Stolen: Dante's Vow

But that’s not what I’m thinking about now.

I’m hearing her words repeat in my head. “Dante would never have let what happened to me happen.” I let them take me under as I walk for half an hour before finally getting too fucking cold to be outside any longer. I turn the corner and walk into the first bar I see, a run-down, smelly hole in the wall.

But it’s dark and there’s liquor, so it’ll do.

I walk up to the bar and the two men sitting nearest the empty stool are quick to vacate their seats. I open my coat, shake off the snow. I don’t bother taking it off before I drop onto the stool. I push my wet hair back and it stays back, putting my face on full display for the barman who to his credit, doesn’t flinch. He just stands there eyeing me while drying a glass. He’s a big guy. Bald. Bearded and tattooed. He nods in greeting.

“Whiskey,” I say.

He sets a glass down in front of me, uncorks a new bottle and pours.

“Leave the bottle.” I take a hundred-dollar bill out of my wallet and set it on the bar. Not that this whiskey’s worth that.

He eyes the bill but doesn’t take it just yet. “Sure thing.” He walks to the other end of the bar, and I pick up the glass, swallow the contents. I catch my reflection between the bottles of liquor in the tarnished mirror behind the bar. I see why the men who scurried away did. I look wrecked. And scary as fuck.

I pick up the bottle and the glass, then pour. I have to do that since I lost my eye. Can’t just pour something out into a cup that I’m not holding. Depth perception is still a challenge, but I work around it. Shrapnel hit my eye the night of the explosion, but the doctors thought they could save it. I knew when I opened them there was a problem, but I figured that was the bandages obscuring my vision. In time it became evident I was losing my sight in my right eye. Then it got infected, and well, here I am. A patch like a pirate.

Alessandro likes it. Thinks it’s cool.

I smile at the thought of my nephew. Miniature Cristiano. He had Scarlett buy him an eyepatch as soon as he understood why I wore it so I wouldn’t feel like I stuck out. He was irritated his wasn’t leather like mine though.

I swallow the rest of the contents of the glass and pour again. Christ. This hasn’t gone like I expected, but she’s right. What did I think? That I’d fucking swoop in like some knight in shining armor and slay the beast and then what? She’d forget everything those bastards did to her and go back to living the life she was meant to live? A life she’s never known?

Fuck. I don’t want to think about it all, but I need to. I need to do this with her. Like I said. I owe it to her.

This all happened because of me. Because David raped my mother. Got her pregnant when she only wanted to be free of him. So, to punish her, he had that bastard Rinaldi violate her, then made her watch as her husband and children were massacred.

Not me, though. I didn’t die.

And I have a feeling if she’d had a choice, if she could have sacrificed me to save them, she might have. I wouldn’t blame her. I was the living, breathing reminder of the violence done to her. A secret she had to keep from her husband, the man I knew as my father but wasn’t. I still wonder what he’d have done if he knew. If he’d have been able to love me. To stand the sight of me.

Pouring another glass, I take a sip, leaning back in my chair. The liquor is starting to do its work.

She was never cruel or even unkind to me. She loved me. I know she did. But sometimes I’d find her watching me and it always felt off. I understand now why that was.

But that’s all past. She’s dead. Gone fifteen years now. The men involved are all dead. And I killed the one who orchestrated it all.

Not that it gave me any satisfaction. It couldn’t. Not when I learned the truth about him. About how I was conceived. Not when I learned that Mara was alive. Kidnapped and sold. A slave to the highest bidder.

She was unlucky from birth. Her mother died in a traffic accident soon after she was born. No one, not even Lenore, ever found out who her father was. Mara got stuck with us for an adoptive family.

Christ. What a family we are to get tangled up with.