Monomaniac

Chapter 19

Ophelia

NUCLEAR RED.

I travel through worlds, defeating bitter endings and grasping liberating beginnings. Everything is still. Quiet and deep, in the spirit of the air of a tomb just opened after millennia.

Completion. I feel as if I've finally reached what seems like an infinite cycle of something holy – lacking a scent, a texture, a mark but containing an essence that encompasses the meaning of all that exists in being.

Wrapped in Dante's embrace I feel eternal, as if I have lived multiple lives at once. Through him I have outgrown my limited human skin, shedding the countless coats I have paraded in; feeling wholly accepted for who I truly am in the dying November sun that pierces the harsh horizon.

That encapsulates the aftermath of what he has done to my soul. As for my body, well…I don’t know how I will survive without his touch now that he has fully opened the doors of my temple.

I believe the second he entered me, famished and speaking a language I know in my bones only I can hear, was the first time I truly lived as something other than a ghost touching in passing the veil of this world.

Just the remnant memory of that decadent sensation between my legs, grasping at my elbows, down my spine, brings tears to my eyes – the virulent kind that could build worlds but also shatter entire cosmoses.

Him, only him.

Now that he has taken full possession of my body and soul, not of a proprietary nature, but of a transcendent quality, I feel more tangible than I ever aspired to dream.

He found my missing pieces, scattered in the most hidden corners of creation, collecting all the shards that sliced the nothingness. Fragmented himself, he placed them in a mosaic of imperfections inside the suspended void at the center of my chest.

If that’s what it feels like to be free, present, alive, I want to live eternally in his eyes because there is no reason to hide anymore.

Dante showed me the depth of his emotions and I felt them down to my foundation. He sees and loves me whether I am an ancestral being of both darkness and light, or a scarred little girl living in the body of a broken but integrated woman.

With him I feel at ease to relish in my femaleness. Every brush of his tongue on my heated skin, every pass of his fingers on my most sensitive parts, altered me into something defined for his hands to feel and where my soul can live in safety.

The rest feels like dust in the wind. Easy and far from simple, yet fully ours.

"We’ve been invited to a wedding," I murmur over the hard ridges of his abdomen, still dizzy and breathless from the afterglow of him.

"Ours?" he asks, a lazy smile dancing on his lips as he leans towards his discarded pants and takes out his cigarettes.

I am so fond of the way his fingers know where to seek, where to find anything really. How they ignite every surface he touches, without having to strategize or orchestrate. That they find his vices just as naturally as they do the nectar hidden deep inside of me.

"Yes, our alternate selves are waiting for us at the rehearsal dinner as we speak," I say with a pensive smile that seems foreign on my lips as he pulls me back to his chest and plants a pillow under his head.

Who knew this carpet would be this comfortable? That it would be an integral witness to a love that, sadly, most beds will never know.

"Impossible," he says with conviction, shaking his head and taking a deep drag of nicotine before exhaling thick smoke towards the ceiling with his eyes closed.

I've never seen him so peaceful, so fluid with relaxation. I wish I could bottle this moment, but I hope there will be no need, as we will relive it with every dawn and dusk. With every longing look.

"How so?" I ask, raising a brow as he places an arm under the pillow.

God, how I love his smell now mixed with a thin layer of sweat, so raw and faithful to his essence that I can’t help myself but taste the spice on my tongue.

"Because your existence is unrepeatable in all universes. Such perfection cannot be replicated. It’s unachievable," he says looking at me with a fierce, unmovable gaze.

"Opium," I protest softly, lowering my eyes under his melting ones, the way I always end up doing when he praises me in his opulent way.

I could blush at his unbridled admiration, but it seems unfounded and quite dangerous at a closer look. "Please don't ever place me on a pedestal. I am just a wingless woman and falling from such heights will only do us both great harm."

"It’s only the truth, a fact of life," he regards me with an austere expression as he runs his fingers through my hair, half of its length remaining trapped under the small of his back.

"I am far from perfect, let alone an ideal."

"When I call you perfect I don’t mean it in a way that implies you have no faults or that I see you as an idealized version rather than my equal. It means that I perceive you past romanticism, that you are perfect because you are making me a better man, that you mirror what no else but you gets to see. And this is why I find you to be singular, unique," he says, raising his fingers still holding the cigarette and tracing my temple with such tenderness I forget…I forget everything but him.

