30. Carmen
Chapter 30
Carmen
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
The gun is still in my hand. My fingers locked around the grip, rigid, shaking.
The shot still rings in my ears.
I killed him.
My father is lying on the ground, blood spilling from the hole in his chest. His face is twisted, frozen in that last moment of pure shock.
Like he never truly believed I would do it.
A sob rips from my throat, but I don’t cry. There’s only numbness curling through my veins like poison.
He deserved it.
He was going to kill Dante.
He was going to let me die.
He spoke of my mother.
For the first time since she died. He spoke of her as if he knew her desires for me. As if he knew how wide a warm embrace might stretch. As if he knew just how far her grace and love would go before it shattered.
I might only remember her amber scent and smiles in a vanity mirror. But I do know mothers.
I know what I would give to love my unborn child for even a day.
I know Evelina. I knew the kindness she was capable of, the strength she carried in her bones. Evelina would never have looked at me the way Amos did, with hatred and scorn.
Amos Rubio wasn’t my father.
He was a monster.
And yet?—
A heavy weight crushes my chest, making it hard to breathe. The gun in my hand is slick with sweat. The world is a blur of distant shouts, of gunfire still raging outside. I feel unsteady, trapped in this moment, in the ruin of what I’ve done.
Then, suddenly…warmth.
A solid, steady presence before me.
Dante.
Shielding me from the chaos, his hands covering mine, gently prying the gun from my fingers.
“You still with me, princess?”
I blink, dazed, barely registering when he tucks the gun away and pulls me against his chest.
My body melts into his, my forehead pressing into the crook of his neck. He’s warm, so impossibly warm, his heartbeat a steady drum beneath my hands. Alive. Alive, alive, alive.
He murmurs something, quiet words of comfort, his fingers slipping into my hair. I don’t know how long we stay like that, how long I stay enveloped in the smell of amber and the arms I’ve always been so very fond of.
But it’s long enough for the chaos around us to feel distant, for my breathing to slow, for the numbness to give way to something else. Something worse.
Dante shifts, adjusting his hold on me, and then—I’m moving.
He’s carrying me.
I don’t resist. I don’t look back.
* * *
I don’t remember much from those first few days after the mansion.
There are flashes—strong arms carrying me through the smoke and gunfire, the roar of flames devouring everything I had ever known, the sound of a car door slamming, the hum of an engine as we drove into the night.
Then darkness.
Sleep came in fits and starts. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father’s body, saw the blood. Saw the look in his eyes right before I pulled the trigger.
I wake gasping for breath, my hands trembling. I am pulled into a warm embrace, and a steady heartbeat anchors my breathing again. Careful hands card through my hair.
Sometimes I can almost imagine a different bed, a different home. One an ocean away.
In reality, we’re staying in a safe house. I spend most of my time resting, curled up in bed or nestled in an armchair by the window, watching the rain drizzle against the glass.
Dante is there as much as he can be, a gentle, calming presence. Warm and lovely. Kind and anchoring. Soft with me despite the brutality I now know he’s capable of.
But the Prince’s Guild often holds their meetings here, voices low and serious. I catch fragments of conversation when the doors are left ajar.
And, of course, I listen —because listening is what I’ve always done best.
“The mansion’s gone. Burned it to the ground.”
“The war’s over.”
“The remaining Cartel forces want Carmen back. She’s the only heir to the Rubio name.”
I stiffen at that. The idea of going back —of stepping into the ruins of my father’s world—makes bile rise in my throat.
No.
I won’t do it.
Dante finds me later that night, curled up in bed, staring at the ceiling. He sits beside me, and oh, it feels like home.
“The Guild is starting peace negotiations soon,” he says. “You don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t want to.”
I turn my head to look at him.
His dark eyes are steady, full of a quiet certainty that settles something deep inside me.
“I don’t know.”
A slow exhale leaves him, and he reaches out, his hand settling over mine.
“Then you don’t need to do anything yet,” he promises.
A lump forms in my throat. I squeeze his hand.
For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can finally breathe.
