16. Dante
DANTE
A sinking feeling pulls at me, tugging against my enthusiasm for the deal at the table.
Trusting my gut has served me well in business—better than any spreadsheet or due diligence report.
The men continue discussing terms enthusiastically, as though they haven't noticed the shift in my demeanor.
The quieting. The way I've begun watching all of them with the careful attention of a man who suspects he's being manipulated.
Something isn't right.
There's a buzzing sound in my ear.
I keep turning to look over my shoulder, certain a fly flutters nearby. Some irritant that draws my attention away. Yet nothing is there. Gleaming oak walls. Polished windows. The luminous, never-sleeping city sprawled beneath me like a kingdom.
My father once said I'd never work in finance again.
Not after I walked out of his hedge fund with blood on my knuckles and ice in my chest. And he was right—I never did.
Instead, I turned to private equity. Acquisitions.
The patient art of identifying undervalued companies and reshaping them into something profitable.
I started as an analyst at a mid-tier firm and vowed it would be the last time I used my father's name on my résumé.
I had nothing left to live for aside from work.
Aside from proving myself. Securing myself.
So I worked.
Eighty hours a week. Then a hundred.
And I rose. Up one building, then another. From analyst to associate to principal to partner.
Now I sit atop the world, looking down. My personal holdings are so well arranged that if I never worked another day in my life, I'd be secure for three lifetimes.
But I'm good at what I do. Good at reading people.
Good at numbers. Good at keeping emotion out of the equation and making decisions others find too cold to stomach.
Untouched pastries sit in the center of the table, smelling faintly of cinnamon and butter. Of Christmas mornings and fresh things coming out of the oven. It dredges up memories I don’t possess, but they linger anyway, right on the edge of recognition.
Tears prick my eyes unexpectedly, and I blink them away rapidly.
This is unacceptable. I don't understand where this is coming from.
Perhaps it's the bad feeling wrapping around my bones, keeping me from lifting the pen, signing the forms. Perhaps it's because this time of year is dense with my worst memories.
Any man, no matter how disciplined, is prone to the occasional moment of foolish sentimentalism.
I look back at the door.
No one is there. But it feels imperative that I rise, walk to it, whisper, don't go. Which makes no logical sense.
I'm not signing this paperwork. Things that seem too good to be true usually are. And something in me knows this entire arrangement is wrong. Every instinct I've honed over fifteen years is screaming. Abruptly, I stand.
"Mr. Dante," Whitmore glances up at me, his brow furrowed, "everything all right?"
"Why do you call me Mr. Dante?"
He frowns. "Sir?"
A flicker of memory surfaces. A furrowed brow beneath golden curls. Lips quirking into a smirk. Ancient eyes that hold too much sorrow for their youthful face. The disrespectful drop of a title to my name that inexplicably feels less like disrespect and more like recognition.
"Dante! Please!"
The scream breaks through in a rush right as water spills over my mouth. I choke, sucking in sludge, choking on grit and salt and grime. I sputter and slash my arms forward, attempting to swim, but the water drags me down.
"Dante?"
"Virgil?!" I gasp.
He’s here, in the water beside me, tears streaming down his face, his eyes bright and searing. He's not swimming, though. Not struggling.
"How do we get out?" I jut my chin above the waterline.
Virgil rises slightly, pulling himself up, gravity merely a suggestion to him. His sweater doesn't even appear damp, much less muddied or damaged. He releases a shaky breath. "You broke the loop."
"I'm drowning."
"I can't help you." Virgil sounds desperate. Hopeless.
I remember, then. I'm in hell. I'm dead. I was consumed by a loop. "Damn it," I scream, releasing all the mortal restraint I'd so carefully armored myself with. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
"Swim, Dante! Try to make it to shore!" Virgil pushes himself forward toward a narrow spit of sand that stretches ahead and leads into darkening mist.
I follow, holding in my panic and fury, and swim.
I focus on the strokes, my arms crashing into the water.
The suit jacket drags me down, forcing my head under.
I come up to Virgil crying my name, and I fumble with the buttons—the jacket, the vest, four thousand dollars of Italian wool—and let it sink.
Then I push again. One arm. Then another.
Just make it out of the water. That's all I need to do.
Massive birds with jagged wing feathers circle ahead. I'm fairly certain I can't die again here, but what happens if one drowns in hell? The shudder that thought sends coursing down my spine propels me forward.
Clumps of dead grass, stripped branches and something that might be bone float in the water. I push my face through them, gagging as the debris spreads across my skin. But it doesn't matter. Escape does.
Virgil hauls himself onto the sandbar, but he doesn't drip with lingering moisture. He turns and beckons me with both hands, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that makes me suspect if some wild beast charged him, he wouldn't even notice. He'd embrace oblivion if it meant my salvation.
My feet find the muck of the swamp's bottom, and I stumble forward, sputtering water, dripping tea-brown sludge, draped in damp moss and bits of bark and sediment.
Virgil reaches for me, like he might grip my arms and steady me, but then his hands shoot back to his sides. "Oh, Dante. Fortuna be thanked."
I stand there breathing, my shirt plastered to my skin, my hair matted to my skull. Virgil looks at me like I offer salvation or damnation or perhaps both wound together.
I skim my gaze down his pristine cable-knit sweater and immaculate white sneakers. "How are you not dripping with this god-awful water?"
Virgil's expression cracks at this. His eyes trace down me, down the white shirt soaked through to show flesh, the ruined suit trousers, the waterlogged leather shoes.
“Don’t you remember? This place isn't real." He looks up at me from beneath those golden curls, a dimpled smirk ghosting across his face. "You're soaked because you believe you are."
"Because I am." The words don't come out as sharp as I intend—more exasperated—and it only makes Virgil's smile brighten. I fling my hands, scattering droplets. "What... what happened?"
That peels the expression away. "You got caught in a loop. Fully. I couldn't reach you."
I stare at the gritty ground beneath my feet, the wilted grass and pebble-pocked mud. "Pride," I whisper. "That was the temptation of pride, wasn't it?"
Virgil doesn't answer, but his silence is answer enough.
I lift my face. "You did reach me, though."
He shakes his head. "I tried, but you were too deep in the loop, too—"
"I knew you were there. It was like someone shouting from beneath the ocean at a great distance, but I turned toward you. I know that's what I felt."
"You... felt... my presence?"
I expect him to be teasing, but he's not. If anything, there's a gravity I've never seen in his countenance before. Something vulnerable and vast.
"I did."
Virgil seems to consider this for a long moment.
He swipes at his cheeks and looks about.
We're standing on a narrow ridge of land, more mud than firm foothold.
Ancient trees with crooked limbs and weeping moss that drips into the water tangle around us.
Clouds hang low, blending with the fog. The occasional plop of something sliding into the water echoes through the otherwise silence.
"Where are we?" I ask.
"I'm unsure." Virgil looks up, as though something in that leaden sky might orient him, then gives his head a small shake. "There's nothing for us but to follow this path and hope we encounter some landmark I recognize. We're certain to, with time. I can lead you back to the main route."
"How often do people end up in the swamp?" I ask, and immediately realize I'm not yet past pride being my sticking point.
Virgil freezes mid-step at my words. "Occasionally."
"And you've guided them out of the swamps when it's happened before?"
He's quiet for so long, I somehow feel I've said the wrong thing. Finally, he speaks, his voice low and careful, "No, Dante. I don't usually stay when someone reaches that point."
Before I can ask another question, he walks forward, blending into the mist.
I swallow my questions and follow.