Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Dylan
Ican’t sleep.
The flat is silent. Completely, utterly silent. Dante had the soundproofing done days ago, installed by men who didn’t ask questions and worked with terrifying efficiency. I know this. I know that whatever is happening in the torture chamber down the hall, I won’t hear a single sound.
But I keep listening anyway.
I lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling, straining my ears for something that won’t come. The creak of a floorboard. A muffled cry. Anything that might tell me what’s happening in there, even though I desperately don’t want to know.
My imagination fills in the gaps. I picture the room I was in, the chair I was tied to, the tools that lined the walls. I picture Dante moving through that space with cold precision, doing the things he’s so very good at.
I picture someone screaming.
My stomach churns. I roll onto my side and press my face into the pillow, as if that could somehow block out the images in my head.
Whoever is in there is a bad person. That’s what I tell myself. Dante doesn’t torture innocents. He said so himself, and I believe him, because I have to believe him. Because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.
But does it matter? Does it matter if someone is a criminal, a traitor, a monster in their own right? Does that make it okay to hurt them? Does that make it acceptable to tear them apart piece by piece until they tell you what you want to know?
I don’t have answers. I don’t have anything except this sick, hollow feeling in my chest and the knowledge that I’m lying here doing nothing while someone suffers.
It feels like participating. Like condoning. Like being complicit in something terrible simply by existing in this space, eating Dante’s food, wearing Dante’s clothes, starting to care about Dante in ways I can’t explain or justify.
But what else can I do?
Nothing. That’s the answer. I can do nothing. I’m weak and powerless and completely useless. Locked in a flat with no way out, no way to help, no way to change anything about this awful situation.
Declan would know what to do. Declan always knew what to do.
He is clever and resourceful and utterly ruthless when he needs to be.
If Declan were in my position, he would know how to stop Dante from torturing someone, if he wanted to.
Not that Declan would give a shit, but that’s irrelevant because Declan wouldn’t even be in this situation in the first place.
He’d have escaped weeks ago. He’d have manipulated Dante into submission, found the weakness in the security, slipped away into the night without a backward glance.
But I’m not Declan. I’ve never been Declan. I’m just Dylan, the disappointing twin, the one who couldn’t even manage to be kidnapped correctly.
The tears come before I can stop them. Hot and silent, soaking into the pillow. I cry for the person in the torture chamber whose name I’ll never know. I cry for myself, trapped and helpless and so confused about everything. I cry for Dante, which makes no sense at all but happens anyway.
Eventually, exhaustion wins. I drift into an uneasy sleep, haunted by dreams as dark as my thoughts.
I wake to someone staring at me.
A face hovers inches from mine. Dark eyes, dark hair, features that are startlingly pretty in the dim light filtering through the doorway.
I yelp and scramble backward, heart pounding, tangling myself in the sheets in my panic. My back hits the headboard and I press against it, gasping.
The figure straightens up but doesn’t move away.
Now that my eyes are adjusting, I can see more details.
It’s a young man, probably around my age or a little younger.
He’s wearing tiny shorts and knee-high socks, paired with a loose t-shirt that’s slipping off one shoulder.
His dark hair is artfully tousled. His face is all delicate angles and full lips and those huge dark eyes that are studying me with open curiosity.
He looks like he just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Or a very specific type of website.
“Are you Dante’s pet?” he asks.
The question is so unexpected that I just stare at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
Before I can form any kind of response, footsteps thunder down the hallway. Dante bursts through the doorway, looking more rattled than I’ve ever seen him. His shirt is untucked, his hair disheveled, and there’s genuine worry etched into his features.
“Ginni!” The name comes out sharp. A warning.
The pretty boy pouts. Actually pouts, lower lip pushing out in an expression of exaggerated disappointment.
“I was introducing myself,” he says, his voice carrying a slight Italian accent. “Because it’s rude not to. You’ve been hiding him away in here and I was curious.”
