Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Dylan
Iwake to the sound of shouting.
For a moment, I’m disoriented. The room is dark, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside, and I can’t remember where I am. Then it all comes rushing back. Declan. The house. The note hidden in the floorboards.
He’s coming. Hold on.
I’ve been holding on. For days now, I’ve been holding on to those words like a lifeline. And now, in the middle of the night, something is finally happening.
The shouting gets louder. I scramble out of bed and press my ear to the door, trying to make sense of what’s happening.
“Fire! There’s a fire!” A man’s voice, panicked and loud. “The car’s on fire! Someone help!”
That voice. I know that voice.
Sean.
It makes no sense. It’s impossible. Ridiculous and absurd. But I know exactly what this is.
My heart slams against my ribs. It’s happening. It’s actually happening. Dante is here, and somehow Sean is here, and somehow they’ve found me. Somehow they’ve come for me.
Three different parts of my life, my evil twin, my wonderful friends, and my Dante, have all collided.
I hear footsteps pounding down the stairs. Guards shouting to each other, their voices fading as they rush toward the front of the house. The distraction is working.
I try the door handle, even though I know it’s locked. It doesn’t budge. I’m trapped in here, useless, while everything happens without me.
Then I hear something else. Closer. A thud, a grunt of pain, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor. Fighting, somewhere in the house. Getting nearer.
Please. Please let it be him.
The lock on my door rattles. Is this Dante? Has he found me? Is he about to burst through and sweep me into his arms like something out of a film?
The door flies open, and all my wild hopes die. It’s Declan.
He looks terrible. Wild-eyed, hair disheveled. He’s holding a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a strip of cloth in the other.
“Not a fucking sound,” he hisses, grabbing my arm and shoving the cloth into my mouth before I can react. I gag on it, the fabric rough against my tongue, but he’s already dragging me out of the room.
The hallway sounds like chaos. I can hear more fighting downstairs, shouts and crashes and what might be gunshots. Declan pulls me in the opposite direction, toward his study at the end of the hall.
“If you make any noise, I’ll kill you myself and tell everyone you died in the crossfire,” he snarls. “Understand?”
I nod, because what choice do I have? The gag makes it impossible to speak anyway.
He shoves open the study door and drags me inside. The room is dark, lit only by the glow from the dim lights in the garden below. But I can see the mantlepiece with its gun. The window overlooking the back wall. The closet with the slatted doors.
Declan opens the closet and shoves me inside.
I stumble, catching myself against the back wall. Declan yanks me around and quickly handcuffs my wrists to the clothes rail above my head. Then he slams the door shut.
The closet is small, cramped, full of coats that smell like dust and expensive cologne. But through the slats, I can see the whole room. The mantlepiece. The gun. The door.
“Stay quiet,” Declan hisses.
The study door bursts open.
And Dante is suddenly here.
He’s magnificent. Terrifying. Dressed in black, gun in hand, radiating violence like heat from a flame. His dark eyes scan the room, and land on Declan.
I hear Declan inhale sharply, and then something strange happens.
He transforms.
Through the gaps in the slats, I watch my brother change.
His shoulders hunch. His posture shifts, becoming smaller, more vulnerable.
The wild desperation in his eyes softens into something that looks almost like fear.
He even changes his breathing, making it quicker, shallower, like someone on the verge of panic.
He looks like me. He’s become me.
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut. He’s going to pretend to be me. He’s going to use our identical faces to trick Dante. My brother is going to con his way out of trouble yet again.
Dante looks at Declan, and his whole expression changes.
Softens.
No, I think desperately. No, no, no. Don’t fall for it. Please.
“Dante?” Declan breathes, and his voice is perfect. The exact pitch, the exact cadence, the way I say Dante’s name when I’m scared. “Oh God, you came. You actually came.”
Dante lowers his gun slightly. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. I’m okay now that you’re here.” Declan edges sideways, so casual, so natural.
Looking for all the world like he wants to embrace Dante but doesn’t want to get in the way of the battle.
All while he is moving towards the mantlepiece. Towards the gun.
My heart stops. My blood turns to ice. No, no, no! This cannot be happening!
“I knew you’d find me. I never stopped believing,” Declan gushes.
Dante lowers his gun. His shoulders relax.
I try to thrash against the closet door, but it’s just out of reach. I can barely brush against it. It rattles in its frame, but Dante doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are fixed on Declan, on the perfect imitation of me.
“I was so scared,” Declan continues, his voice trembling beautifully. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought about everything I wanted to say to you, everything I should have said before...”
His hand reaches toward the mantlepiece.
I try to swing against the door again. Once, twice. The third time, it rattles loudly enough that Dante’s eyes flicker toward the closet.
But Declan is faster. His fingers close around the gun.
And Dante punches him in the face.
The blow comes out of nowhere. One moment Declan is raising the gun, the next he’s on the floor, the weapon clattering away across the hardwood. Dante stands over him, shaking out his fist, his expression cold as ice.
“You’re nothing like Dylan,” he says flatly.
