but that.

"Ti amo sopra ogni altra cosa," he murmurs with devotion while he kisses the tops of my knuckles.

"She needs time, patience," I say quietly as I caress his cheek.

He hums in response while I pause at the sight of a blonde woman flipping pancakes, her soft body framed by the stone dome. Marizia.

"Ciao, bella!How are you feeling?" she welcomes me warmly, this time without suspicion or distrust, giving me a long hug that melts me from the inside. In the rare moments such as these I realize how much I've missed this kind of motherly affection, which, in fact, I've never really known.

"Coping," I say truthfully, trying to leave pleasantries aside and be sincere both with myself and with the people who care enough to ask from a genuine place. Life is too short to fill it with beautiful lies just for the sake of artificial comfort.

"Me too," she says with a blue smile, cupping my cheek in passing before turning back to the stove.

"Have you been close to him?" I ask softly, reaching for the coffee container, my pragmatic side scrambling to find normalcy amidst the tempest of it all.

"Sit down amore, you're still too weak to be standing for so long," Dante says from behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist and guiding me to the table.

"I can manage," I say faintly, already feeling the fatigue seeping through the cracks at the mere mention of it.

"Moka pot coffee. The real italian deal, dolcezza," Marizia says in her thick accent, placing a steaming cup in front of me before taking a seat.

"It's strong, just the way I like it. Thank you," I say, feeling simply bizarre discussing caffeine when not long ago I left this world behind for a minute or so while my lover's closest friend was murdered in cold blood, essentially because of me.

Life has been more than strange lately. Or has it always been this way and I've been too numb in my dormant state to fully acknowledge it?

Still I wonder – were we really created for this world, when all we do is fantasize about escaping it? More – we will always want more, but thankfully I have found my fountain, which will never run out for it is alive, warm. Mine and mine alone.

"Il mio correre o morire,"she sighs, looking into the distance. "He was the kind of man who should’ve been looked straight in the eye, with no games and no tomorrows. But fear knows no age. Thomas may have been younger, but he was braver, loved harder," she says with a quivering chin and eyes full of longing as she traces the rim of the cup with her spoon in an endless pattern. "And now he's gone."

She talks from experience, from a place of memory lost. They had been together, that much is clear, and another sting pierces my heart at the realization. Guilt slowly deepens its roots, rejoicing since the soil is fertile and vast.

I glance over at Dante, who is cradling Aurora in his arms as she pours caramel over some peaches. At Marizia, who now seems to live in a world I know nothing about, with a yearning that tears me open, since my love could’ve been in her shoes if he had arrived a minute too late. At my hands that have touched loss all too many times.

There is so much pain, so much loneliness in this world that I wonder how most of us have the strength to leave the mattress behind and face the sink every morning. Is this real life or just another purgatory?

Regardless, everything passes. Life goes on with or without us. And it's all right. It is.

"Aunty Ophelia, Mazzi and I are having breakfast for dinner in the garden. We set the table with candles and everything. Are you coming?" she asks, vibrating with life while I cry inwardly.

"As soon as I make another pot of coffee, sweetie," I say, looking into Dante's eyes as I run my finger over her rosy cheek.

Stay. I need to fill you with my words so I can leave this heavy coat behind.

When the girls leave the kitchen, he settles in the nearest chair to my right and takes my legs in his lap. "Tell me," he says, giving me those all-knowing eyes that could read me in complete darkness.

"I’ve been keeping something from you," I say, lowering my eyes and stealing a cigarette from a pack forgotten on the table, eaten up by what I am about to confess.

"Tesoro, there is nothing in this world that can warrant this reluctance in your eyes when it comes to me. Always speak your truth, we'll carry it together or I'll do it for the both of us," he says, lifting my chin with two fingers before lighting the cigarette between my quivering lips.

"I regret not telling you about this early on, but everything that followed was so much more than I could have ever predicted. You…, I–"

My breath falters, my words lose their meaning, my tongue forgets itself for a prolonged second, because he tilts his head, leans in and looks straight into the depths of my soul.

He smiles a genuine smile, straight from the heart; one that transcends life and death, suffering, joy. He looks at me, at my truest self, which I'm afraid to face when I'm alone because of so much loss, fear and struggle. And I melt.

"You are safe, I have you," he whispers, cradling my jaw in his hand that I know with unwavering certainty will never harm me.

Love. Never in my life have I felt it so profoundly for what it truly represents, as I lie naked as after a war that has just ended.

This realm of feeling is the ultimate form of spiritual connection between two souls. How did I manage to live before experiencing it and called it a life?

