Chapter 10
Harlow
The sea.
Endless. Shimmering. Cruel in its beauty.
Deadly.
I watched it from the moment I opened my eyes, the only thing I could bear to look at without shattering completely.
I could feel my husband’s gaze burning against the side of my face.
And Mattia’s, too.
Mattia.
A painful squeeze tightened around my heart.
The last thing I remembered was the stone cold floor of that basement, my body half dead, my soul almost gone. And now, looking around, I was back in Dante’s house.
He found me.
He saved me.
When I first woke, disoriented and adrift, it was the sight of my husband’s face that stirred something inside my deadened heart. And then Mattia came running in, and seeing them both, almost broke me.
I couldn’t afford to feel. I didn’t dare. Because if I allowed even a sliver of emotion to take root, everything would come crashing down, everything I had endured, everything I had lost.
I needed to be numb.
So I buried the feelings deep, ramming them into the farthest corners of my soul until there was nothing left. Nothing but emptiness.
I wished it had worked.
Earlier, Bianca had brought breakfast, her hands trembling with joy, her eyes brimming with tears. Then Giovanni had rushed in, along with my brothers, Enzo, Niccolò, and Darion, and soon after came Leonardo and Mario.
They were relieved, overjoyed, eager to see me.
It was too much.
And Dante, of course, noticed. He missed nothing. He watched me the way a hawk studies a wounded creature, ready to shield or strike as needed.
Without a word, he cleared the room. Kicked them all out, more accurately.
Leaving only himself and Mattia.
And the endless, shimmering, merciless sea.
They take care of me, attentive to every need, each glance laced with worry.
I don’t deserve them.
I don’t deserve anything.
Not after what I’ve done...
The thought rushes through me like a riptide, and I shove it down, locking it away before it can drown me.
I sit propped against the pillows now, staring out the window. My ribs ache deep and sharp. The doctor had come earlier to check me over. He gave me strong painkillers because my side was in agony, I could hardly breathe, let alone move. Now, the pain is dulled, a simmering throb instead of the earlier, brutal fire.
Dante studies me carefully.
“Do you think you could manage a few steps to the bathroom?”
he asks, cautious.
I lift my gaze to his, and with the barest incline of my head, I answer him. Words elude me, trapped somewhere deep within, strangled by the cruel workings of my own mind. I cannot tell whether I am truly incapable of speaking, or if some buried instinct warns me, knowing the moment I allow my voice to break free, I will shatter beyond repair.
My husband offers a rare, gentle smile, so at odds with the lethal man the world knows him to be. Rising from the bed, he moves, circling to my side. His hand finds my waist, steadying me as I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress. The moment I stand, an acute bolt of pain lances through my body, and a soft hiss slips past my lips.
Dante goes rigid, every muscle in his body coiled with a feral kind of worry.
“Tell me what you need,”
he demands, urgently.
Mattia glances up from his iPad, his beautiful face drawn tight with anxiety.
Their care presses down on me, heavier than any wound, heavier than the bruises etched across my skin.
Silently, I shake my head.
The pain I feel, I have earned it. Every breath that scrapes through my broken body is a penance I am not yet finished paying.
I draw in a shallow breath, the most my fractured ribs will allow, and take a tentative step forward. Slowly, haltingly. Dante bears almost all my weight as he guides me toward the bathroom, his touch fierce and unyielding, as though willing his strength into me.
Inside, he hesitates, his hands hovering.
“Allow me to help you,”
he murmurs, almost guttural.
“You can’t do this alone.”
I nod once more.
With infinite tenderness, Dante lifts the hem of the T-shirt I’m wearing—his T-shirt, and eases it over my head. It slips from his hands and falls soundlessly to the floor, forgotten.
I sit there, stripped and fragile, as Dante helps me lower onto the edge of the bathtub. He turns away briefly to adjust the water, steam rising between us in slow, ghostly tendrils. Wordlessly, he steadies me, guiding me to the sink, and presses my toothbrush into my trembling hand.
I force myself not to think, not to feel, the shame clawing up my throat, the humiliation of needing this much help simply to exist, to do the most human things.
Who am I to mourn my lost dignity? After all that was done, after all I failed to stop, what right do I have to weep for myself?
Once the tub is full, Dante turns to me, his movements careful. He gathers me in his arms, carrying me like something precious, breakable. I flinch at the movement, a gasp slipping free, but he murmurs apologies against my hair and lowers me into the hot water with painstaking care.
The warmth soothes my battered body, and for a moment, I almost feel human again. My husband gives me a few minutes to simply soak before reaching for the bottle of shampoo.
“I’m going to wash your hair now, love.”
Dante says, his voice low and rough, yet so gentle it nearly undoes me.
