19. Dante
Chapter 19
Dante
T he sun is a little softer today, the heat of the afternoon tempered by a cool breeze as Carmen and I wander once more through Montecroce’s vibrant market.
It’s become a habit for us to walk out here this last month on the days I have to meet with the Grasso di Ferro, meetings that have become suspiciously less frequent—especially this last week.
Evelina has refused to even entertain my line of questioning, but there’s no doubt that the old lady is up to something. Especially with all the glances she was throwing my way at dinner the other night.
The cobbled streets are alive with noise—vendors shouting, the chatter of locals mingling, the clink of coins—and the smells are intoxicating: fresh bread, cured meats, and flowers.
Carmen, as usual, has wandered off a few steps ahead of me, her curiosity pulling her in every direction.
She stops in front of a stall brimming with flowers, her fingers brushing over the delicate petals. The colors are vivid, the blooms bold, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Brooklyn, and her fascination with them is immediate.
“What are these?” she asks, her tone soft, her gaze fixed on a cluster of white flowers that stand out against the other vibrant colors.
The vendor offers her a sweet smile. “Gardenias. Rare around here, but…”
Carmen has already plucked them from their vase, inhaling deeply. “They smell divine.”
I look down at her with a smirk. “You know, I’ve never really seen the point in flowers. They’re always so fleeting.”
She shoots me a quick, annoyed look over her shoulder. “Of course you’d say that.”
“I’m just saying, why not plant something instead? Then at least it would stick around long enough for you to be able to admire it again.”
“Planted a lot of things, have you?” she challenges.
“No. But I’m never really in one place long enough for that.”
“You’ve always had that ‘I’m not the settling type’ vibe about you,” she says with a light, teasing tone, though I hear the subtle question in her voice.
I hesitate, my fingers brushing over the edge of my coat as I look at the flowers, unable to avoid her gaze.
“You’re right, I suppose. I never saw myself staying anywhere, much less with anyone.”
It’s the truth, as much as it feels odd to admit it now. I never wanted to be tied down, never thought a life of stability or commitment would be something for me. But given my commitment now to finding a wife…
Given the… fragile, new, exciting nature of our relationship…
It’s hard to get a read on what she wants me to say.
“But, uh…things change.” I meet her eyes for a moment, unsure if I’ve said too much.
She looks away briefly, her fingers still lingering on the flowers, but there’s a small smile on her lips, like she’s deciphering something between the lines.
“Things change, huh?” she repeats, voice lighter now, almost like she’s testing the words herself.
“Well, if they didn’t, I imagine you’d still be wasting away in the dungeon,” I deflect.
Carmen rolls her eyes but doesn’t press, though I can see the curiosity still lingering in her gaze.
Instead, she pulls a few of the gardenias from the stall, holding them up to me with a small, mischievous grin. “Do you think I could convince you to buy these for me?”
It’s like a dare, a challenge in her eyes.
I don’t even think twice. I pull the flowers from her hand and give the vendor a few euros. The gesture feels like something I should’ve done already, a simple acknowledgment of…well…just a gift.
“Consider them a token of my affection,” I say, handing them to her, not bothering to hide the smirk creeping across my face.
She takes them with a soft laugh, eyes glinting with amusement. “Why, Grasso, I wasn’t aware you knew how to court.”
I lean in just slightly, my voice lowering a little. “My technique is slightly less conventional, of course. But I haven’t heard you complaining about it yet.”
She looks up at me with that teasing, daring glint in her eyes. I can already feel the words on the tip of her tongue, the playful challenge, but before she can get them out, I hear a voice that interrupts us.
“Dante!”
The tone is smooth in a way that cuts through the air with the precision of a blade. I glance over my shoulder with a slow, almost reluctant recognition.
Rina.
She stands across the square, her posture perfect, her waist-length dark curls swaying gently in the breeze.
Her dark eyes lock with mine, and there’s a flash of something like amusement, like she’s been waiting to see me for a while. She strides toward us with confident purpose, unbothered by the crowded market around us.
I can feel Carmen tense beside me, trying to slip into the shadows like she’s been caught doing something wrong.
“I thought that was you,” Rina calls out, her tone a bit too sharp, though she’s smiling when she gets close, immediately pulling me in to greet me with a kiss on either cheek.
I force a smile onto my face as she pulls away. “Just taking a walk through the markets.”
“And here I thought you might be avoiding me.” Her eyes flicker to Carmen, and I can feel the undercurrent of her assessment in the way she looks at her.
I instinctively move a step closer to Carmen, although I’m not entirely sure what I aim to protect her from, and drape a casual arm around her shoulder.
“Not at all,” I say, my voice flat but steady. “I’ve just been busy with other things.”
Rina’s brow arches, her gaze sliding back to Carmen. She doesn’t even bother hiding her annoyance now, but I can see her calculating glare.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Rina practically purs as she holds out a hand to Carmen.
Carmen looks like she wants the earth to swallow her whole. I can practically feel her trying to shrink away from Rina’s gaze.
“Carmen is a guest of the Grasso di Ferro,” I say quickly. “She is staying with us for the foreseeable future.”
Rina’s eyes narrow slightly at Carmen before switching to Italian. “ I wasn’t aware the Grasso di Ferro hosted guests at the Iron Castle.”
Carmen blinks back at her. Perhaps if Rina had cursed at her, she might have understood. But then again, her dismissive tone seems to translate anyway.