"My cousin is getting married. It’s a last minute event. Will you come with me?" I ask quietly, folding my arms across his chest and resting my chin over them. From this angle, the expanse of his remarkably detailed tattoos resembles a map waiting to be admired and explored by a careful and loving eye. By me.

"You don’t even have to ask. I would’ve trailed you all the way there anyway," he says with a mischievous glint in his eye, the tip of his tongue sliding along his sharp incisive.

"Such illicit tendencies, how do you manage to sleep at night?" I ask while massaging his shoulders and loving their warm smoothness in contrast with the raised surface of what I assume to be a healed bullet wound.

"Oh, mia cara. Who says I ever sleep? All my time is devoted to dissecting your soul and keeping it satisfied. It's my ultimate nocturnal indulgence," he says, brushing his nails lazily down my spine. The sensation is so relaxing that it makes my toes curl and my ankles grip his calves tighter like a cat that has never known anything but contentment.

"What happens next?" I ask on a sigh, all of a sudden spent with everything outside of our immediate control.

"I don’t feel comfortable with you staying here, all alone and unprotected. You’re moving in with me," he says it with such ease as if he didn’t just turn my world on its axis.

"Are you serious?" I ask as I try to rise up, but the magnetic pull between us drags me back down before I can read the expression on his face.

"When am I ever joking?" he asks all authoritarian and male, stubbing the cigarette right in the center of the pack. That severe look alone makes me wet all over again.

"Isn’t it too soon?" I ask, even though, following a logical thread of action, he's right. There is no place in this world where I could be safer than under his wing, wherever he may be.

"Ombra, the moment I saw you at that gathering I wanted to take you home and never let you go. What is too soon anyway? Fuck societal norms and their inhibiting rules that do nothing but kill the spirit. We do what we want, when we want to, because we can. End of story," he says, looking at me with abyssal coal eyes that could convince me of anything just by their sheer power.

"I adore how unshakable you are in your resolve," I say, running my fingers through his curls and loving the way he closes his eyes like a feline greedy for my affection. Just as deadly, yet soft as a cub in the inside of my palm.

"Be humble all you want, but I was made to venerate you as a dark goddess living among mortals," he says with drunk eyes as he grips me firmly by the nape of my neck and raises himself off the floor, planting me on his lap.

I want him inside of me again, painfully so; as if he were a necessity, deeply ingrained in my origins, so long ago. It’s a wonder I had survived without the feel of him yanking me into being with every rough stroke digging a way into my soul.

Dante looks at me with the patience of a devotee, as if I were the embodiment of his personal holy grail – a manifestation, an apparition, brought forth by a conscious darkness, dead like life itself.

The air gets sparse with every inch his face gets closer to mine, the notion of breathing becoming an afterthought the moment he places both palms over my eyes and turns my world into pitch black night.

See me with no sight; feel me beyond all this world has made us endure , they say and I listen.

I feel his lips on the corner of mine, wet and supple, a sea meeting an isolated shore with a hint of tobacco calling me to follow his lead home.

We are the same orphic thing to each other – a hunger, a rapture in the monotony of being, a levitation of the spirit. Yet I am greedy, always in dire need of more, of him.

"Closer, I want you…need you closer," he says hastily, entering me in one soul stripping thrust and making me forget I had ever been an earthly being. "Live inside me. Stay," he whispers lowly, his words both a plea and a demand.

"Through you I am eternal," I breathe, mirroring him by raising my hands and covering his eyes, rendering us both blind and reducing the rest of our senses to pure, undiluted feeling.

My legs begin to quiver around him, my whole body his prey for the taking as he takes me with savage need. Hypersensitive, my naked breasts brush over his heaving chest as he growls in a ferocious expression of unhinged desire and depravity. So very wild, free and agonizingly arresting.

Euphoric, I let go, freeing his eyes as I fall like a feather on my back, both of his hands now grabbing me by the hips. His thumbs caress my stomach as he continues to write a monument of our love with every soul possessing stroke. Yes, never stop.

