Chapter 22 - Alisa
The funeral was small, just the way I wanted. I invited a handful of some distant relatives who probably came out of obligation, and Dante being Dante, insisted he wanted to come for me. We decided to leave any colleagues out, because we had no idea who was evil and who wasn’t.
Nothing about my father’s career remained innocent by the end of it.
I didn’t get the chance to tell him how much that meant to me, for I knew of his family’s long-standing feud with my father. Of course, Dante didn’t come for him.
Dante stood beside me like a shadow the whole time, a quiet pillar of support. I watched on trembling legs as they lowered his casket into the ground.
And when the priest spoke about him as a man of justice returning to God?
I hung my head in shame. I had racked my brain over and over again, hour after hour, relived every moment of my father’s life as I knew it all to in the hope of understanding what event exactly turned him this evil.
But all I could think of was that maybe, he’d always had evil running in him, and I somehow convinced myself all fathers were that callous, that cold, that needy for perfection.
I felt numb the whole time. I hadn't cried since the hospital. Not when I chose his casket. Not when I greeted people at the service. I just felt... hollow. Empty enough to want to disappear with the wind.
"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry for your loss," an old aunt pulled me into a hug. “If there’s anything you need…”
"Thank you," I replied on autopilot with the same answer I’d given everyone else on repeat. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. I hated how they looked at me with pity. I hated how I couldn’t shed a tear because it felt like a betrayal to all the innocent lives my father ruined, and I hated how the attendants whispered and called it shock.
I shook hands of people as they left. Hugged some. My body moved on its own, like a puppet putting on a show. Dante often checked up on me with a hand to the small of his back, with his constant offers to get me water, with the occasional ‘are you okay?’
All I could do was nod.
The last of the mourners drifted away, leaving just Dante and me by the fresh grave. The cemetery workers stood at a respectful distance, waiting to finish their job once we left.
"Ready to head home?" Dante asked softly.
And suddenly, I realized, I no longer had a home that wasn’t his to go back to. My father was gone.
That’s when I started to breath harder, the pain and panic crushing at my lungs. The lump in my throat grew larger until I couldn’t contain it anymore, and the tears started pouring down my face.
“I loved him, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I did,” I curled into myself, my arms wrapped tight around myself as I stared at the casket. “He…Children are meant to love their fathers. I…I loved him.”
"Oh, Alisa,” Dante whispered softly, tracing soft patterns on my back. “Of course you loved him.”
"But I hated him, too. Is that wrong?" My voice cracked.
Dante's fingers found mine, and he threaded our hands together, squeezing tight. "No, Alisa. It's not wrong."
I turned away from the grave and let Dante lead me back to the car.
***
Days blurred together after that. I couldn't tell you if it was three days or ten. I just stopped living, in a way. Stopped moving, stopped caring, stopped being. I refused to let the maids open the blinds in my room.
I didn't shower. Didn't change out of silk pajamas I'd put on after the funeral. Sometimes I slept. Sometimes I stared at the ceiling, just numb.
My meals were brought in for me, but I only ate when coaxed by the maids or Dante. I barely noticed what I ate. Couldn’t tell an apple from a cucumber. Just chewed, went through the motions.
Dante checked in on me often, but I never noticed if it was on routine or at random. The first few times, he tried to make conversation and get me to talk about my feelings, but I couldn’t reach for them.
I told him I was tired and needed nothing more than to be left alone.
But, he never did.
After that, he simply whispered he was there for me, no matter what, and sat quietly by the window till hours passed. Sometimes, he read. Sometimes, he brought in his computer. Sometimes, he forced me to eat that sandwich or drink that lemonade.
Always, he looked worried.
I wanted to tell him to go away, especially when he tried to get me to eat, but I didn't have the energy for even that. So I did what he asked just to get the movement behind me.
"That's it," he encouraged, his voice gentle. "A little more."
This became our ritual. He soon moved on to open the windows slightly, letting fresh air creep in, not listening to my complaints.
One night, I woke to find him asleep in that chair. His head was tilted at an uncomfortable angle, his legs stretched out in front of him. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes.
And that’s when the guilt and gratitude twisted in my chest. He shouldn't be here, suffering through my grief with me. He should be running his business, handling whatever fallout came from my father's death. The Pavlovs weren't going to stop hunting me just because my father was dead.
Yet there he was. Staying. Watching over me. For the first time in hours, I stepped out of bed to walk over to him and throw the spare blanket over his body.
Just as I did, he woke, his eyes snapping to mine immediately. He gave me a smile, a proud little one that cracked my heart in two. I felt like I didn’t deserve it.
"You shouldn't sleep in that chair. It looks uncomfortable," I said.
"It’s not that bad…" he insisted, and turned to his other side, going straight back to sleep.
"Go to bed, Dante," I insisted. "I'll be fine."
He threw a cranky look over his shoulder. "Geez. Let a man sleep, will you? And go back to bed, before you bite my head off.”
For the first time in days, I smiled.
By the time the next morning rolled around, I woke up feeling different. Not excited to seize the day, or anything like that…but present.
I pushed back the covers and sat up. How long had I been in this bed? My hair felt greasy against my skin, and my mouth tasted stale.
Dante wasn’t in the room, but the curtains were thrown back apart, and outside?
It looked like a sunny, bright morning. I stepped out of bed and made my way to the window.