Dante sighs heavily. His shoulders relax, then he pinches the bridge of his nose. For a moment he looks less like a terrifying mafia torturer and more like a man with a headache.
“Dylan, this is Ginni, my apprentice.” He gestures between us with obvious reluctance. “Ginni, this is Dylan, my... guest.”
Guest. That’s a new one.
Ginni’s eyes light up with interest. “Guest,” he repeats, drawing the word out like he’s tasting it. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“Ginni.” Dante’s voice has dropped to something dangerous. “We have work to do.”
For a moment, Ginni looks like he might argue. Then he shrugs one elegant shoulder and turns toward the door.
“Nice to meet you, Dylan,” he says over his shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.”
Then he’s gone, sauntering down the hallway like he owns the place. Dante follows, pausing just long enough to give me a look I can’t interpret before pulling the door closed behind him.
I stare at the empty doorway.
What the fuck?
My heart is still racing, though I’m not sure anymore if it’s from fear or confusion or something else entirely. I replay the encounter in my mind, trying to make sense of it.
Ginni. Dante’s apprentice. Pretty as a picture and apparently comfortable enough to wander into my room in the middle of the night wearing practically nothing.
Apprentice in what, exactly? Torture? Is that pretty boy in the torture chamber right now, learning how to make people scream?
The thought is disturbing on multiple levels.
But what disturbs me more, what I really don’t want to examine too closely, is the hot twist of something in my gut when I think about Ginni’s delicate features and huge dark eyes.
He’s beautiful. Objectively, undeniably beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes people stop and stare. The kind of beautiful that probably gets him whatever he wants.
Is he more than Dante’s apprentice?
The question slithers into my mind and won’t leave. They work together. Ginni seems comfortable around Dante, comfortable enough to sass him and pout at him and wander around his flat half-dressed. And Dante... Dante looked worried when he came rushing in. Protective.
What exactly is going on in the torture chamber?
I shouldn’t care. I definitely shouldn’t care. Whatever Dante does with his apprentice is none of my business. I’m a prisoner, not a... not a anything. Not anything that would give me the right to feel this ugly, churning sensation in my stomach.
This isn’t jealousy. It can’t be jealousy. That would be insane.
I flop back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling until morning.
Sleep doesn’t come.
Breakfast is a stilted affair.
Dante looks exhausted. There are dark circles under his eyes and a tension in his shoulders that speaks to a long, difficult night. He’s made coffee and toast, simple fare that he’s eating mechanically, without apparent enjoyment.
I pick at my own toast and try to think about anything other than Ginni.
I fail.
“So,” I hear myself say. “Ginni is very pretty.”
Dante keeps eating. Doesn’t even look up.
“Yes.”
One word. Flat and uninflected. Giving nothing away.
The ugly feeling in my stomach intensifies. I should drop it. I should absolutely drop it. This is none of my business, and pursuing it will only lead to awkwardness and possibly danger.
“Is he...” I swallow hard. “Is he your boy?”
Boy, not boyfriend, because dangerous men sometimes keep pretty boys for fun. No feelings involved. No sexuality questioned. A practice that’s frowned upon but tolerated in certain circles.
Dante chokes on his toast.
He actually chokes, coughing and sputtering, reaching for his coffee to wash down whatever went wrong. When he finally looks at me, his expression is caught somewhere between horrified and incredulous.
“Cristo!” He shakes his head vehemently. “Hell no! Ginni is a capo’s wife.”
I blink. Process. Blink again.
“Oh.” Relief floods through me, followed immediately by embarrassment. “Oh, Ginni is a girl? I’m so sorry, I just assumed from the... the general...”
Dante shakes his head again. “No, Ginni is a man. But he prefers to be called Carlo’s wife instead of husband.”
I stare at him.
There’s a lot to unpack here. A lot that doesn’t fit with my assumptions about how criminal organizations work.
The crime family I was born into, the O’Sheas, with their rigid hierarchies and brutal enforcement of traditional values, would never have accepted something like this.