My eyes roll in the back of my head, seeking limbs finding and dragging him back to me because I can’t cope having my love be so far away from me. Not even for a second.

Our lips meet in a bruising kiss, tongues finding peace in their vicious need to consume, dominate, lead with abandon. His pace becomes relentless and so deliciously rough it almost verges on pain, as my nails puncture the masterpiece of his skin; a living map of his life and tragedy.

I want to integrate it all into myself, to wipe the memory of the blood coating his mouth and make it mine.

This is handmade Paradise. All the pain, disorder, solitude was worth it, because now I can savor this moment touched by divinity.

There is a sense of desperation in the way he writhes inside me, with his hand wrapped around my neck like a jewel while my eyes travel across his both fluid and rigid body. As masterfully sculpted as he is, I am unable to focus on anything other than his eyes that tell me everything.

The room feels different from my periphery – wider, unfocused, the floor dissolving under me as I reach up and caress his simply beautiful face that reminds me of no one. I brush away a damp stray curl, leaving the tips of my fingers rest on his chest with my palm over his restless heart.

How I love you, can you feel it? Please, tell me you can.

A shuddering hiss like imminent thunder leaves his lips, black as night eyes fluttering closed. The muscle in his jaw feathers, clenching and relaxing as if chewing on some kind of painful pleasure while he possesses my past, present and future.

"Let go," he demands on a harsh moan over my open mouth, raising my leg over his shoulder and linking our fingers in a fierce grip.

The sight of his wild eyes filled with soul consuming hunger, is the last thing I see before everything becomes nothing.

In a blank state of mind, all is dark, soundless and so very alive. I hear him from afar moaning his release, quivering arms dragging me to him seconds after.

I can almost feel his limbs merging with mine, his teeth contouring my skin as he scrapes my wrist, while his tongue licks my veins, searching for wounds to heal. Our legs like roots connect and hold on tight.

Soft skin, shins, elbows. I am floating and he is made of water.

My opium, I have to wonder – who was I before you?

* * *

"Is he the one who pulled you out of the pool that day?" I ask as I look in the rear-view mirror at the car behind us and the heavy clouds weighting down the sky, foretelling a violent storm.

Séance weather , my grandmother used to say. Breathtaking in its quiet, thought-provoking ferocity.

"Yes. Kane used to be my father’s first hand and one of his childhood friends. They parted ways in their early twenties, different aspirations in life and such. After a lengthy divorce and on the brink of homelessness, Kane sought out my father and our family welcomed him with open arms. He was originally our accountant, at times more of a father figure to Arya than our own father and eventually made sure that security ran smoothly. I guess fate has a sick sense of making itself known in that aspect," he says in a detached voice, not at all bitter but bleak nonetheless. It drags me down to see his profile with such gloom contouring its edges.

"Do you think the events that followed could have been prevented if he happened to be with them at that critical time? That fate had nothing to do with it, or perhaps the opposite?" I ask, wanting to wander through the chambers of his mind and read through the wartime writings etched deep into the walls of his being.

"I've thought of every angle, tesoro – every scenario, alternate reality and word that's been spoken in their last days. In my eyes, what happened is an irretrievable loss and I am powerless in the face of an ungraspable notion such as time. I often relieve it through the smell of mold, the feel of cold metal on my wrists, the sight of blood hiding even after all these years in the most unexpected of places, and I made peace with that. Sometimes people are evil simply because it's an easier path and even a satisfying one, depending on how sick they are. We tend to complicate things because the black and white nature of life seems absurd," he states despondently, running his hand over my thigh as if trying to sooth himself in the face of a thing that for once I am blind to.

I sigh, taking his hand in mine.

"In his last years, I believe my father secretly wanted me to become this ruthless, cold thing. Someone should’ve told him that these traits don’t only fill your hands with gold but strip your soul of any humanity. I don’t think it would’ve mattered to him anyway, considering…"he pauses, taking a long, calming breath.

"Anyone can slaughter, but few can move forward once the bloodied knife slips through their fingers and they are left all alone with their demons," I say softly yet firmly, running my fingers through his curls.

"Ombra, facing them is the light part. Taming them, on the other hand, is what steals your years and your will to look in the mirror, because you know there may come a time, sooner rather than later, when you won't recognize yourself anymore."

