Chapter 12
TWELVE
Dante kept his eyes on the road, his hands light on the wheel, but every nerve ending he possessed was tuned to the woman in the passenger seat. She was sitting as far away from him as the door would allow, staring out the window at the passing telephone poles.
The scent of her was filling the cabin. He shifted gears, the vibration of the Hemi rattling through the floorboards. He still wanted to scream at her. But mostly, he just wanted to pull the car over and hold her and tell her that he was going to make everything okay.
“You’re checking the mirror every ten seconds. And not for cops.”
Dante exhaled. “I’m making sure we aren't being followed.”
She finally turned toward him. Her eyes were tired, the blue looking washed out in the harsh morning light. But she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. “Who is the El Merc guy anyway?”
“I only met him twice,” Dante continued.
“Twice was enough to last me three lifetimes. He used to work in a place called Unidos Logistics that operated out of an old dartboard factory in El Paso. Inside was a distribution hub for enough heroin to keep the entire Eastern Seaboard high for a decade.” He glanced at the rearview mirror again, checking the empty horizon behind them.
“He didn’t walk; he strutted. He wore this complicated shoulder rig with two nickel-plated Desert Eagles. Flashy and arrogant. He had an entourage of mercenaries that made the local cartel guys look like Boy Scouts.”
Jessica shifted in her seat, her gaze fixed on his profile.
“He was the one who handled the drivers,” he continued.
“He paid triple, sometimes quadruple, for a big load. Men lined up for those jobs. But I never saw the same driver more than two or three times. Ferrera was paranoid as fuck. He lived in a world where everyone was a DEA plant. So, he had a policy for terminating his staff.”
Dante’s hand shifted to the gear stick. “And when El Merc terminated you, he didn't give you a pink slip. He gave you a hole in the head and a shallow grave in the scrubland.”
He finally looked at her, and the raw fear in his eyes was plain to see. “And now he’s out. And he knows we were the two people who helped the feds map out his entire logistics chain.”
“And you think he’s the one coming for us.”
“I know he is.” The certainty in his voice filled the car.
She looked away first, back out the window.
“And Trent?” she asked after a moment. “You really think he had something to do with them finding me?”
Dante felt something hot and immediate rise under his skin. “A local cop with a gambling problem and a girlfriend who won’t tell him where she came from?” he said. “That’s not a coincidence, Jessica.”
“He loves me.”
The words came out too quickly, like she needed them to be true.
Dante let out a laugh that had no humor in it. “He loves himself. If he loved you, he wouldn’t have given you up. You fit into his life without asking questions or giving answers.”
“You think you know me now because you knew me once?” she shot back.
“I know what you do when things get bad, you run toward whatever feels safe.”
Her head snapped toward him. “Is that what you think this is?”
“I think you moved in with a man who makes you feel like you don’t have to look over your shoulder.”
“And what do you have?” she snapped, her voice finally rising. “You have a car and a gun and a brother who looks at me like I’m a cancer. You don’t get to talk to me about love when you’ve spent the last two years hiding in a garage while I was out there trying to build something.”
“You weren't building something!” Dante roared, his foot hitting the floor. The ’Cuda surged forward, the speedometer needle jumping. “You were hiding too. Only you were doing it in a thong with a man who couldn't protect you from a rainy fucking day!”
“You don’t get to stand there and act like I’m the one who walked away from something perfect.”
Dante’s jaw flexed. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to keep his voice level. “You left.”
“Because I couldn’t breathe,” she snapped.
The car seemed to tighten around them.
“I couldn’t breathe in that house,” she went on. “Every time you changed a plan, every time you told me where not to go, who not to talk to, it felt like I was right back where I started. Different walls, but the same cage.”
“That’s not what it was.”
“It felt like it,” she said. “And you never listened when I tried to tell you that.”
Dante’s chest tightened. “I was trying to keep you alive,” he said.
“I know,” she replied, and for a second there was something softer in it, something that almost hurt more. “That’s the problem.”
He frowned. “How is that a problem?”
“Because I didn’t need you to decide everything for me. I needed you to trust that I could survive it, too.”
He shook his head slightly. “That’s not how this works.”
“That’s exactly how it works. Or it’s not a real life, Dante. It’s just waiting for something to go wrong.”
Something in him snapped a little then. “Something did go wrong. You left.”
“I had to.”
“You didn’t have to go back to this—” his hand lifted briefly, gesturing at her, at the dress, at everything he hated about where she’d ended up.
Her expression hardened. “Don’t,” she said.
“You think this is better?” he pushed. “You think this is what you deserved after everything?”
“At least it was my choice,” she fired back. “At least no one was making decisions for me.”
The words hung there, sharp and final.
Dante’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator without him fully registering it. The engine answered, the car surging forward, the road rushing up to meet them.
“Pull over,” Jessica said, her voice tight.
“No.”
“Dante.”
“We’re not stopping.”
“I said pull the damn car over, Dante! Or I swear to God, I’ll jump out at eighty miles an hour.”
The speedometer was a blur of white on black, the needle hovering near ninety.
“I said pull over!”
Dante didn’t look at her. His profile was carved from stone, his jaw set so hard the muscle in his cheek pulsed. He just gripped the steering wheel like he was trying to choke the life out of it.
