Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Dylan
Iwake to the sound of him moving around in the kitchen, the soft clatter of dishes and the whistle of a kettle. For a long moment I just lie here, listening. Letting the sounds wash over me. Ordinary sounds. Domestic sounds. The kind of sounds I used to wake to when I lived with Aunt Moira.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
Dante appears in the doorway with a tray. Porridge again, but this time with sliced banana on top. He must have gone out early to buy them. The thought does something strange to my chest.
“You’re awake,” he says, and there’s something almost shy in his voice. Like he’s not sure of his welcome. Like he’s waiting for permission to enter his own bedroom.
“I’m awake,” I confirm, pushing myself up against the pillows.
He brings the tray over and sets it on my lap with that careful precision he brings to everything. Our fingers brush during the transfer. He pulls back quickly, as if burned.
“I thought we could try something different today,” he says, settling into his usual chair. “If you’re feeling up to it.”
“Different how?”
“The construction crew finished yesterday. The soundproofing is complete.” He pauses, something flickering in his dark eyes. “I thought you might like to see the rest of the apartment. Get out of this room for a while.”
I think about the last time I explored his flat. The panic attack that left me shaking and gasping on the floor. The hours I spent curled under the covers, trying to forget what I’d seen.
But Dante doesn’t know about that. And I’m not going to tell him.
“That would be nice,” I say, picking up my spoon. “I’m going a bit mad staring at these four walls.”
Something eases in his expression. Relief, maybe. Or hope.
I eat my porridge slowly, watching him through my lashes. He’s tired. I can see it in the shadows under his eyes, the slight slump of his shoulders. He slept on that horrible sofa again last night.
Part of me wants to tell him he can have the bed back. That I could sleep on the sofa instead, or that we could take turns, or something.
But that would be stupid. That would be caring about his comfort when I should only be caring about my own survival.
I finish the porridge and set the bowl aside. “Ready when you are.”
Dante stands and offers me his hand. I look at it for a moment. Large and strong, with long fingers and neat, clean nails. Hands that have done terrible things. Hands that have also fed me soup and washed my hair and held me through the worst of my fever.
I take his hand and let him help me to my feet.
His grip is warm and firm. He holds on just long enough to make sure I’m steady, then releases me and steps back. Giving me space. Always giving me space.
We walk down the hallway together, Dante matching his pace to my slower one. The flat looks different in daylight. Less menacing. Still sparse and sad, but almost ordinary in the grey afternoon light filtering through gaps in the shutters.
He shows me the kitchen first. It’s tiny, barely more than a galley, with appliances that look like they haven’t been updated since the building was converted.
The refrigerator hums loudly in the corner.
The stove has four burners, but only two of them look functional.
The counters are bare except for a kettle and a single mug.
“It’s not much,” Dante says, and there’s something almost apologetic in his voice. “I don’t cook often.”
I think about my kitchen at the bakery. The gleaming surfaces, the professional-grade ovens, the shelves lined with ingredients I knew by heart. The smell of bread rising and sugar caramelizing and butter melting into pastry.
My chest aches with missing it.
“Do you have any baking equipment?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Mixing bowls? Measuring cups? A decent whisk?”
Dante blinks. The question seems to have caught him off guard.
“I don’t think so,” he admits. “I have a pot. And a frying pan. And...” He opens a cupboard and peers inside. “A spatula that might be older than I am.”
Despite everything, I feel my lips twitch. “That’s not exactly a well-stocked kitchen.”
“No,” he agrees. “I suppose it isn’t.”
We stand there in the cramped space, both of us looking at the pathetic contents of his cupboards. A tin of beans. Half a packet of pasta. The porridge oats he’s been using to feed me. Salt and pepper shakers that look like they came free with something else.
“I could get things,” Dante says slowly. “Equipment. Ingredients. If you wanted to...” He trails off, seeming uncertain how to finish the sentence.
“Bake?” I supply.
“Yes.” He turns to look at me, and there’s something almost hopeful in his expression. “Would you want to? It might help pass the time. Give you something to do while you recover.”
