55. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Dante
They left the ranger station under the cover of dusk.
Dante killed the headlights, and they moved without chatter, a single silent hesitation before vanishing into the trees.
Dante drove like a ghost—fast, silent, and impossible to follow.
Alina watched the woods blur past the window, her pulse steady but sharp as she replayed the note in her mind: SHE WON’T SURVIVE THE NEXT ONE.
She didn't tell Dante how much it rattled her; she didn't need to. He felt it. His hand found hers on the console, his fingers threading through hers with a quiet certainty that made her chest ache. “We’re okay,” he murmured.
“I know,” she replied, though the woods felt different now. The birds had gone quiet in the wrong direction—away from the path ahead, not behind. It felt as though the traitor was already one step ahead.
Dante didn't take the main road, the back road, or even the forest road. He took a route only he knew—a path he had memorized years ago and never shared with anyone, not even Luca or his father. It was an emergency fallback he had never intended to use, let alone share with someone else. But Alina wasn’t just "someone else. " She was the only person he trusted.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “Somewhere safe.”
“Define safe,” she countered.
He smirked. “Somewhere even the traitor can’t find.”
The car turned onto a narrow dirt path that Alina never would have noticed. Branches scraped the sides of the vehicle, and the canopy overhead swallowed the last of the daylight. “Dante,” she whispered, “are you sure this is a road?”
“No,” he said. “That’s why it’s perfect.”
She laughed softly—the first real laugh she had shared since the attack. Dante glanced at her, his eyes softening. “There it is. That sound. I missed it.”
Alina’s cheeks warmed, but she didn't pull her hand away. As the trees opened into a clearing, a small cabin came into view, tucked against a rocky ridge. It was older than the ranger station and hidden so deeply in the woods that it might as well have been invisible.
“Dante… this place is—”
“Mine,” he finished quietly. “I built it when I was eighteen. I needed somewhere to disappear.”
She stepped out of the car, the air feeling colder, cleaner, and still. “Does anyone know about it?”
“No one,” he said. “Not even Luca.”
Alina went still. He wasn’t just trusting her; he was giving her something sacred.
The interior was a single, simple room with a cold wood stove, a small kitchen, and a narrow bed tucked against a wall near a shelf of old books.
It felt untouched—a secret, a memory, a place Dante had never shared with another soul.
“Why bring me here?” she asked.
He didn't look away. “Because I trust you. And because I need you alive.”
Her heart stuttered. She stepped closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He exhaled—a slow, shaky breath that betrayed how much he needed to hear those words.
He moved to the door and opened it with a hefty shove.
Setting their bags down he locked the door, not because he feared the traitor was currently at their heels, but because he needed a barrier between the world and this moment.
Alina stood by the window, watching the trees sway in the wind. Dante walked up behind her, not touching, just close. “Dante, do you think the traitor followed us?”
“No,” he said. “But they will try.”
“Then we plan,” she said.
He nodded. “Tomorrow. Tonight, we rest.”
They sat at the small table, sharing a simple meal of soup and bread in a silence that was warm, comfortable, and intimate.
Every time their knees brushed, her pulse jumped; every time he looked at her, she forgot her own thoughts.
When she stood to wash the dishes, Dante stepped beside her—close enough that his arm brushed hers, close enough that she felt his breath on her neck.
“Alina,” he murmured.
She turned to him. He didn’t kiss her, but he looked at her as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered. “We’re going to win this,” he whispered.
“I know,” she replied.
“But first,” he said softly, “we survive the night.”
They lay in the narrow bed, not touching, but close.
Dante stared at the ceiling, his jaw tight as he processed the weight of her trust. The traitor was moving, the Vescari were regrouping, and the war was far from over—but Alina was here, alive and safe.
For the first time, he allowed himself to believe that could be enough.
He closed his eyes. Tonight they would rest; tomorrow, they would work out the next part of their plan. Knowing somewhere in the dark woods, the traitor was already hunting.