"Dante, you are the strongest man I know. Yes, you have exacted your own revenge by spilling the blood of those who trampled your soul, but more than that, you have not allowed the tragedy of it all deform you into something heinous and unrecognizable. Your strength lies in the fact that you did not succumb, that you stood up and crawled back with a suit of swords sunk deep in your back. That's wisdom gained through immense suffering," I say impassioned and filled with respect for this remarkable man.

Silence follows as my words morph into a thick veil that rests its margins over us. The road gradually empties and becomes engulfed by a dense forest of evergreen trees, tall and obscured by the thick mist that creeps through the branches. Coblina sleeps deeply in my arms, and my love's hand finds its way down the inside of my thigh.

"I didn’t look at my reflection for a year. Not because of what they did to my face but because I was a walking corpse. Sedated and absent," he says quietly, as if trying not to awaken the past that was anything but kind to him.

"I am here," I whisper, fighting tears as I caress the nape of his neck. Dying with love for a man undeserving of the cruelty life has dealt him. "You will never burn alone again. Even in death I will haunt you and be by your side."

Dante receives my words with such tenderness; such trust as if I had somehow become the air he needs in order to survive another minute, that vital and that important. And I – I walk on air when he gives me those eyes.

He drives fast, hands firmly on the wheel; dominating the road with the same ease he does everything he comes across and what mystifies me is that he achieves it without trying. He leads through respect, resolve and inner strength. His character cannot be feigned and I can't help but be fascinated by all his contrasts and ambiguities. A thieving prince that had become a man of his own – greater than his past, his faults, his circumstances. My beloved enigma.

From a distance, what appears to be a tall, intricate black iron gate covered in foliage appears beyond the thickening mist, what lies beyond it remaining a mystery shrouded by the dense energy that encases it.

"Welcome to my lair, mia cara," he says and as the words leave his lips, he morphs before my eyes into a mythical creature; shedding his mortality and becoming a man at peace because he has finally brought his woman where he wanted her from the very beginning.

Seeing him this way, all power and control makes me want to open my legs for him again and again, until there’s nothing but sweat and bleeding love between us.

The gates open by themselves, revealing a long, cobbled road with scattered skeletal trees swaying helplessly in the harsh wind. The further up we ascend, the drooping branches reveal a large Victorian mansion, which looks as if it has witnessed many things better left in peace. Heavy and lonely in its darkness, I find it to be in desperate need of someone to truly live within its walls so it can breathe for the first time in years.

With a magnificent structure, a black stone exterior, steep and ornate towers that embrace the spirit of Gothic cathedrals and wide windows with pointed arches, the manor has a palpable air of majesty and what a beauty it is.

"It’s as if she was waiting for you," Dante says, caressing the back of my neck.

"Passed down through generations?" I ask, marveling at its aged accents that speak of countless stories I have no doubt still inhabit the walls and perhaps the entire property.

"Yes. Contrary to popular belief, my great-grandfather didn't win it in a bluffed poker game. In fact, it was inherited by his half-sister after she married her sixth husband in the late forties. As I recall, he died ten days after they signed the papers," he recounts as he opens the door for me.

"Maybe a part of her is still alive, despite the years in the ground," I say, watching Kane slow down on Dante's motorcycle and heading toward what appears to be an underground parking lot.

"Cunning as she was, it would be no wonder. My bloodline is the embodiment of a wild card, the afterlife wouldn’t be any different," he says, taking me by the waist and leading me up a set of wide, dark-tinged stairs. "After all, look at us and try telling me we'd last a day adopting a domestic life."

"At this point I can’t even define normalcy. And even if I did, why would I want it when I know it will only bring me misery? Perhaps our life is structured around chaos, but the foundation is cemented on the strength is built upon. There’s peace to be found even in disarray," I say as I lean into him, needing to observe the symphony of emotions written on his face with every muscle he moves.

Yes, the property is haunting in its intense beauty; the wood trim on the front porch is exquisite in its detail, as is the intricate carving on the mahogany door in front of us. But all of that matters little to me. What he thinks, the way he walks, the sound of his voice depending on how costing on his soul the day was – that's what interests me. And right now, the morose shift in his energy is concerning.