"That night when Sullivan–", I swallow, trying to find the strength in myself, "...he kicked me in the stomach. When I got home, I immediately made an appointment with my gynecologist. You see, there was this lingering pain and I was worried. As it turned out, I had scarring in my uterus which left me unable to…to ever get pregnant," the words fall from my trembling mouth in a painful whisper, my fingers tracing in vain my lips in need of something, anything, to lighten the weight of what I've just said.

I draw in a surprised breath as he lifts my foot to his mouth and kisses it, holding it to his cheek like something precious.

When our eyes meet, something unspoken in me dies, bringing forth a kind of renaissance, a newness that rivals all the rebirths I've suffered through alone. In his gaze there is no hint of regret, no reproach, no word held back.

There is only love – unconditional and understanding.

"Like a cycle, I want to revive him just so I could torture him to death all over again for what he did," he says, letting go of my foot and rubbing my calves, his gaze now faraway and calculating – still carrying so much residual pain. "There are no words for how deeply sorry I am for what he did and took from you, from us," he says, resting his eyes on me and growing warm as he follows the contours of my face, all loving and filled with an immense capacity to pour again and again into me, no matter how hollow he might see himself at times.

"Aren’t you disappointed?" I ask, feeling my heavy thoughts being washed away by a stream of relief and loss.

"That’s what you thought?" he asks with a puzzled look, stealing the smoke from my parted lips.

He doesn't give me time to respond before continuing with passion and conviction, "I am enraged by the injustice of it. At the fact that not only has he taken away my family, but also our chance to have a child of our own. That I allowed him to live when I should have wiped him out a long time ago. All because I was too afraid and selfish to admit that my life had no meaning beyond taking his."

My only one pulls my chair closer to him, and suddenly everything is easier, simpler. My knees, now bent, rest against his chest as he takes my head between his warm hands, pressing our foreheads together and wiping away the tears that will not cease falling. How could there possibly be any left?

"But beyond that, know that you are and always have been everything I ever wanted. With you by my side, I feel complete. I don't need anything or anyone else. Seeing you radiating with love and at peace in my arms before we fall asleep, every night until our last, signifies the absolute to me," he says and I fall, further than I ever have before. He catches me, wrapping my legs around his waist. Home.

"I feel responsible for her," I admit quietly in the crook of his neck. At my words, silence ensues as Dante holds me tighter in his arms, understanding.

"Are you sure you want that?" he asks, running his fingers through the length of my hair, reading me easily between the lines.

"Beyond the guilt, the need to protect her, there is this little Ophelia who still lives in me and recognizes herself in Aurora. I've been there, and I know what will follow when reality settles in her chest and mind. She will grow up fast and suffer like never before. The pain will tear down everything she thought she knew and I can't bear to let her face it all alone like we did. She needs to be understood beyond compassion," I say, finding comfort in the way he softly rocks us back and forth.

"That look you gave me when you first met her – you saw something, didn't you?"

"It's difficult to express that feeling of recognition, but all I know is that she reminds me so much of Victor, right down to the facial expressions. If you believe in reincarnation, well…"

"Fate can be so cruel when it shows its hand," he says lost in thought and I couldn’t agree more. "There is also Marizia, don’t feel pressured –"

"I’ve seen the look in her eyes. She is not in the frame of mind to do it all by herself even if she wants to. I feel it here," I say, taking his hand and pressing it over my chest. "It feels right."

"I know, I feel it too," he says over my lips, all of a sudden the air between us feeling charged, potent, deprived.

Our breaths merge on a silent moan as his fingers brush over my heavy breasts, circling my waist over the opaque material of my robe. He meets me there before capturing my lips and eclipsing my fears, bringing my humanity closer to his strength– keeping me still against it, loving and ruining me with his intensity.

"Ti amo tanto," he whispers with molten desire against my starved mouth, before his tongue finds mine. It only takes a second to rediscover the meaning of togetherness that brings a soul to its knees; of raw emotion verging on pain, of a love that has known the cost of blood and loss. Of life that has somehow thrived despite all attempts to stifle it.

He pulls me closer as my hands lose themselves in his curls, giving myself wholly to him as he follows the line of my curves that were meant to be traced by his possessive hands over his hard muscles. "Piu di tutto."

"I was so scared, so transparent without you. I thought I'd never..." I whimper against his cheek.

"Shh, stay with me, be with me, live through me," he murmurs, taking me in and making me forget even the present.

I lose myself in his taste of nicotine now mixed with a hint of caramel, in the texture at once rough and tender of his skin, in his touch that I could recognize while all my senses are absent. Paradise, my sin.

