CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Dante

I DON’T KNOW how long I stared at her, but it was long enough for her to fall into a deep sleep while I watched her chest rise and fall. While I reminded myself that in this moment, she was in my arms.

She was breathing.

Mine.

A clusterfuck of emotions hit me all at once. Protectiveness, fear, and if I wasn’t such an asshole a part of me would admit that the last emotion I was experiencing felt different.

Foreign.

Like someone had cracked open my chest just to make sure my heart was beating and poked it with a stick.

It was painful.

It was constant.

It was horrible.

It was love.

I tightened my arm around her body, kissed her head, and imagined a world where the hours ticking by didn’t sound or feel like a death sentence.

I told myself I was exaggerating.

I told myself things were going to be fine.

But my gut told me differently.

“Dante,” El wrapped her arm around my middle and squeezed. “Don’t leave me.”

“Never,” I lied. “I’ll never leave you.” On purpose. I left that last part out and promised her anyways.

Because at least I wasn’t looking at her face.

I wondered if love would make me a liar.

Because at one point I promised her that I’d never look into her eyes and say anything untrue.

But now that things were different.

I knew — I would do it to save her.

I’d lie to her to save her.

Love didn’t make good people honest.

It made liars out of all of us.

Because when faced with hurting someone you love by telling them the truth or giving them the lie so they don’t experience darkness.

I would choose the lie every damn time.

I finally fell asleep, only to wake up hours later with the bed empty.

“El?” I called out her name and, pulled on my jeans. She wasn’t in the bathroom and no lights were on in the house.

I walked down the hall, the door to the office was open.

I pushed it further.

El was standing in front of my father’s desk.

Holding a picture.

“This is your father?” She asked as I wrapped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on her shoulder.

“That’s him.” We looked so much alike it was scary from the crystal blue eyes to the jet-black hair and strong jaw.

“He was there,” she said. “The day my parents were killed.” I stilled behind her. “Do you think that maybe… maybe I was saved for you? That in this messed up bloody world, I served my time with the devil — and God gave me an angel as penance?”

“I’m not an angel.”

“You’re right,” She turned in my arms. “You’re my savior.”

“I’m not good El, we talked about that.”

“I don’t need you to be good, Dante. Remember?”

Our foreheads touched. “Yes,” I said gruffly. “I hope to God that my father took one look at you and how you were suffering, whispered something in Frank’s ear and saved you so that one day you wouldn’t be beaten bloody by that monster — but loved completely by me.”

I tasted her tears on her lips as she kissed me and lifted her up onto the desk as she wrapped her legs around me and hung on.

“We have a desk fetish,” she said between kisses.

“I don’t mind.” I nipped her lips harder as she dropped my jeans to the floor. “I’ll never get tired of this.”

She guided me into her. “Me either.”

We were making love on my father’s desk.

In a house with more secrets, more ghosts than I could possibly imagine, and yet, I couldn’t conjure up anything but pure joy that maybe, just maybe, El was right.

He saved her without knowing her future.

Or mine.

He did the right thing.

And because of that, a man who isn’t good, who will never be good, got to experience a taste of heaven.

I thanked him silently as I worshipped her, and was even more solidified in my decision to take my rightful place.

Not because it’s what was best for her.

Or for me.

But because it’s what Luca Nicolasi would have done.

And it was what he wanted.

A man not good, not bad, but both, wanted.

And I wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Knowing, it would kill me.

But the right thing is the right thing, and I was tired of being angry, tired of running, fucking tired of revenge.

“I love you,” I moaned against her neck.

“Then promise me you’ll be careful.” She gripped my face with my hands. “Promise me.”

“Isn’t this where you’re supposed to say you love me back?” I deflected with a thrust.

“Dante.”

“I promise.” I looked into her eyes and then our mouths collided against one another as she reached her climax, and called out.

“I love you too.”