I say nothing. We sit in silence, broken only by the soft whisper of water. His fingers work the lather into my scalp with delicate, almost hesitant care. He massages the roots, working methodically through the tangled length of my hair, mindful not to tug or cause me pain. It’s clear he’s never done this before, but he tries, and somehow, he does it beautifully.
All this gentleness, all this care, it crashes against the walls I built around myself, threatening to flood everything. So I shove it all back down, locking it away where it can’t touch me.
It was easier when I was numb. Being here, with him, with Mattia, with my family, they wake things in me I’m not ready to feel.
He conditions my hair next, then helps me wash my body, my movements slow and stiff. I can barely lift my arms without wincing.
Once we’re finished, Dante carefully lifts me out of the tub, wrapping me in a thick towel. He dries me gently, moving around me like I might shatter if he presses too hard. Another towel soaks the dripping strands of my hair.
Waiting on the vanity is a fresh pair of panties and another clean T-shirt, I recognize as his. He helps me dress, his touch never lingering, never straying. Just pure, focused care. His scent wraps around me as the soft fabric settles against my skin, and I draw in a shaky breath. It grounds me more than anything else could.
The bath has drained what little strength I had left. Dante sees it instantly. Without a word, he gathers me in his arms again, carrying me back to the bedroom. He props me up with pillows, arranging them until I’m comfortable, fussing over me like a man utterly undone.
For the first time in forever, I feel clean.
But still stained somehow.
I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. But I caught a glimpse, just enough to see the bruises marring my face, are already fading. Indicating that it must have been days since Dante brought me home.
After he helps me settle back into bed, he crosses to the other side and sinks down, propping himself against the headboard. His laptop rests on his thighs, his fingers moving quietly over the keys.
Mattia sits nearby in the chair he’s claimed all day, playing a video game on his iPad.
Now and then, I feel their eyes flick toward me, quick, searching glances. But they don’t say much. They don’t push. They seem to understand that all I want is silence.
The day passes in a hush, thick and heavy.
Bianca brings lunch, then dinner when the sky outside turns black.
I can’t eat. I can barely drink the water they give me. When dinner comes, Dante coaxes a few spoonfuls of soup into my mouth, insisting I need something in my stomach to take my medicine. I force it down, swallowing against the nausea clawing at my throat.
But the problem isn’t the food, it’s the wreckage inside me, the guilt I can’t escape.
I sit in a warm bed, with nourishment I can’t even bring myself to accept, surrounded by people who care for me, and I don’t deserve any of it.
Not after what I’ve done.
Not after what happened to those girls.
Girls who now lie cold in the ground because of me.
I clench my hand into a fist, digging my nails into my palm until they break the skin, as if the pain from my broken ribs isn’t enough—as if hurting myself could drown out the guilt I can’t escape.
The sea outside is just a black void now, the horizon swallowed by night. But I keep my gaze locked on the window, on the faint glimmer of stars, on the pale sweep of the moon.
The sound of Dante’s voice slices through the quiet, making me flinch even though he speaks gently, almost as if he’s afraid to startle me.
“It’s late, Mattia. You should go to bed. You have football practice in the morning. And Harlow needs rest too.”
“I don’t want to go,”
Mattia mumbles, stubbornly.
“You’ve already missed too many practices,”
Dante replies, calm but firm.
“They’ll kick you off the team.”
A heavy sigh drifts from Mattia. “Fine,”
he grumbles, standing up.
Dante rises too, carefully helping me lie back against the pillows. His hands are steady, the covers pulled up gently around me, tucked with a tenderness that breaks something inside my chest.
He turns back to Mattia.
“I’ll come put you to bed,” he says.
I don’t have to look to know he is rolling his eyes at his father. I hear it in the long, exasperated breath he lets out.
I keep my eyes locked on the window, on the stars.
But then I feel Mattia move closer and my whole body tenses, bracing.
“Good night, Harlow.”
He whispers.
I feel him pause beside the bed, and then, in a breath, he leans down and presses a soft, feather light kiss against my cheek.
So careful. So heartbreakingly gentle.
I don’t move. I don’t blink. I don’t even breathe.
I just keep staring at the same fixed point in the night sky, my vision blurring, my throat tightening until it aches. Tears sting behind my eyes, hot and vicious.
I choke them back.
I will not cry.
He pulls back. Something inside me breaks, something I had been holding onto with everything I had, and my composure shatters, vanishing as if it had never existed.
The door clicks softly shut behind them.
The first tear slips down my cheek. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the others back, willing them to disappear. I don’t deserve my husband, nor Mattia or my family.
Not after everything.
Not after what I allowed.
Not after what I became.
I deserve no forgiveness.
I deserve no mercy.
I deserve to die.