The offer is unexpected. He wants to buy me baking supplies. He wants to give me something to do, something familiar and comforting, something that might make this prison feel slightly less like a prison.
It’s kind. Genuinely, surprisingly kind.
“I would like that,” I say softly. “Very much. Thank you.”
Dante’s reaction stops me cold.
He blinks, as if astonished that I’ve said something nice to him. Then his dark eyes soften and I can practically see him melt. The tension in his shoulders eases. The hard line of his jaw relaxes. For just a moment, he looks almost vulnerable. Almost young.
This big, dangerous man isn’t used to kindness. He is starved of it.
The realization hits me like a slap to the face.
All his careful considerations, his gentle handling, his desperate attempts to make amends.
They’re not just guilt. They’re hunger. A bone-deep craving for connection that he probably doesn’t even recognize in himself.
He has been alone for so long, isolated in this sad flat with only his work for company, that even the smallest scrap of warmth affects him like water on parched earth.
And just like that, something shifts inside me.
It’s not a comfortable shift. Not a pleasant one. It feels like a door opening onto a room I didn’t know existed, a room full of possibilities I never would have considered before Dante broke me into pieces.
Because if kindness affects him this strongly... if simple gratitude can make him soften and melt and look at me like I’ve given him a gift... then maybe I’m not as powerless as I thought.
Maybe I have something he wants. Something he needs. Something I could use.
The thought is ugly. Cold and calculating in a way I’ve never been before. I’ve always been soft. The kind of person who apologizes when someone else bumps into me, who tips generously even when the service is terrible, who cries at sad films and rescues spiders instead of killing them.
I’m not the kind of person who manipulates. Who schemes. Who looks at another human being and thinks about how to exploit their weaknesses.
But then again, I’ve never been kidnapped and tortured before. I’ve never watched a man die while he screamed my brother’s name. I’ve never been so completely at someone’s mercy that my survival depended on their goodwill.
Dante did this to me. He broke something inside me that day in his torture chamber, and what’s growing in its place is harder. Sharper. More willing to do whatever it takes to survive.
I don’t like it. I don’t like who I’m becoming. But I don’t have the luxury of staying soft. Soft people don’t escape from monsters. Soft people don’t survive.
I look at Dante, really look at him, and for the first time I see not just a threat but an opportunity.
He wants me to like him. He wants my forgiveness, my gratitude, my affection. He is so desperate for connection that even the tiniest kindness makes him light up like a child on Christmas morning.
What would happen if I gave him more than tiny kindnesses?
What would happen if I made him think I was starting to care about him?
What would happen if I played the long game, built his trust piece by piece, made myself so essential to his happiness that he couldn’t bear to keep me prisoner anymore?
Could I charm my way to freedom?
The idea seems absurd. I’m not charming. I’m not clever or manipulative or seductive. I’m just Dylan, the anxious baker who can’t even stand up to his own brother.
But Dante doesn’t see me that way. Dante looks at me like I’m something precious. Something worth protecting. I don’t know if he is gay, or interested in experimenting. But I do know he looks at me like I’m something he wants to keep.
He might just be craving platonic companionship. That’s still a want, a need.
Maybe I could use that.
Maybe I could make him love me so much that he lets me go.
Or maybe I could simply make him trust me so completely that he gets careless. Leaves a door unlocked. Gives me access to a phone. Creates an opportunity for escape that I can seize when the moment is right.
It would take time. Patience. A willingness to pretend feelings I don’t have and swallow revulsion I do.
It would be dishonest. Manipulative. Everything I’ve never been and never wanted to be.
But I want to go home. I want to see Aunt Moira again. I want to stand in my bakery and feel flour between my fingers and know that I’m safe.
I want to live.
And if that means becoming someone I don’t recognize, someone harder and colder and more calculating than the Dylan who was dragged into this nightmare... then so be it.
Dante made me this way. He can deal with the consequences.
“What would you need?” he asks, oblivious to the revolution happening inside my head. “For baking. What equipment?”
I take a breath. Steady myself. Push down the guilt already churning in my stomach.
Then I smile at him. A real smile, or close enough to one that he won’t know the difference.