"You are the love of my life…the love of my life, my life," I chant drunk on his existence while tears coat our mouths, the echo of my breathy words traveling beyond the specter of this world. Their truth reach everything there has ever been and will follow long after we'll be gone and forgotten.

"Even in death," he continues, and I am finally free.

"Ti amo sopra ogni altra cosa" it. I love you above all else.

"Ciao, bella" it. Hello, beautiful.

"Il mio correre o morire" it. My ride or die.

"Ti amo tanto" it. I love you so much.

"Piu di tutto" it. More than anything.

* * *

A minute past the witching hour, after a decadent candlelit breakfast, on a forgiving early winter night when the low temperatures kept us huddled in heavy wool coats – Dante and I, along with Aurora, Marizia and Kane, suffered and loved separately, but still together, at the same table.

It was healing, this first step we all took to gradually awaken from a dark night of the soul that felt like millennia on my tired shoulders. I hope this feeling stays, that the night terrors will fade away; that what has left scars will flow from our skin like dark, cleansing water pouring down from an absolving sky.

That love, in all its forms, will eventually heal us all.

I don't sense Tommy's presence anywhere, or perhaps he doesn't want to be seen for the time being, although I’m hoping he'll eventually pay us a visit before he crosses over. Creating a bridge between him and our world would be the least I can do to alleviate some of the worry and unanswered questions left in the wake of this tragedy.

Until then we wait and do what the living do –we live.

We owe it to the departed, the tortured, the lost.

We owe it to ourselves.

After all is said and done, we are now finally free to experience life in all its devastation and wonder. No more running away.

Let us be scared, dragged, doomed and tired. We are ready to face everything, for we have been given a second fate and are eager to love each other in peace in the middle of a cold war. On our terms.

He takes my hand; I follow, just as I always will. The stairs are steep; the silence is deafening, the energy, a blur of death and despair while the smell of trapped rain and decay is a revealing token of my lover's dealings down here. His lair – the place where a boy has died and a man was born.

I pull the silk scarf tighter around my Coblina, the apprehension of what I'm about to witness stirring the blood in my veins.

"I don't think I want to see him," I say as I bite my cheek, lingering by the big mahogany table where I know in my heart I will spend many nights while he works, while he schemes, while he watches me watching him.

"Do you trust me with your life?" he asks me point blank for the first time, as if we hadn't been through hell and back together.

"I do, with everything I have," I say quietly, stroking his cheek.

"I understand why you wanted to be here, the need to see for yourself what remained of him. But if it were up to me, you'd be upstairs in our bed, reading your grimoire and drinking a glass of wine with Coblina in your lap. Why further feed your nightmares?" he asks while massaging the back of my neck.

"He's been plaguing me in my sleep ever since you saved me. Perhaps if I have a visual confirmation…" I stall, drawing a deep breath, "But I don’t think I can face him. Not after–"

"I promise you won't. Take my hand," I meet his eyes as we intertwine our fingers, his self-possessed steps giving me strength as he leads me to an even lower level. In less than two minutes, we arrive at a massive door that looks as old as the uneven stone surface that surrounds it.

Even though the oil lamps fixed on the walls reflect a comforting light, I feel the anguish, the distress that smothers the air with a slow infestation promising only decay. The sting does not linger, for the pain is not mine to bear, and revenge tastes of nothing. Yet it smells of bone and honey.

Dante pulls out a corroded old key, not letting me out of his sight as he turns it twice in the lock. With the screeching of the door, a muffled groan emerges from within and nihility becomes a palpable entity.

The stifling room is lightless and empty, except for the coffin in the center, which is where the disturbing sounds emanate from. There is an overpowering smell of soiled clothes and rotting flesh in the air, the pungent blend hitting my senses with a severity that is hard to ignore.

I remember, and it hurts.

"Is he in there?" I ask quietly as he bellows, probably both sensing and hearing we're looming over him.

"Yes," Dante says, before walking up behind me and surrounding me in his protective arms. Safe, I am safe.

"You can tell me," I swallow dryly, both cold and terrified of what I am about to hear, but needing to know all the same.

However, from now on, one matter is absolutely certain: no one will cause us harm again. Not ever.

"Know that he suffered terribly with every second, before I sealed him in, and covered his entire body in liquid sweetener. Twenty or so rats are currently feasting on his flesh while he lives through the excruciating pain of being eaten alive. I thought the coffin would be a prolonged taste of his own medicine while also doing some poetic justice.

I look at the casket and close my eyes at the sound of him screaming louder. He is incapable of begging, of pleading, but he tries to do it nevertheless. Just like I did when he touched me, as he hit me repeatedly, while he buried me alive. My foundation trembles.

Just as I know Aurora will when she finally understands that her father will never braid her hair again. My heart squeezes.