He calmly picks up Declan’s gun and tucks it into his own waistband.
Declan groans, blood streaming from his nose. “How...” he manages. “How did you...”
But Dante isn’t listening. He’s already turning toward the closet, and as he does, his whole demeanor changes. The cold violence melts away, replaced by something soft and desperate and achingly tender.
“Dylan? Are you in there?”
I make a sound behind the gag. It’s not a word, just a desperate noise, but in the newfound silence it’s enough.
Dante crosses the room in three strides and wrenches the closet door open. He yanks on the handcuffs holding my arms above my head, and the chain breaks. I tumble out, my legs tangled in suitcases, and he catches me before I hit the ground.
His hands are on my face immediately, pulling away the gag, cupping my cheeks, tilting my head so he can look at me properly.
“Dylan.” His voice breaks on my name. “Dylan, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
I can’t speak. There are tears streaming down my face and my throat is too tight and all I can do is grab fistfuls of his shirt and hold on.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, pulling me against his chest. His arms wrap around me, so tight I can barely breathe, and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything except that he’s here, he’s real, he came for me. “I’ve got you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I left you. I’m never leaving you again.”
“You came,” I manage finally, my voice muffled against his shoulder. “You actually came.”
“Of course I came.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are bright with something that might be tears. “I will always come for you, Dylan. Always.”
Behind us, Declan groans again. I feel Dante tense, his arms tightening around me protectively.
“How did you know?” I ask. “How did you know it wasn’t me?”
Dante’s expression softens even more. He reaches up and brushes a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“Because I know you,” he says simply. “I know the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you look at me. The kindness that shines out of you. He’s got the right face, but he couldn’t fake the rest. He couldn’t fake you.”
Something breaks open inside me at those words. All the fear and pain and loneliness of the past few days, all the doubt about whether Dante really cared, whether any of this was real. It all dissolves in the face of this simple truth.
He knows me. He sees me. He loves me.
I kiss him.
It’s messy and desperate and probably tastes like tears, but I don’t care. I need to feel him, need to prove to myself that this is real, that I’m not still locked in that room dreaming about rescue that will never come.
Dante kisses me back like I’m oxygen and he’s been drowning. His hands are in my hair, on my back, pulling me closer even though there’s no space left between us.
“I love you,” I gasp against his mouth. “I love you, Dante. I should have said it before.”
“I love you too.” He presses his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”
A sound from the doorway makes us both turn. An intimidating Italian man is standing there, looking slightly awkward but mostly relieved.
“The house is secure,” he says. “Declan’s men are dealt with. We should move.”
“Thanks, Carlo.” Dante nods, but he doesn’t let go of me. I don’t want him to.
“Can you walk?” he asks quietly.
“I think so.”
He helps me to my feet anyway, keeping one arm wrapped around my waist. I lean into him, too exhausted and overwhelmed to pretend I don’t need the support.
As we move toward the door, I glance back at Declan. He’s still on the floor, clutching his broken nose, glaring at us with pure hatred.
“This isn’t over,” he spits. “You think you’ve won? You haven’t won anything.”
Dante’s arm tightens around me. “Get him secured,” he tells Carlo. “Dylan gets to decide what happens to him.”
Carlo nods and moves toward Declan, and I let Dante guide me out of the room.
The hallway is full of people. I catch a glimpse of a face I recognize. Ginni, vibrating with barely contained energy. Looking like he’s at a birthday party and not a dangerous rescue mission.
And then, at the bottom of the stairs, a figure I don’t expect to see.
“Aunt Moira?”
She’s holding a shotgun. An actual shotgun. And when she sees me, her face crumples.
“Dylan.” She shoves the gun at someone, I don’t see who, and then she’s running up the stairs and pulling me into a hug so fierce it nearly knocks me over. “Oh, my sweet boy. My brave, wonderful boy.”
“How are you...” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t process any of this.
“Your young man found me,” she says, pulling back to cup my face in her hands.
Her eyes are wet. “Showed up at my door, bold as brass, and told me you needed help.” She glances at Dante, and there’s something complicated in her expression.
“We’ll talk about the rest later. For now, let’s get you out of here. ”
Behind her, I see two more familiar faces. Sean and Teagan, hovering at the bottom of the stairs, looking shell-shocked but relieved.
“Dylan!” Teagan’s voice cracks. “Oh my God, Dylan, you’re okay.”
“The car fire,” I say, still trying to piece everything together. “That was you?”
Sean grins, though it’s shaky. “Turns out I’m pretty good at creating chaos. Who knew?”
I want to hug them both. Want to thank them for being brave enough to walk into danger for me. But my legs are shaking and Dante’s arm is the only thing holding me up.
“Later,” Aunt Moira says firmly, reading my face. “Hugs and explanations later. Right now, we need to move.”
I nod, too overwhelmed to speak.
Dante’s hand finds mine, and I hold on tight.
We walk out of Declan’s house together, into the cool night air, surrounded by the people who came to save me.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, I feel like I can breathe.