7. Gemma
Gemma
Metal shrieks against metal, a terrifying, teeth-grinding sound that vibrates straight down to the marrow of my bones.
Dante's shoulders flex in the dim light of the penthouse hallway.
He digs his bloodied fingers into the seam of the rusted elevator doors.
Muscles cord along his neck. The knotwork and skull tattoos on his arms distort with the sheer, violent force of his exertion.
Dust rains down from the ceiling plaster.
The steel doors groan in protest, then snap apart. A gaping, black maw opens in front of us. The empty elevator shaft.
Cold, stale air rushes up from the void, carrying the metallic tang of old grease and the scent of twenty-year-old dust. A dark shaft drops straight down.
Cooking carnitas at two in the morning in a cramped food truck prepares a girl for a lot of things.
Drunk frat boys throwing bottles. Broken generators in zero-degree weather.
Shady cops asking for free meals. It absolutely does not prepare a girl for an improvised descent down a fourteen-story drop with a man built for ruin.
"Jump to the center cable," Dante commands. His voice holds zero room for negotiation. It is pure tactical steel. "Wrap your legs around it. Grip with your hands. Use the friction of your boots to slow your slide. Do not let go."
"Just casual paramilitary parkour in the dark. Normal Tuesday." Sarcasm is a defense mechanism, but it is currently the only thing keeping me from vomiting all over my ruined boots.
Dante steps to the edge of the abyss. He does not hesitate. He drops into the blackness.
The cable groans as he hits the wire. He slides down a few feet, then stops. He looks up. His dark eyes catch the faint hallway light. He is covered in the blood of the men he just slaughtered to protect me. He looks like a demon summoned straight from the underworld.
And he is entirely mine. The realization lands hard in my chest. The tactical detachment is gone from his gaze, replaced by a raging, possessive fire that demands my absolute obedience to keep me breathing.
I step to the ledge. The drop makes my stomach roll.
"I am right below you," Dante says, his voice echoing in the concrete shaft. "You slip, I catch you. You will not fall. Jump."
I jump.
Cold steel rips against my palms. Friction burns instantly flare across my skin. My boots slam against the cable, the rubber soles gripping the grease-coated wire. I slide fast, out of control for three terrifying seconds, before slamming directly into Dante's solid chest.
His arm anchors me. He halts my descent with pure strength. We dangle in the pitch-black shaft, suspended over a lethal drop.
"I have you," he grunts against my ear. The familiar scent of him radiates off his skin, mixed with the sharp copper of the blood he spilled. It overrides the smell of the old grease.
"Keep going," I whisper against his neck. My fingers dig into his broad shoulders. "Get us out of this death trap."
We begin the descent. It is an agonizing, synchronized slide.
The darkness is absolute. The only sounds are the screech of our boots on the cable, the metallic groan of the shaft, and our harsh, ragged breathing.
My arms scream in protest. The muscles in my thighs burn.
The grease coats my hands, making it nearly impossible to maintain a grip.
Every time I slip, Dante is there. His body acts as a solid iron shield below me, absorbing my weight, securing my hold, refusing to let the darkness swallow me.
We pass the thirteenth floor. Then the twelfth. The air grows marginally warmer, though the damp chill of the abandoned hotel remains.
"Eleventh floor is compromised," Dante murmurs, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cable. "The signal jammer ends there. If they have radios, they will stage a choke point. We bypass."
"Ten," I say, my voice trembling. "Take us to ten."
We slide past the doors of the eleventh floor.
Faint voices echo through the steel. Flashlight beams cut through the narrow crack in the doors, slicing across the dark shaft.
Dante freezes, anchoring us both in the void.
He presses my face into his shoulder, shielding me from the slivers of light.
He does not breathe. He becomes a statue forged of pure violence, waiting for the threat to pass.
The light shifts away. The voices fade down the corridor.
Dante resumes the slide. The descent to the tenth floor is pure agony. My grip is failing. The friction burns are bleeding.
"Here," he whispers.
He locks his legs around the cable, suspending his entire frame with core strength alone.
He reaches out with one hand, gripping the interior latch of the tenth-floor doors.
He pulls. The metal refuses to yield. A low growl tears from his throat.
