20. Carmen
Chapter 20
Carmen
I can’t sit still.
My legs carry me back and forth across the room, each step an attempt to shake off the tightness in my chest, the knot of dread that’s been building ever since our conversation in Montecroce.
He hasn’t thought this through— that much is clear. He’s been living in the moment, completely consumed by us , without once considering…how completely inevitably fucked this all is.
I should’ve known better. I shouldn’t have put off this conversation for so long. I just wanted a moment…okay, almost two months' worth of moments…where I didn’t have to think about it. I could just lose myself to this feeling.
Damn it. I’m as bad as he is, really.
But I have thought about a few things. Under cover of darkness, with Dante sleeping soundly beside me, the encounter with Evelina still made my heart ache. Then I’ve let my treacherous brain think…what if this was what my life was like forever?
I pace faster now, my mind moving quicker than my feet.
Of course, Dante hasn’t thought about it like that . The truth is staring me in the face, and I’m still too afraid to really see it for what it is.
Dante’s not going to let me stay here with him. As soon as Leon sends word, he’ll take me back to Brooklyn.
He’ll take me back to the Cartel, to the life that’s never let me breathe, and I’ll be nothing more than the pawn in a war between two factions that couldn’t care less about me.
I’ve always known better than to fool myself. It’s what I’ve done my entire life: tell myself the things I want to hear until the truth comes crashing down around me.
But that’s not the hardest part.
The hardest part is that I don’t want it to end. Not this. Not us .
I can’t keep pretending that I’m fine with being a hostage, with being on the opposite side of everything that matters to him.
But I also can’t keep pretending that I don’t feel the pull every time he looks at me, every time his hand brushes against mine, every time I wake up to find him beside me.
But what am I supposed to do when I know it’s going to be ripped away from me?
I stop, my hand resting on the window frame, my gaze drifting out over the landscape. The sun is setting, casting a golden light over the gardens. It’s beautiful, perfect in its stillness. But it feels far away from me now. Everything feels distant.
I don’t want to wait until it’s too late. I can’t.
I take a breath, forcing myself to be calm to think. I can’t keep spinning around in my head like this.
I need answers, even if they’re not the answers I want. I need to face him and confront this. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t feel like a fool for letting myself believe in a future that was never real to begin with.
If Dante won’t change the course of things, if he goes back to Brooklyn, to his Guild, then that’s it, isn’t it? I’ll go back to my father, to my obligations. And in the end, we’ll both be caught in a war that doesn’t care about our feelings.
I have to face him. I have to know where we stand.
If I’m willing to give everything up for this. If he’s willing to do the same.
And if we’re not, then I need to stop pretending it could be anything else.
I turn toward the door, a firm decision settling into place. It’s time to face the truth, no matter how much it stings. I can’t live in this haze any longer.
I walk out of the room, my mind set on one thing: confronting Dante.
I find him sooner than I thought I would, staring out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the ballroom. Starlight illuminates his face. He’s seemingly lost in thought.
He’s so unfairly handsome like this. That face, that jawline that I’ve become so intimately familiar with, seems to beckon me closer. To claim. To admire. To cherish.
(It could be love, couldn’t it?)
The ballroom is bare now that the decorations from the ball have been removed. The echo of our laughter and the music that once filled the space is gone, replaced by a cold silence that wraps around me like a shroud.
It’s as if the room knows what’s about to happen. There’s no warmth in the way the light spills through the windows, no softness in the grandiose chandeliers that hang like ghosts above us.
I stand there, feeling smaller than I’ve ever felt before, my heart pounding in my chest like a prisoner desperate to escape. I swallow hard, my voice catching in my throat as I call to him.
“Dante?”
He turns, his brow furrowing slightly at the sound of my voice. It’s not the greeting I expected.
“Carmen?” His voice is soft but hesitant. He has a look of quiet wariness, as though he already knows the questions I’m going to ask.
And suddenly, I know exactly why he’s here, looking contemplatively out the window so late.
Our conversation has been plaguing him, too.
I take a breath, steadying myself. There’s no point pretending we’re here for anything else. “What happens now?”
The words hang in the air between us, a fragile thing teetering on the edge of shattering. My chest tightens as I watch him, looking for any sign, any glimmer of something that will say this isn’t the end.
But all I see is the truth in his eyes, that familiar glint of resolve.
He takes a step forward, his hands tucked into his pockets. His posture is calm, almost apologetic. “You know what happens.”
I shake my head, feeling the ground beneath me wobble. Or is that just me? “No, Dante. I don’t think I do.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair like he’s tired of having this conversation in his head already.