Each step still felt difficult, like the grief still weighed on my body, but it became something I could carry instead of letting it crush me.
How come I had never noticed before how beautiful the flower beds were? I pushed open the windows, let the fresh air in.
Somehow, I made it to the bathroom. For the first time in ages, I noticed the grease and wanted it off. I started the shower, stripped off my dirty clothes, and stepped under the hot water.
The minute I did that, I felt every tight, wound-up muscle in me relax, starting from my jaw.
I just stood there, letting the water stream down my hair, face and body.
I washed my hair twice, scrubbed every inch of skin until it felt like it belonged to me again.
By the time I stepped out, wrapped in a fluffy towel, I felt human again.
Clean clothes. Brushed teeth. Combed hair. These were simple acts to the rest of the world, but for me, they felt like monumental achievements.
And honestly, I thought to myself as I went back into the bedroom and pulled out some clothes, I didn’t think I could have let that violent wave of grief pass without Dante being there by my side.
He'd handled the funeral arrangements and dealt with my father's affairs. He'd made sure I was safe and protected from whatever was happening out there while still checking in on me and sitting by my side through what were the longest nights of my life.
It must have been the hard on him, I knew that. The Pavlovs were probably causing trouble out there, and even then, Dante never put that on me. He kept news of any and all trouble away from my ears.
And my father... he didn't want to lose his power, reputation, or money. So he'd been willing to lose me instead.
But Dante, who had every reason to hate my father, had tried to save him that night by rushing him to his private clinic. He had the doctors waiting and ready even before we had arrived. Not for my father's sake, but for mine.
Dante put me first. Always put me first.
He showed me a kind of selfless sacrifice I’d stopped believing in. The kind I thought was never written in the stars for me. My heart began to race in my heart, and I put down my hairbrush and sank into the chair.
I was in love with him, I thought to myself in shock.
I told myself it would never happen again, but this time around? I saw things I hadn’t noticed before. His loyalty to his family and the people he loved, his way of showing up when one needed him most, his quiet strength and support.
He was the kind of man that once someone had a taste of, they’d never forget.
And I? I could no longer imagine my life without him.
I think I’d always known I held him in my heart, even after he broke it four years ago. But I'd been too afraid to face it, too caught up in my heart to examine what was happening in my heart.
But did he love me too?
Or was his affection and loyalty born out of obligation and guilt for our past and what he did to me, or from the responsibility he felt after taking me in and realizing I had nowhere else to go?
My hands shook as my certainty about how I felt clashed with doubts of his.
Just then, the door opened and Dante walked in, with a tray laden with food.
“Oh good,” he smiled brighter than the sun, his face lit with joy. “You’re up…and you showered?”
I noticed the surprise in his voice, the utter delight. But my mind was reeling now, with questions I needed answers to but didn’t know how to ask. How pathetic was it to think I could ask if he loved me too.
I’d had my heart shattered before and wasn’t yet ready to have him do it again. I feared he didn’t, in the deepest of my bones.
He set the tray down on the coffee table and walked over to me. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I said. “Clearer.”
The smile that broke across his face was so genuine, so relieved, that it made my chest ache. “That’s good. That’s really good, Alisa. I was worried.”
“You’ve been amazing,” I said softly. “Through all of this. But you don’t have to do it anymore.”
His smile faltered. “What do you mean?”
I swallowed hard, hating myself for the test I was about to give him, but needing to know. “I mean, I’m doing better now. You’re not obligated to be my support system anymore. I can take care of myself from here.”
His face changed so fast it almost gave me whiplash. The relief vanished, replaced by something darker, fiercer.
“Obligated?” he asked, raising his voice. “You think I’ve been here out of obligation?”
“I don’t know why you’ve been here,” I said, standing up to face him properly. “That’s the problem.”
“The problem,” he took a step closer, “is that after everything we’ve been through, you still don’t get it.”
“Get what?” I challenged, my heart racing.
“That I’m not going anywhere!” he shouted, his composure finally cracking. “That there is no world, no reality, no version of this life where I leave you to face any of this alone!”
“Why?” I demanded, my voice rising to match his. “Why are you so determined to stay?”
“Because I love you!” The words exploded from him like they’d been fighting to get out.
“I have always loved you, Alisa! Even when I walked away four years ago, I loved you! Every day since then, I loved you! And these past months, watching you fight through all this hell, seeing your strength, your compassion—even for a father who didn’t deserve it—I’ve fallen even more in love with you! ”
I stood frozen, my heart thundering in my chest.
“So don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m here out of obligation,” he continued, his voice breaking. “I’m here because there is nowhere else in this world I would rather be than by your side, whether you’re falling apart or putting yourself back together.”
The tears of joy started falling down my cheeks. He loved me. Everything I feared was for nothing, and he had said what I needed to hear most.
“I love you too,” I whispered.
He froze, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly.
“I love you,” I said again, louder this time so he could hear me right. “I think I’ve loved you for years now. And I never stopped, not even when I thought I hated you. Or maybe I said I hated you because it hurt too much to want you and not have you.”
“Oh, Alisa,” he whispered, his face softening as he reached out to cup my face, his large hands softly wiping away my tears. “Say it again.”
I smiled through my tears. “I love you, Dante Lebedev.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” His lips parted, and he dipped his head low to brush up against mine. “I love you more than you know.”