He wrenches his arm back and throws a devastating punch straight into the seam of the doors.
The steel groans, bends, and snaps off the rusted track. He rips the doors apart just enough to create a gap.
"Go," he commands, shoving me toward the opening.
I swing my body toward the ledge, catching the dusty concrete edge. I scramble through the gap, tearing the knee of the oversized sweatpants I frantically pulled on before we ran, and tumble onto the floor. I roll onto my back, gasping for air.
Dante slips through the opening a second later. He turns and shoves the doors back together, cutting off the shaft. The metallic click of the broken latch settling back into place sounds deafening in the silence.
We are in a long, dark corridor. The tenth floor lacks the opulent velvet and rotting grandeur of the fourteenth-floor penthouse.
It looks like a stripped-out corporate space.
Bare concrete floors. Exposed pipes running along the ceiling.
Pale moonlight streams through floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the hall, casting long, geometric shadows across the dust.
Dante immediately goes into tactical mode. He ignores his bleeding knuckles. He ignores the grease coating his clothes. He raises his weapon, sweeping the corners, checking the sightlines.
"Clear," he mutters, pacing rapidly toward the windows. "No movement on the street. They are holding inside the perimeter. Waiting for us."
He paces back. His movements are sharp, jerky. The protector remains, but the ice is cracking at the edges.
He stops in the middle of the hallway. He takes a sharp, jagged breath.
The air on the tenth floor is stagnant. The ventilation has been dead for decades.
But Dante brought something with him from the fourteenth floor.
The scent of real, freshly fired cordite.
It clings to his clothes from the gunfight in the hallway.
It mixes with the copper tang of the blood drying on his black undershirt.
He takes another breath. A tremor runs down his frame.
His weapon lowers an inch. Then another. The muzzle points at the concrete floor.
"Dante?" I push myself up from the ground. My legs are shaking from the exertion of the climb, but the sudden shift in his posture demands immediate attention.
He does not answer. He stares at the empty concrete floor, but his dark eyes are unfocused. He is not seeing the Grand Continental. He is looking at something a million miles away, something buried twenty years deep.
The panic attack slams into him.
He drops the weapon. The gun clatters against the concrete.
He doesn't even flinch at the noise. He stumbles backward, his broad back hitting the drywall with a thud.
He slides down the wall, his knees pulling up to his chest. He grabs the sides of his head, his grease-stained fingers digging into his dark hair.
"The rain," he gasps. The sound is wrecked. It is the voice of a lethal man reverting to a terrified teenager. "So much rain. It was washing the blood away. Into the grate. I couldn't stop it."
He is spiraling. The real cordite triggered the phantom memories.
I scramble across the floor, ignoring the pain in my scraped palms. I slide onto the concrete directly in front of him. I grab his wrists to pull his hands away from his head, my fingers brushing the angry, blistered burn across his left palm.
"Dante. Look at me."
He stares right through my chest. His chest heaves in rapid, shallow bursts.
"The alley," he stammers, his dark eyes wide and frantic in the moonlight. "It smelled like wet copper and garbage. The brick was slick. I turned him over. I had to turn him over. My father. His eyes were open. He was looking at the sky."
A sharp ache blooms in my chest. He is describing the murder of his father. The brutal night that defined the entire Costa family war. The borrowed trauma he carries like a shield.
"I pressed my hands to his chest," Dante continues, his words tumbling out in a frantic, broken rhythm.
"Trying to stop the bleeding. But there was too much.
The rain kept washing it away. It made the puddle so big.
I called for help. I was yelling. The phone was right there.
I heard Matteo's voice break on the line. "
Wait.
The pieces don't fit.
I heard Matteo's voice break on the line.
I sit back on my heels. The cold concrete bites through the torn denim at my knee.
I stare at the shaking man in front of me.
My mind races, piecing together the fragments of the story he told me back in the penthouse before the attack.
He told me Turi raised them. He told me Matteo took the call.
He told me he became the guard because he had to protect the family.
"Dante," I say softly. My voice is steady in the quiet dark. "Listen to your words."
"Matteo was screaming," Dante whispers, rocking slightly against the drywall. "I was holding the phone. The cord was wrapped around my hand. I was sitting on the couch. The green couch in the living room. The rain was hitting the window."