Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Dylan
The flat is quiet.
Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you aware of every creak and groan of the concrete building, every distant rumble of traffic. The kind of quiet that leaves far too much room for thinking.
I’m sitting on the horrible orange sofa, staring at the metal shutters that cover the windows. They’re solid. Industrial. The kind of shutters you’d see on a warehouse or a shop in a rough neighborhood. Not the kind of thing that should be a part of someone’s home.
Unless that someone has something to hide. Or someone.
Or you’re a torturer for a powerful mafia family and your so-called home is a miserable flat disguised as an industrial unit.
I sigh heavily as my fingers trace the worn velvet of the cushion beneath me. I need to stop moping and start acting.
I should be cataloging details. Noting patterns. Looking for weaknesses in my prison that I might be able to exploit.
It’s part of the plan. The grand scheme. Operation Manipulate The Murderer And Escape With My Life Intact.
The name could use some work.
Dante left about an hour ago. He didn’t say where he was going, just that he had errands to run and that I should rest. As if I could rest. As if my brain ever stops churning long enough for actual relaxation.
But his absence does give me an opportunity. A chance to explore without those intense dark eyes tracking my every movement.
I stand up from the sofa and immediately feel guilty. Which is ridiculous. I’m a prisoner. Prisoners are supposed to try to escape. It’s practically in the job description.
Still, the guilt sits heavy in my stomach as I move toward the front door. Just to look. Just to see.
Along with the guilt, something that feels an awful lot like dread and terror is swirling in my guts. It’s a very nausea-inducing sensation. And very understandable, given how last time I tried to look for escape routes, I ended up having a breakdown.
Somehow, I make it to the front door. It’s solid, reinforced with what looks like a steel plate on the inside. There are three locks, all requiring keys from both sides. No deadbolts I can turn from within. No chains I can unhook.
I already knew this. I’ve walked past this door a hundred times. But knowing and confirming are different things, and I need to be thorough.
The windows next. I move through the bedroom, then the tiny kitchen, examining each one. They’re all covered with those metal shutters, bolted from the outside. No handles or latches on my side. No way to open them without tools.
Even if I could get them open, I have no idea what’s on the other side. Could be a sheer drop. Could be a private courtyard where no one would hear me scream.
Not that I’m planning to scream. Screaming seems counterproductive.
The bathroom has a small window near the ceiling, but it’s barely big enough for a cat to squeeze through, let alone a fully grown man. Even a small, somewhat malnourished, fully grown man who hasn’t been eating properly due to kidnapping-related stress.
The only room left to check is beyond that reinforced door. The one that leads to unspeakable horrors. The one whose existence I’m deleting from my mind, and certainly never going anywhere near, ever again.
Which means I’ve checked everywhere. I stand in the middle of the hallway and take stock of my findings.
Exactly nothing useful. Brilliant.
My grand escape plan is going swimmingly. At this rate, I’ll be free by the time I’m ninety. Assuming Dante doesn’t get bored and kill me first. Or the family decides I’m a liability. Or I die of old age on that wretched sofa.
I’m spiraling. I can feel it happening, the way my thoughts pick up speed and tumble over each other like clothes in a dryer.
Aunt Moira always said I had a tendency toward catastrophic thinking.
She said it kindly, with warm hands wrapped around a cup of tea, as if it were a charming quirk rather than a fundamental personality flaw.
I miss her so much it physically hurts.
Focus, Dylan. Focus on your plan. Focus on what you can control.
I can’t control the locks or the windows or the shutters. I knew this, it’s hardly some great revelation. But I can control how Dante sees me. I can make myself useful, indispensable, someone he wants to keep around. Someone he trusts.
And eventually, inevitably, he’ll slip up. He’ll leave a door unlocked or a phone unattended, or he’ll trust me enough to take me outside. And when that happens, I’ll be ready.
Or perhaps I’ll manage to charm him so much, he decides he wants to let me go. Just to make me happy. Or because he thinks he loves me.
That’s what you do with people you love, isn’t it? Set them free? If I make Dante fall for me, he’ll want to unlock that door.
The thought should make me feel better. Instead, it just makes me feel tired.