A capo with a male wife? Using feminine terms by choice?
Dressing like that? They would have... well.
I don’t like to think about what they would have done.
But apparently this family is different. Apparently Dante’s employers are perfectly fine with gay marriage and unconventional gender identities.
Who knew the Italian mafia would be more progressive than the Irish one?
“That’s...” I search for the right word. “That’s surprisingly accepting.”
Dante shrugs. “Carlo is valuable. Ginni makes him happy. The family is practical about such things.”
Practical. Right. Because love is acceptable as long as it doesn’t interfere with business.
Still, it’s more than I expected. More than I grew up with. More than I ever thought I’d find in the criminal underworld. More grace than I was ever given.
And then a different thought pushes its way to the front of my mind, shoving aside all the sociological observations and old wounds.
“You agreed Ginni is pretty!”
The words burst out before I can stop them. Dante’s eyebrows rise.
“You said yes.” I can feel heat climbing up my cheeks, but I can’t seem to shut up. “When I said he was pretty, you agreed. Does that mean you... you’re attracted to men?”
The moment the question leaves my mouth, I want to take it back.
Holy Mary, what am I doing? This family might be surprisingly lenient, but still, outright asking a mafia torturer about his sexuality is not generally conducive to continued good health.
Men have died for less. Men have been beaten and broken and left in ditches for daring to suggest that someone like Dante might be anything other than rigidly, violently heterosexual.
But Dante doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look offended or threatening or any of the things I might have expected.
He just looks at me. Those dark eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
“Yes,” he says.
One word. Simple and direct. No hesitation, no shame, no caveat.
Yes.
My heart does something complicated in my chest. A flutter, a skip, a strange swooping sensation that has no business existing in this context.
This is nothing to be happy about. Absolutely nothing. The fact that Dante is attracted to men doesn’t change our situation. Doesn’t change what he is or what he’s done or the fact that I’m his prisoner.
Except.
Except it means that seduction is definitely on the table.
As an escape strategy, I mean. I’d already been considering it as a possibility, figuring that even straight men sometimes respond to persistent attention, especially lonely ones.
But now... now I know he actually likes men. This is wonderful.
For escape purposes, of course.
Nothing else.
Sweet Jesus, why did I think of that phrase? On the table. Now I’m picturing... things. Things I should absolutely not be picturing about my captor, regardless of his sexuality or his cheekbones or the way he’s still looking at me like he’s waiting for my reaction.
“Oh,” I manage. “That’s... good to know. I mean, not that it matters. Why would it matter? It doesn’t matter at all. I was just curious. Making conversation. Normal breakfast conversation about... about sexuality and pretty apprentices and...”
I shove a piece of toast in my mouth to stop myself from talking.
Dante’s lips twitch. That almost-smile that I’m becoming dangerously fond of.
“Eat your breakfast, Dylan,” he says, and goes back to his coffee.
I chew my toast and try to calm my racing thoughts.
This changes things. This definitely changes things. I knew Dante was lonely, knew he was starved for connection and kindness. My plan has always been to exploit that, to make him care about me enough to lower his guard or even choose to let me go.
But now I have another avenue. A more direct approach. If Dante is attracted to men, and if I can make him attracted to me specifically...
I think about yesterday. The dinner, the conversation, and before that, the way he looked at me when I cried over my macarons. The way his voice went rough when I touched his arm. The way he said my name, like it meant something to him.
Maybe I don’t need to do anything. Maybe it’s already happening. Maybe Dante is already attracted to me, already falling, already so tangled up in whatever this is that he threatened to kill his friend just to keep me safe.
The thought should be triumphant. Should feel like victory, like my plan is working better than I ever hoped.
Instead, it just makes me feel confused.
Because when I think about Dante being attracted to me, when I think about using that attraction to escape, I don’t feel clever or strategic.
I feel guilty.
And underneath the guilt, buried so deep I almost don’t recognize it, I feel something else.
Something that might be hope.