Just as Marizia will, one night ten years from now, when she'll remember Tommy’s scent, but will no longer recall his voice. My temples throb.

Just like Kane, who now has to cope with the absence of someone he viewed as a son and a member of his chosen family. My shoulders sag.

Just like Dante after losing not only his best friend and brother, but the one who saved and supported him through the hardest winter of his life. My soul aches.

Just like all the girls he so selfishly ripped away from their families, with an evil glint in his eyes and unflinching hands. He belongs in the trap he created for himself.

"May it be complete then," I say, leaning my head back and meeting the eyes of my opium. My conscience doesn’t protest.

"He will be six feet underground before sunrise, mia cara. With a breathing tube attached to his mouth, of course. We wouldn't want to disrupt the steady progress of his new friends," he says, brushing his thumb down my cheek with such acceptance that I become one with it.

It is a feeling of ultimate catharsis – when one does not avert their gaze while witnessing all the facets that make an individual a whole being, in all its complexity, both in beauty and ugliness. Seeking not to change or refine, but to take the subject of their love by the hand exactly as they are and desire nothing more.

And so I take one last look at the encased form of evil incarnate. I don't rejoice at the sight, but I do feel a sense of heavy peace as Dante closes the door behind us, along with that of the past.

Deep in thought, we walk up the stone stairs to the main area and take a sit at the table. Somehow, there has never been a more peaceful night.

"Has Detective Logan given any indication that he suspects anything?" I ask, wondering what he might be thinking, since I've been absent for weeks and haven't helped with the investigation in any way.

"I messaged him, pretending to be you, and had a brief exchange yesterday. He was reserved at first, but after a few texts I convinced him that you weren't feeling well and needed a break. I don't think he suspects anything and even if he does he'll never have proof of your involvement," he says as he picks up Coblina who has now abandoned me as she always does when it comes to him.

"What will he think when Trever's activity suddenly stops altogether? Won't he be circumspect?" I ask, stealing the cigarette from his fingers and slipping my feet under his leg.

"He can think whatever he wants. We're off the radar; there's no way he can link us to the case, since all forms of contact have been erased."

"Thank you for always taking care of everything. No one ever did," I look at him with all my love and pray he senses at least a fraction of it.

"Ombra mia, you are mine. You will always be my priority," he says, full of truth and pure intensity, burning me from the inside out as he gives me those smoldering eyes.

I take his hand in mine, kissing the inside of his palm and silently telling him of my undying devotion, of the trust I have in him. He smiles because he knows.

"Is Caroline aware of what happened?"

"I wanted you to be the one to decide what and how much your cousin should know. She thinks you had food poisoning, left the wedding early and have been bedridden ever since," he says, massaging my knee.

"She's very dear to me. But I think for the time being it would be wise to keep this side of our lives separate" I say, feeling guilty, yet at peace with my choice to leave the past where it belongs.

"Fiducia in nessuno. Except you, of course," he says, showing me the inside of his wrist, the words he has just spoken now materialized in ink before my eyes.

"What does it mean?" I ask, taking his hand between mine and kissing the words while letting myself taste the saltiness of his skin and inhale his inimitable scent that no perfumer could ever replicate.

"Trust no one. After all, she did marry Damian," he says, running his fingertips over my eyes and brushing the bottom of my nose.

"There’s bad blood between the two of you. Is Caroline safe with him?"

"He seems to be fond of her, but I don't trust him. He betrayed me, and a traitor will always remain one, no matter how the years shape his exterior. If the core is rotten, no suit can ever cover that pungent, sickly smell of a corpse," he says distantly, ashing his cigarette on the floor.

"Tell me about those early times. How did he betray your trust?" I ask leaning forward; ready to nibble away at the details of a past I will never have access to, no matter how much I wish for it. Time doesn't turn back for anyone, not even undying lovers.

"It's always been Tommy, Damian and me. His family had ties to the Chicago mob, and that's how my father created the relationship between our family and his," he says, holding out his arms and beckoning me over. I go to him, to my home of flesh and bone.

"By alliance, Tommy has been there from the beginning and even more so, ever since our families came to a mutual agreement. And so the three of us became inseparable, until one night when I was seventeen, somewhere around two months before...before."

"Where did it happen?" I whisper the question, unable to contain my need to know, to delve deeper into everything that has played a part in shaping him, no matter how hard it may be to even envision.

"On the far left, about twenty feet from here. There's still a stain. I've tried everything, but it refuses to go away, perhaps so I'll never forget," he says, shifting his jaw, his pupils so dark I get lost in the pain there.