He is clearly evading something that weights him down.

"Mia cara, I could spend a lifetime listening to you talk about the spider life under our floorboards and I still wouldn’t get enough," he says, brushing his hand lovingly over my cheek.

It's strange, so strange to have another look at me with a sense of pride welling up from the simplest yet most sincere words, and what a joy it is to know that I will never feel this way with anyone else.

The open-floor interior is an intriguing mélange of moody colors, velvet and dark leather, with thick drapes reaching the floors, high ceilings and low, antiqued furniture. Everything feels so lonesome, severed from life.

Arriving in the foyer, in front of a double set of stairs, between the barely lit living room with a fire already crackling in the mantelpiece and the dining room to our right; I can't help but wonder how lonely Dante must have felt living alone in such a vast, unsettling place.

"These walls, do they feel like home to you?" I ask as Coblina yawns into my neck. I am not surprised she goes for his chest the moment she wakes up, looking curiously at our new abode.

"No, but with you I'd feel at home in the catacombs of Paris, condemned to live there for the rest of my days. Walls are just walls without the one you love living inside them," he says, running his fingers over Coblina’s spine as he gazes at me with such quiet peace.

"I feel guilty," I confess as he links our fingers and leads us to the stairs attached to the left wall.

"Why?" he asks, furrowing his brows.

"Because I made no effort to find you, though I always felt that something integral was missing from my barren existence. That I was wide awake and yet couldn't have been more asleep. You were the answer all along yet I never raised my eyes," I say while passing through a long corridor with walls covered in faded burgundy wallpaper, a dark carpet and ceilings ornamented with crystal chandeliers.

I don't know why, but I feel as if I've been here before. As though I had spoken these words many times in the past, only in a different guise.

"Ombra, love of my existence, what matters is that we've been inside each other forever. It's just that our bodies have taken longer to follow the rope that binds us this time around," he says, opening the door to what I assume is his bedroom.

"This room feels familiar," I say quietly, feeling small and strangely fragile as I lay on the grand californian king bed, covered in black velvet sheets and blood red pillows.

"I think I have an idea why," he says opening the double French doors I had just now seen peeking through the heavy curtains, the violent storm outside permeating the stark silence of the room.

"Darken me, love of mine." I say, tender like a wound.

As I rest on my side, with my hand under his pillows, preoccupied fingers seek to find something in particular, a secret. No, not a secret, but the imprint of tears, of his head on the mattress. Of him at his most vulnerable while I was absent and pale in his life.

I give him an indecent smile, hiding my face in the heavy covers. I don’t know why. I am too tired, too needy.

I want him in my mouth, between my limp fingers before I fall asleep. I want to close my eyes with him inside of me and wake up three years from now. I want him to brush my hair long after it's been untangled, feed me his favorite food and fall asleep in his arms all innocent and filled with immovable trust.

I want, want, want – him.

"Look at me," he says, all dark and serious like a husband; like a lover who only wants to pour instead of take, like a father casting away my fear and all my hiding places, by turning them into his holy domain.

I raise my eyes, spent and loyal – my face a blank sheet that knows there is no need to smile nor pretend cheap emotion when my being is right before him and my discarded flesh remains nothing but a suit laying above the covers.

"Ask me again," he says patiently, yet with a stern edge, his dark silhouette barely visible in the early evening light of the weeping sky.

"Your bedroom, why does it speak to me?" I ask in a small voice I can’t recognize – a murmur for his attentive soul only.

"You are the fiber in my sheets," he says, burning eyes traveling over my breasts, my ribs, my hips. "Your image is engraved in these walls that I contemplate when sleep is a rumor experienced only by those spared by life," he continues, his tone getting lower as if confessing a secret. "Mia ombra – my only salvation, my greatest torturer."

A whimper escapes me at the sound of his words, and if he didn't wet his lips at the sound, I'd believe he hadn't noticed.

"You have lived here for a very long time. This bed has waited for the imprint of your bones on its wooden skeleton, just as you do now," he says lowly, coming to me and running his fingertips along the curve of my thigh. "You have no idea what your presence here does to me. How longing can kill a man sooner than a blade ever could."