“You’re right. Sooner or later, the Prince’s Guild will send the order. I’ll need to take you back to Brooklyn.” His voice falters only slightly, but it’s enough to make me take a step closer. “Your father will need you back, Carmen.”
I feel my heart splinter at the words. Your father will need you back.
It’s like the final nail in the coffin I’ve been unwilling to acknowledge. I feel a coldness creep up my spine, and my hand instinctively wraps around my chest, like I’m trying to hold the pieces of myself together.
“So...this is just it, then?” I can barely get the words out. “This is all we get?”
His jaw tightens. “Carmen, I’m not saying I don’t want more. I’m just saying what’s real. I’ve never made promises about the future, you know that. You said it yourself: we can’t ignore what’s waiting for us on the other side of this.”
I take a step back, the sting of his words hitting me harder than I thought they would. “So, what was all of this? What was the point of any of it if you knew it couldn’t last?”
“We are both to blame here, Carmen,” he counters. “We both decided to do this.”
My hands are shaking, and I wipe my palms on my pants, trying to control the anger that surges. “Sure, you promised nothing, Dante, and I get that. But don’t you dare make me feel like a fool for thinking you might have wanted more.”
He’s quiet for a moment, his face unreadable, and I can’t decide if it’s guilt or something else that’s tightening his features.
“I didn’t want this to happen, Carmen. But I’m trying to be honest with you, and I don’t want to run away from my responsibilities anymore,” he says, his jaw twitching. “ You made me see that.”
I laugh, bitter and sharp. “So it’s my fault then?”
“That’s not what I said?—”
“Was there ever a chance for us?” I talk over him, aware that I’m stepping closer. Aware that my emotions are vulnerably on display. “Was there ever a scenario where you chose me over them?”
Dante’s eyes glower down at me. “That’s the difference between you and me. I would never ask you to choose. ”
“I already did!” I will not let the tears fall down my face.
The silence stretches. Dante simply stares.
I press my palm against my forehead as if I could somehow push the pain away. “You know what? Fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this was never even a possibility, and we were just deluding ourselves.”
“Don’t do that.” His voice is low now; there’s a tightness to it. His eyes narrow as if he wants to reach out but doesn’t.
But I’m too far gone now. “I’m not the one who made it feel like we could have something, Dante. You did that. You made me think there was something here worth holding on to, something worth fighting for.”
I turn away from him, my breath catching as I fight against the burning in my throat. “But you’re right. You’re right. I knew the stakes. I knew you’d walk away because that’s what you do . And I was just stupid enough to let myself hope.”
He steps toward me, reaching out a hand like he’s going to touch my shoulder, but I move away instinctively. I can’t let him touch me right now. Not like this.
“You don’t get it,” he says quietly, his voice more ragged than I’ve ever heard it. “I never wanted it to hurt like this, but I don’t know how to give you anything more. It’s an impossible situation.”
I feel the air between us heavy, suffocating. The tears I’ve been holding back, the ones I knew would come, finally spill over, and I don’t care enough to stop them.
I wipe my eyes roughly, trying to gather myself, but it’s no use. “It’s fine. I knew from the moment I got here that…it didn’t matter what I did, what you might become to me. This was always going to end like this. You would always go back to the Guild.”
He looks at me for a long time, the silence heavy between us, before he finally speaks again. “It’s not just the Guild. Carmen, if the war ends, I can come back here for real. I can be with my mother and take my place in the Grasso di Ferro. You made me want that.”
“Just not with me, right?” I whisper.
And I wish I could say it doesn’t hurt. I wish I could say that it wouldn’t break me the way it’s breaking me now.
But it does.
At that moment, a horrible clarity settles over me. It’s as though everything falls into place, fitting together with an awful, inevitable precision.
I realize that, if I had the chance, I would have given up anything—everything—to stay here, in Italy, with him. To keep living in the space we’ve created, to keep lying to myself that maybe there was a future for us.
But Dante doesn’t want that.
“Carmen…”
I take a deep breath and, for the first time in weeks, I put on a mask. A mask that’s cold, controlled, and composed. It’s the same mask I’ve always worn when I have to protect myself from the world. But this time, it’s for him. For Dante.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice smooth, but it feels foreign, detached. “We’re not...we can’t do this anymore, Dante. There’s no point in pretending.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, shaking my head. “This ends now. For both of us.”
Without another word, I turn on my heel, walking briskly away from him. The silence is almost deafening as I cross the ballroom, the cold air pressing down on me as if the space itself is mourning what we had.
I don't look back.
For the first time in months, I am completely, utterly alone.