“You think I’m joking?” Jessica’s hand flew to the door handle. The metallic snick of the lock disengaging was the loudest sound in the car. “I will open this door, Dante. I swear to God, I’ll do it.”
Air screamed against the frame as the door cracked open an inch, the rush of it immediate and violent.
The car jerked. Dante’s right hand flew off the gearshift, his fingers digging into her shoulder, anchoring her.
At the same time, his left hand wrenched the wheel.
The ’Cuda’s nose dived as he slammed on the brakes.
Tires screamed in a high-pitched, mechanical agony, and the smell of burning rubber instantly filled the cabin.
The car fishtailed, a wild shimmy that sent them skidding onto the gravel shoulder. Dust erupted around them, a tan cloud that swallowed the Texas sun and turned the windows into opaque walls.
Then, silence.
The engine ticked as it cooled. The dust settled slowly.
Jessica shoved the door open and stumbled out. The heat hit her like a physical blow—100 degrees of dry, relentless South Texas noon. She scrambled away from the car, her sneakers sinking into the loose dirt, her chest heaving as she tried to pull air into lungs that felt like they’d been crushed.
“Jessica!”
Dante’s door slammed. It sounded like a gunshot in the empty scrubland.
“Get back in the car,” he commanded. He was rounding the back of the ’Cuda, moving with that fluid, predatory grace that made her skin prickle.
“No!” She spun around to face him, her pink hair matted to her forehead with sweat. “I am done being moved like a piece on a chessboard, Dante. I spent eleven years being handled by the feds, and then a year handled by Trent, and I am not spending one more second being handled by you.”
He stopped ten feet away. Under the harsh sun, he looked every bit the man who had burned down half of Chicago to keep her safe.
“Handled?” He let out a sharp laugh. “I just pulled you out of a closet while the cartel was trying to turn you into a trophy. I’m not handling you, Julia. I’m saving you.”
“Don’t call me that,” she spat. “Julia is dead. She died in a dingy safe house while you were making deals with the U.S. Attorney.”
Dante flinched as if she’d struck him. He took two long strides, closing the distance between them before she could retreat.
He grabbed her upper arms. He was so close she could see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes, eyes that were currently burning with a mix of fury and something so much more dangerous.
“I didn't make a deal for me,” he hissed, his face inches from hers. “I made a deal so you wouldn't spend the rest of your life on the run.”
“Well that's really working out, isn't it!” She shoved against his chest, her palms meeting hard, unyielding muscle. “You left me with nothing but a ring and a memory that I had to pretend never happened. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have the only man you ever loved vanish into thin air without even a goodbye?”
Dante didn't pull away. He pinned her back against the hot metal of the ’Cuda.
The car was burning through her thin dress, but she barely felt it.
All she felt was him. The heat of his body, the scent of motor oil, the sheer, overwhelming weight of thirteen years of unfinished business between them.
He looked down at her mouth, his breath hitching. The anger between them was vibrating at a frequency that was rapidly shifting into something else.
Jessica’s hands, which had been pushed against his chest to keep him away, suddenly gripped the fabric of his shirt. She didn't know if she wanted to tear it or pull him closer.
“I hate you,” she breathed.
“I know,” he whispered. “I hate myself more.”
He lowered his head, his forehead resting against hers. They stood there in the middle of the Texas desert, two lost people clinging to each other.
“You can’t go back, Jess,” he said, his voice cracking. “That life is over. Again.”
Jessica closed her eyes. She pictured the shattered glass in her entryway.
She pictured Trent’s face—the possessive, lukewarm safety he’d offered.
It felt like a lifetime ago. This man, this violent, arrogant, beautiful man who had broken her heart over a decade ago, was the only real thing she had left.
She dragged in a breath, the heat sitting heavy in her lungs. “That plan of Ryan's,” she said. “Galveston. The guy with the boat.”
Dante’s gaze stayed on her. “Miller.”
She nodded once. “You actually trust that idea?”
“I think it’s the only option that doesn’t end with us running in circles until someone catches us,” he said. “As much as I dislike the guy, I don't think Ryan wouldn’t send us there if it was a dead end.”
She looked past him again, out at the empty road, but she wasn’t really seeing it anymore. “And once we go…” she said, quieter now, “that’s it.”
Dante didn’t rush to answer. “Yeah.”
“No coming back,” she went on. “No slipping back into something normal when this blows over.”
“You think this blows over?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said again, softer this time. “That’s it.”
“But we don’t do it because you’re saving me, Dante. We do it because I’m choosing to go.” She reached up, her fingers grazing the thin scar on his eyebrow.
He reached down, his hand wrapping around hers, and led her back to the passenger side. He didn't steer her this time; he waited for her to step in.
Jessica sat down in the leather seat, the smell of the cabin no longer feeling quite so much like a cage. She watched as Dante rounded the hood and slid into the driver’s seat.
He didn't start the engine immediately. He looked at her, his hazel eyes searching hers. “You okay?”
“No,” she said, a small, tired smile touching her lips.
Dante nodded. He turned the key, and the Hemi roared back to life.
She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. The last time she’d followed a plan like this, it had cost her everything.
The difference now was simple, and terrifying.
This time, no one was forcing her.