And as I rest a hand against my stomach, feeling the soft flutter of life within me, I know?—
My baby is safe.
We’re both safe.
For the first time in my life, I get to choose me.
“Do you remember, back in Italy, when you first came down to the dungeon?” I ask as I crawl over to him, closing the distance on this unfamiliar bed in this unfamiliar room.
Dante is familiar enough to settle that anxiety within me.
“I recall you weren’t very happy about it.” He smirks, reaching for me so I can slide onto his lap, straddling him.
“You asked me if you were good enough for me.”
Dante smirks. “I’m still not.”
With a roll of my eyes, I go to dismount. “Fine, I’ll see if Pierre is still interested—oof!”
Dante’s arms wrap around me suddenly like a Vitale, pulling me flush to his chest.
“You will always be too good for me,” he whispers into the non-existent space between us. “Because I’m too selfish to ever let you go.”
I kiss him.
And we’ve kissed since the mansion, always hungry for the reassurance of the other.
But not like this.
Not without the weight of the world pinning me down.
No, this kiss feels like my choice. It feels like freedom and the first step to a forever that I’ve only ever fantasized about before.
My mouth opens for him eagerly, inviting in his tongue. He tastes so familiar, yet I can’t seem to take my fill. There’s always more. I think I might always need more.
“Be selfish,” I whisper between these desperate kisses. “Be selfish about me.”
“Nothing else?”
“No,” I grind down on his lap with cruel intention. “I want all your attention to myself.”
He hisses against me as I roll my hips to knock against his growing hardness. A smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth as I watch his pupils blow out.
“Now, who’s selfish?”
I capture his lips again, this time with teeth and torment. “I won’t settle for anything else.”
Dante’s hands wrap around my back, tugging at the bottom of my shirt as he groans into my mouth. I break the kiss only to let him remove it entirely, reveling in the way his fingers greedily grab at my exposed skin.
“You certainly have my attention now, princess.”
A part of me wants to move gently, to savor every moment of this, to slowly give in to the lust that has been steadily building within me.
But another, far louder part wants him to claim me, to show me just how much I hold his attention, to ruin me for anyone else.
“Good, because I want you to fuck me until I scream,” I breathe as I claw at his shirt desperately.
“There are other people staying here?—”
“I don’t fucking care.”
The next kiss is devastating. It’s everything. It’s all the weeks we spent apart, it’s all the narrowly avoided disasters, it’s all the wanting, craving, yearning.
It’s making up for everything lost in the fire with something carnally primal.
Little fires light across my skin everywhere his fingers linger long enough to bruise. It’s not enough. I want him to tear open my skin, make a home there, be a part of me in a way no one else can.
He matches my moans and the slickness of his tongue trails from my mouth across my jaw, down my neck, along my collarbone, igniting my scalding desire to near-unbearable heights.
“I want to see you come undone,” Dante says as he all but rips away my bra. “I want you to beg me for more.”
“ Yes, yes, yes. ”
His warm mouth closes around my nipple, and my back arches on instinct. I’m pushing myself further into him, chasing that delectable sensation as I grind so shamelessly against his hardness.
It’s not enough.
The overpowering frustration of this fact seems to hit us at the same time. Suddenly, Dante is standing up, upending me from his lap.
But before I can protest, he’s already working on my jeans, already attempting to rid us both of the inconvenience of our clothing.
And fuck, it’s been so long since I’ve seen this man shirtless. But it’s truly a sight I could never tire of. Those abs…those fucking arms…
They reach out to drag me back close, now mercifully naked. The contact of our bare skin feels like I’ve been drugged.
“ Mierda, ” I cry out as that sensation of home erupts in a burst through my insatiable, fiery lust. It’s a fond sort of feeling that feels both entirely out of place in the burning swell of my other emotions and yet precisely perfect, too.
“Are you wet for me yet, princess?” Dante’s voice is low in my ear, irresistibly sinful, as he presses his hardness against my bare stomach.
All I can do is nod in response. My hands rake over his back until they settle in his hair, finally finding purchase.