"We will have a very strange life together and this bed will know the warmth of our bodies sixty years from now. What more could we ever ask for?" I ask as I brush my fingers over his cheek.

He hums in response and I can feel on my skin how fate is a gentle widow. For she gave him to me despite her solitary hand.

* * *

"I have a confession to make," Dante says, downing the last sip of wine as we linger after a late dinner at the kitchen table. The opulence of the dining room may draw me in another day, but tonight I long for the quiet simplicity of caper pasta cooked by the two of us side by side with love and the intimate feel of his hand encasing mine. I think I will always choose this deliciously simple feeling over any worldly indulgence.

"It just came into being?" I ask with a permissive smile, lighting a cigarette and resting my chin in my hand.

"Oh, it was a decade in the making," he says while running his fingers down my extended arm. "Apart from that, you deserve nothing else but undying confessions."

"Whisper it in my ear?" I ask, running my toes down the seam of his jeans, loving the feel of his hardness along the curve of my ankle.

"It is far from sweet, tesoro," he says with indulgent eyes, taking my foot between his hands and kissing my toes.

"It doesn’t matter. I want to feel your breath down my temple," I say, dragging him closer to me and resting my head on his shoulder.

"Very well, l'anima della mia vita," he says softly, gathering my hair in one hand and placing it on my back, his lips lingering at my ear.

"Do you remember Sullivan?" he asks, the mention of the name taking me by surprise.

"How could I forget?" I ask in return, meeting his eyes. How could I ever unlearn the existence of the one who hurt him most?

"Do you recall that night of your accident, when that man…?" he isn’t able to finish the sentence, clenching his jaw.

"Yes, I do remember," I say, trying to inhale the suddenly heavy air and reading in his eyes the unthinkable.

"Those two – they are one and the same," he declares with apprehension, brushing his ring finger over my lower eye.

"How could this be? I thought – I had the impression that you made him disappear a long time ago," I say, trying to put the pieces together in a way they could possibly fit and make sense.

"I've taken care of his entire crew down to the last one over time, but the truth is that I wanted him to lose sleep and sanity knowing that I was on his trail; to feel every day that I allowed him to live his pathetic life, a shred of the terror I felt that night and the many that followed. Believe me, I made sure from afar that he had a miserable existence with each passing year. He is the last one left standing and he happens to be clinging to life in the basement of this house at this very moment."

"He is alive?" I ask with an uneven heartbeat, unwilling to face the possibility.

"Barely. Ever since I found you, I've made sure he was on the verge of death," he says, stealing my cigarette and exhaling thick ropes of smoke down my neck.

"The teeth in the jar – they were his," I say shakily.

"Yes, after that night it wasn't only about me, but also about you – us. Revenge for what has been done to you is now in your hands and trust me, nothing is too drastic; however you see fit to deal with him, if you choose to do so, of course. I wanted you to have this option," he says, running his fingers over all the places where scars have not so long ago been; over the spot that will always remain barren.

"Take me to him. I want to see you ," to know what you are capable of in the name of justice and loyalty . Of love.

"Are you sure? I know you are used to bloodletting, but the state he's in is beyond anyone's tolerance."

"The bad and the good, remember?" morality be damned.

"As you wish," he says as he stands up, taking my hand in his and lacing our fingers.

Dante leads us to a door adjacent to the kitchen, revealing what appears to be a pantry – entire shelves full of produce filling the packed room.

He pauses at the very end of the narrow space and pushes the side of a shelf, leaning his weight on the aged wood and exposing what appears to be a secret passageway. This house suits, indeed, my clandestine man.

"The entire property is full of secret underground passages leading to the central area of the cave under the house," he says, and I recoil at the instant realization attached to his words.

"Please don't tell me what I assume you're telling me," I say, trying to wrap my mind around the thought, but being unable to.

"I wanted to be close to them, to live where they died, so that I would never forget. Not even for a second," he says, gripping my hand tighter, as if to ground himself.

After a momentary pause, he flicks a switch to his right, the faint copper glow revealing what appears to be an endless set of steep stairs stretching so deep that the light doesn't even reach the end of the tunnel.

"How can you face the reality of this place?" I ask, avoiding an abandoned web.