"Nothing that lingers is by chance. Maybe it’s a reminder that you survived, that you honored your promise," I say, tracing the outline of his cheek and counting the faded inked teeth, the way I always find myself doing when I feel restless. It's strange how little it takes for a lover to escape into the other.

The cave is so wide, vast and dark, yet I detect the outline in seconds. The spot is like a breathing circle of pain, which leaves the observer gasping for air the longer they look in its proximity.

"I leave flowers there on every anniversary and birthday. I know it doesn't matter anymore, but for some reason I do it anyway."

"It does matter; your love could travel across worlds. I know it because I felt eternal ever since I first tasted it for the first time," I whisper, letting my lips brush over his unshaven stubble, finding comfort in the burn.

"That night," he says against my lips, "we were supposed to raid a small shipment for a museum in the next town over. There were a lot more workers than I had originally anticipated. It became problematic very fast when Damian wanted to do it regardless of the fact that we were outnumbered," he says, his tongue tracing the outline of my lips, scorching me with their mischievous essence.

"He didn’t hesitate to plant a full case of bullets in one of the people carrying a parcel down the ramp. The police was nearby," he pauses, sighing heavily. "Being a thief – that was and will always be part of my DNA, but I was brought up to slither like a snake, to think like the enemy, to be undetected as if I were always covered in the cloak of night; under no circumstances to cause a scene or draw attention to myself. Mattresses of money were all we ever wanted; blood was spilled only in the case of life and death."

"So you never valued money over a life, have you?"

"No, especially if the person was decent. However, Damian was notorious for his impulsiveness and didn't care much about what tomorrow would bring, as long as he got what he wanted at that exact moment. When push came to shove and the sirens blared through the alleyways, he just spared us a glance as he got on his bike and left us to the wolves."

"What happened next?" I ask, drawing back and searching his vacant eyes; remembering how, at that age and point in time, all I knew was to keep myself hidden, both from the world and from myself.

"What was necessary, along with a nightlong chase and no interwar painting, valued at around two million. Good times," he says with both cynicism and acceptance in his voice.

"God, you were only seventeen. I can't imagine the chaos, the shape of your mental state. How did you manage to keep everything under control?"

"I feel it in my blood. I was born with it like one would with a virus. The adrenaline, the rush, the disorder are what define my lineage. At least it used to be that way. For the past few years, all I've wanted was to build a false sense of peace, eradicate those evil bastards and drift off to sleep pill free," he says, running his hands through my hair as he always does while seeking comfort. "And of course, there was always you."

"How do you quench your thirst now? Do those trades you told me about help?"

"Yes and no. It helps me in the sense that I don't feel like an aimless profiteer when it comes to building something of my own, whether it's immoral or not. I despise the thought of living under the burden of their legacy and the end result of it. Information is valuable, perhaps more precious than any gem on the market. And this is the path I chose to tread at the end of the day."

"But does it feed your need for chaos?"

"The years have passed, amore. I'm in my thirties now, and frankly, after all the running, years of plotting and bloodshed, I'm tired. I want to let others feed their appetite for adrenaline and shiny things. I'd rather auction off their interests while sitting in the shadows. It's cleaner and gives me time to focus on what matters most."

"Which is?" I ask, my pulse fluttering as he fixes my gaze with his soul-consuming one.

"To love you to death and live a life that feels authentic to who I've become," he says, running his thumb over my mouth, raw emotion dripping from his parted lips.

"And who is Dante Malfermo nowadays?" I ask, hanging on his every word.

"Happy and sad. A catastrophe and a victor. A result of deep suffering that paradoxically proves to me I still have a soul, even after all that has happened to me and the blood on my hands," he pauses, running his ring finger in a straight line across my nose. "Life is full of contradictions, you have to accept them all, whether good or bad in order to experience life fully. And if there's one thing I want most, it's a life with you. A passionate, intense and devotedly bleeding one."

His words warm my heart as I promise him with my gaze that I will do the same in this raging storm we call existence. Maybe in time it will get easier, maybe not. What matters is that our hands will always find each other, even in the deepest darkness.

"Who are you now Ophelia Grimes?" he asks quietly, intimately.

"I am alive. Loved. Free with and through you," I profess, closing my eyes, seeing him all the same.

"You are the only one I trust with my life. You and no one else," he says in a low voice, looking at me as if I were the earth and sky on which he wants to build his whole world on.

As above, so below – our love waters its roses with blood, while our cheeks are smeared with tears of wine. The kind that leave a bittersweet trace in their demand to be remembered, that get us drunk nonetheless.

Life has not been kind to us, but the union of our souls will always be.

And all was worth it, for there is no heaven without a dash of hell, at least not one we recognize as our own.