I wander back to the kitchen because I don’t know what else to do with myself. The equipment Dante bought me is still neatly arranged in the cupboards and on the shelves. Mixing bowls and measuring cups and that beautiful stand mixer that I still haven’t properly christened.
Maybe I should bake something. Baking always helps me think. And it would be a nice gesture, something to continue building the illusion of a willing captive settling into his new life.
The illusion. Right. That’s all it is.
I open the fridge and examine its contents. Eggs, butter, milk, cream. Some vegetables that are starting to look a bit sad. Cheese. Various condiments.
Not a lot to work with, but I could make a quiche. Or maybe some Welsh cakes, if there’s enough sugar in the cupboard.
I’m halfway through checking the pantry when I hear the front door open.
My heart lurches into my throat. Three locks clicking open, one after another. The sound of the door swinging inward, then closed. Footsteps in the hallway.
I stay frozen with my hand on a bag of flour, trying to look natural. Trying to look like someone who was definitely not just casing the joint for escape routes.
Do people still say casing the joint? That feels like something from an old gangster movie. Aunt Moira loved those. She’d watch them on Sunday afternoons with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, and I’d sit beside her pretending to do homework while secretly getting invested in the plot.
Dylan. Focus.
Dante appears in the kitchen doorway, and I nearly drop the flour.
He’s carrying bags. Multiple bags, from what looks like several different shops. His arms are full of them, rustling and bulging with mysterious contents. And he’s slightly out of breath, like he’s been hurrying, which has put a faint flush across his cheekbones that makes him look almost...
No. I’m not going there.
Except my brain has already gone there, hasn’t it?
Several times. I’ve already noticed how unfairly attractive he is, with his dark hair and olive skin and those cheekbones that could cut glass.
He’s tall too. Properly tall, the kind of tall that makes me feel small in a way that should be threatening but somehow isn’t.
If he walked into the bakery, I’d probably fumble his change. Give him an extra fiver by accident because I was too busy staring at his jaw to count properly. Sean would tease me about it for weeks.
This is not a helpful observation, Dylan.
“You’re up,” he says. Not accusatory. Just observational.
“I was going to bake something,” I blurt.
“Maybe Welsh cakes? Or a quiche? I wasn’t sure what we had, so I was checking, and I thought, why not be productive, you know?
Since I’m here and the kitchen is here and the ingredients are here, well, some ingredients, not all ingredients, which is why I was checking, and. ..”
I’m rambling. Again. Sweet Jesus, why can’t I ever just say one normal sentence like a normal person?
Dante sets the bags on the counter. Something in his expression shifts, going soft around the edges in a way that makes my stomach do a strange little flip.
“I bought some things,” he says.
“I can see that.”
Brilliant observation, Dylan. Truly stunning detective work.
He starts unpacking the bags, and I watch with growing confusion as item after item emerges. Lemons. Vanilla pods. Almond flour. Powdered sugar. A bottle of rosewater. Pistachio nuts.
His hands are deft as he works, long fingers handling each item with care. I’ve noticed his hands before, obviously. Hard not to, given what they’re capable of. But right now they just look like nice hands. Strong. Capable. The kind of hands that would be good at...
Stop it. Stop it right now.
“I wasn’t sure what brand you preferred,” Dante says, pulling out three different types of butter. “So I got several.”
I stare at the array of ingredients spreading across the counter. It’s not random. It’s not a general grocery run. These are specific things. Specialist things. Things you’d need to make...
“Macarons,” I whisper.
Dante pauses with a bag of egg whites in his hand. “You mentioned you’d never tried making them properly. That you’d attempted once and it was a disaster. Something about hollow shells?”
I did mention that. What feels like ages ago. In passing. A throwaway comment while we were eating the scones, something about how I’d mastered most baking but macarons still eluded me. I hadn’t thought he was even listening.
“You remembered,” I say, and my voice comes out strange. Thin and wobbly.
“Of course I remembered.”
He says it like it’s obvious. Like remembering a casual comment about failed macarons is the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s not wildly thoughtful and unexpectedly sweet and completely at odds with everything I know about this man.
This man who tortured me. Who kept me in the dark. Who made me watch things that will forever haunt my nightmares.
This man who turned his chair to face the wall because I asked him not to watch me.