"I have to. Running away has never been an option for me. I'm built of nothing but sharp edges and maybe I'm a masochist for choosing this life for myself, but it’s my choice and my responsibility to carry it," he says, flicking another switch, revealing that the stairs seem to have an end after all.

"You may be your own worst tormentor, but that makes you all the more human. This is a great act of self-sacrifice, my love," I say with a heavy heart as we descend hand in hand.

"My mom would’ve loved you like a daughter," he says, with eyes now bloodshot and dim with unfulfillable possibilities.

"What do you miss most about her?" I ask as we reach the bottom of the stairs and walk down a dark torch-lined path, revealing a wide arched opening.

God, I suffocate only contemplating the tragedy that unfolded here; at the fact that he chose to stay in the place that destroyed a part of him I will never get to know, since it no longer exists.

"I miss the melancholic look in her eyes as she watched me leave, in the belief that I would always return to the same family portrait. The quiet understanding behind it, when the rest of the world just saw my wrapping. Her immense capacity to love beyond appearance; that she forgave just as easily as she banished. Her hands in my hair as she read Italian classics to me while the power was out; her cooking. Her altogether. But there is nothing I can do, no pain that I can put on paper that will erase and reverse what has – " he pauses, squeezing my hand.

"My Dante," I squeeze harder, trying with all my might to shift some of the pain dripping from his mouth, from his eyes, from his hands into mine.

"Welcome to my second home, Ombra," he says as we enter what appears to be the core of a vast cave, with a seemingly endless expanse beyond the dark hollows that are vaguely visible. I can feel the eyes of the bats above staring back at us amid the death that perfumes the coarse walls.

"What are you normally doing down here?" I ask quietly, trying to accommodate myself with this foreign energy that feels acidic on my tongue yet bearable because he’s by my side.

"Anything that would get me twenty years minimum up there," he says without hesitation while raising his eyes toward the rocky ceiling.

"Such as?" I ask, craving to know every crevice of his being, no matter how sordid.

"Are you certain you want to know? That you have the stomach for it?" he asks, tracing the outer corner of my eye.

"I will always have the stomach for you, rotten matter or not," I say as he regards me with a look that could rip away flesh from bone with its intensity; taking me to a place where there are no restrictions, no rules, no bindings to stifle the need for more. Always more.

"My greedy shadow…wait here," he says before stepping into a narrow opening between the walls. Soon after, I hear the faint echo of a chain rattling, a lock opening, a muffled groan and something heavy being dragged across the floor.

Dante comes into view, all danger and self-possession, pulling by the arm a man or what has remained of him. Once near me, he slams him into a chair that I only now realize has iron chains attached to its legs.

The odor wafting off him would make the one of death seem pleasant in comparison and considering his current state he is not far from reaching it.

"Look at her, you pathetic coward," Dante growls from his right, gripping his jaw firmly and forcing him – Sullivan, my attacker and his family’s executioner to look me in the eye.

When his defeated gaze meets mine, the memory of that night, which I so carefully buried, emerges like an impending wave, choking me out. Not with dread, but with a foreign need for vengeance.

It all comes back. The harshness of his stare as his hurried steps closed up on me, the rope of his hands around my neck like a noose, the sting of my hair being ripped out, his foot crushing into my womb. Dante’s agony.

The fact that he took everything from the one I love with a smile on his face, with no repentance or second thoughts. That he ripped from us the chance to…

In another life, in another body, perhaps a month ago, if I hadn’t known Dante, I could’ve chosen a bloodless way; but looking at him now and seeing the lack of regret, the spite, the sheer inhumanity, I find it impossible.

My love, my life, my future doesn’t have to say a word.

Vindictive eyes fall on the knife left on the table. I grip it soft like violence, hard like irreversibility with a pacified heart.

Dante faces me, while I circle what remained of this despicable man and plant my feet firmly at his back before positioning the knife inwardly to the center of his chest.

He protests, I don't hear.

He shakes, I don't waver.

He knows, I don't blink.

"Kiss me," I call for my love, drowning under his deathly stare.

When our lips, tongues and teeth meet, pain, terror and blood follow suit onto the floor.

"l'anima della mia vita" it. soul of my life.