I’m about a second away from simply climbing the man to satisfy the burning between my legs when those arms maneuver me again, one hand on the back of my neck as he turns me around and pushes me into the bed.
A second later, there’s a pillow being shoved beneath my hips.
Another and…
“ Fuck!”
A slick finger rubs against my traitorously soaked core, curling around the ball of nerves with a frustrating lack of urgency as I’m reduced to nothing more than a quivering mess before him.
“You are going to scream for me, aren’t you?” Dante continues his tortuous motions. “You promised me you would.”
“Yes,” I half sob. “Anything.”
I can practically feel the smile spreading across his face. “Good girl.”
Then his lips grace the curve of my ass, kissing down oh so gently. Further and further and further until he…buries his tongue into my wanting core.
I buck back instinctively, every fiber of my being suddenly alight with crazed desire as he indulges himself. It’s the most perfect kind of torture.
I would do anything for him to stop.
I would do anything for him to never stop.
Too soon, or far too late, he removes himself and teases me once, twice with his index finger before…
“Fuck, Dante!” My words come out in a breathy scream as he enters me. Slick and thick and long, he pushes in. Further and further. The sensation is only amplified by the angle, by the position of my hips on the cushions.
It’s a dream. It’s also a nightmare, because once he’s sheathed, he doesn’t move again.
And oh, I’m a fucking mess. A bumbling, whining mess. “Dante. Dante. Please. Please… fucking move. Please.”
A gentle hand reaches round to cup my chin and turns me back to face him.
For all his bravado and teasing, he looks just as ruined as I feel.
“For you, anything. ”
Then, that gentle hand bundles itself in my hair and pulls.
And he immediately begins to fuck into me. Hard, fast, unforgiving, desperate, urgent, devastating, everything .
Perfect.
There’s no way for me to dampen the noises I make, even if I want to. The sinful sound of our pounding skin is enough for my orgasm to immediately begin to heighten.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Dante is murmuring to himself. “So perfect. Mine. You’re mine. ”
Then, sharper, “ Tell me. ”
The words bubble up in my throat for a moment, unable to quite remember how to speak as he effectively fucks my brains out. “I’m yours. Just yours. Dante…please. ”
“Please, what?”
“ Harder.”
With a groan, he complies, and I feel myself nearing that impossible edge. Everything is alight. Everything is perfect. Nothing exists except the points where our skin touch.
Stars begin to speckle the corners of my vision, and there’s no holding back. I don’t ever want to hold back again.
Then, as prophesied, I scream.
* * *
The room is quiet except for the sound of our breathing. Just Dante and me, like it always should be, tangled in the sheets.
His arm is wrapped around me, holding me close against his chest. I listen to the steady beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his breathing. I feel safe. I am safe.
Dante tilts his head down, pressing a kiss against my forehead. “You’re quiet.”
I smile faintly. “I’m thinking.”
His hand moves to my stomach, fingers splayed protectively over the small swell there. “About Dante Junior?”
I swot at him before covering his hand with mine, holding it there. “About everything.”
I think about how easily I could have lost this. How, in another life, I might have been trapped in the Cartel’s clutches forever, raising another man’s child in a world of blood and violence.
But instead, I chose this. Chose him.
And he chose me, too.
“I love you,” I whisper, tilting my head to look at him. “More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”
Dante’s dark eyes soften. He shifts so that our foreheads rest together, his nose brushing against mine.
“I love you too.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat, my fingers tightening around his.
“We’re a family now,” he murmurs. “You, me, and our little one.”
A tear slips down my cheek, but for once, it’s not from pain or fear. It’s from something else—something warm, something hopeful.
“We’ll be okay,” I whisper.
Dante pulls me even closer, wrapping me in his warmth. “We will.”
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I belong to someone else. I don’t feel like a pawn in a game I never wanted to play.
I belong to myself.
To him.
To us.
And as I close my eyes, nestled against the man I love, cradling the life between us, I know something with peaceful finality.
This is just the beginning of forever.