“I’m from Cancún,” Carmen replies stiffly.
“ Lo siento ,” Rina quips back.
“If you’re concerned, Rina, I’m sure you could take it up with Evelina,” I step in to answer her original question.
A flash of something cold crosses Rina’s face, but it’s gone before I can read it. She tilts her head, her lips curving into something like a smile. “I see. Forgive me. I wasn’t aware that you were entertaining international proposals.”
“No decisions have been made yet,” I remind her quickly, though I can feel Carmen tensing under my arm again.
Rina seems to take that in, though she doesn’t look as rattled. Instead, she just nods, her gaze flicking to Carmen one more time before she pulls her attention back to me.
“Enjoy yourself, Dante,” she says in that sugary, sweet voice of hers. “It seems you’ve certainly got a lot of thinking to do. I only advise that you consider all of your options.”
Her eyes glitter with something I can’t quite place before she turns on her heel and heads off into the crowd without another word.
I watch her go, but Carmen doesn’t speak.
I glance down at her, offering a crooked smile. “You okay?”
She takes a deep breath, shifting her weight slightly, though her expression remains unreadable.
“She was one of the bachelorettes, wasn’t she?” she asks, her voice a little quieter than normal.
I chuckle, but there’s a slight unease in my chest. “Rina is…a part of my past. But she no longer holds my interest.”
“But she did propose, didn’t she?” she deduces before pausing for a moment. “You do realize, don’t you, that Rina is going to tell everyone you’ve finally found your match?”
Her words hang in the air, and for a moment, I’m not sure how to respond.
“Let her. If that’s what she wants to believe, then fine.” I give a nonchalant shrug, though I can feel a bit of tension creeping up my spine. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
Her hand falters slightly as she adjusts the flowers in her grasp, her face losing some of the lightness it had just moments ago.
For a long second, I wonder if I’ve said something wrong. Then I see it in her eyes—the sudden, unmistakable shift. Carmen pulls back just a bit, distancing herself.
“Do you even know what you’re doing, Dante?” she asks, her gaze serious. “What this means?”
The question catches me off guard, and I open my mouth to respond before I realize I have no idea how to answer. There’s no real plan here. Nothing is mapped out.
We’re caught in the middle of something that’s as uncertain as it is dangerous, but…I don’t know. It feels different with Carmen.
“Carmen—”
She cuts me off, her tone firmer now. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“I get it perfectly fine,” I argue back, “but my marriage prospects aren’t going to combust over one rumor. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” She gestures to us, to everything that’s been building between us. “When we go back to Brooklyn—when I go back—I’m still part of the Cartel. You’re still part of the Guild. We’re on opposite sides, Dante. You know that, right?”
The words hit me harder than I expected. It’s like a punch to the gut. She’s right, of course. We’ve been dancing around it, pretending that things might be different, but when all is said and done, we’re still enemies.
She’s still my prisoner, whether I want to admit it or not. And the war won’t just stop because we’ve shared a few stolen moments under the sun.
I swallow hard, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I don’t have a smart-ass comment to throw back at her. I have no easy answer. Just silence.
Carmen’s eyes narrow a fraction. “You’re enjoying this, letting me shield you from all these women that want to make an honest man of you. But what happens when we go back? What happens when you’re on the other side of this? What’s left? For me?”
I open my mouth again, wanting to say something, anything to prove that we can find a way out of this, a way around the impossibility of a war neither of us had any say in. But there’s nothing that feels solid enough to hold onto.
“I don’t know,” I finally admit.
She exhales slowly, her eyes flickering away from mine for a moment like she’s processing something. Then she looks at me, really looks at me, and it’s almost too much.
“What can it look like, Dante?” she asks quietly. “What does the future look like for us? When Leon sends me back, everything we’ve been pretending doesn’t matter will suddenly come crashing down around us, won’t it?”
I’ve been so caught up in this —in us—that I haven’t even thought about what happens after. I don’t want to think about after. This is all I want. Just Carmen and walks through Montecroce and the press of her skin against mine.
What the hell am I doing?
“We’re not going back to Brooklyn for a while,” I say finally. “We don’t have to think about that now.”
“Yes, we do.”
All I can think about is what it feels like to have her here, to be with her in this place where we’re safe, where nothing matters except the two of us.
“Carmen, please. ”
“Are you prepared to leave the Prince’s Guild?”
The question knocks everything out of me. I stare at her with open distress. “ No. ”
“Well, I’m not prepared to walk out on the Cartel.”
I look at her, trying to steady myself against the pull of everything she’s saying. But it’s hard to breathe with the weight of it all. I don’t know how to make any of this work.
“After everything they’ve done to you, expected of you—” I try, but Carmen’s expression turns murderous.
“Everything they’ve done?! I’m your prisoner, Dante.”
I gesture to the flowers in her hand, at the street around us. “Are you?!”
“Like you aren’t going to send me back to the dungeons the second another one of your friends comes to check on you,” she hisses back.
We’re standing so close together now that I can see the golden flakes in her caramel eyes as she is glaring at me. She’s so close, and yet a chasm seems to have opened up between us, one that I can’t help but long to close again.
Finally, I take a step back, my heart pounding harder than it should. “I don’t have an answer, Carmen. But I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”
Her gaze softens just a bit, but there’s a flicker of something sharp and resolved in her expression, too.
“I don’t want to say goodbye either,” she whispers. “But I think we both know that sooner or later, we’ll have to.”