Dante hesitates to answer. His eyelids open and close in slow blinks like he’s trying hard to remember the reason someone else told him. Finally, it seems to catch up on him. “Because this country is filled with tramps,” he sneers. “You’re one of them, and if I’m going to get them off my back, I’m going to have to show them that I’m not so different... even though I am.” It’s obvious that Dante doesn’t quite grasp the master plan, but it’s clear to me. He wants to use me just like Angel did: to fix his image.
But there’s no fixing Dante. “They don’t like you now?” I quietly taunt.
“They don’t have a choice,” he hisses.
“Then why are you trying to please them?”
Dante’s gaunt cheeks compress against the bars as he lunges forward. Despite the thick grey poles separating us, I can’t help but flinch away; that seems to satiate Dante’s anger for the time being. An evil smirk crosses his bar-framed face as he revels in my fear.
“You know, you’re worth far less than I had once thought. If it wasn’t for this marriage, I might have already started sending pieces of you to my brother in the mail.”
The horrific imagery sends a frigid chill skating down my spine. The only thing that keeps me from violently shaking is the knowledge to call Dante’s bluff—he doesn’t even know where Angel is, so where would he send my body parts?
“Lucky me,” I grumble, more to stave off my own fear than to inflame my captor.
“You have no idea. If I had bought you all those years ago like I’d originally wanted to, then you’d be long dead by now. There’s no way I would have put up with your shit for long...”
The confusion caused by Dante’s statement is enough to blanket my terror. If I had bought you all those years ago like I’d originally wanted to... “What do you mean?”
That evil smirk of his returns. “Stupid girl. Didn’t you recognize me? I recognized you...”
My cold heart starts to beat faster as I remember how oddly familiar Dante had looked that first night at the compound. “Where did we meet before?”
Dante chuckles. “I knew Barella was wrong when he said you were smarter than you looked.”
The monster seems to enjoy my struggle to pick up on what he’s getting at. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you are a dumb whore.” It looks like Dante’s about to tell me everything, before he thinks better of it. Knowing him, he’s decided that keeping the truth from me is even crueler than revealing it.
“I’ll see you at the alter,” he hisses, pushing himself back from the bars. “Double security!” those are his last orders before he disappears around the corner and slams the door shut behind him.
10
Angel
I try again.
My aching hands tingle as I flex my fingers around the burner phone I’ve been using to try and get a hold of Juan with.
It’s been three days now, and I haven’t heard anything. He gave me this number before our attempted rescue of Catalina in the slums, but so far, no one has picked up. I don’t dare leave a message—the last thing I want to do is blow Juan’s cover. He’s my only tether to Dante’s organization right now, and that means he’s my only source of information on Catalina.
Catalina...
I failed her again.
My lightly burnt hands don’t hurt nearly as much as my crushed heart, and my heart doesn’t even feel as heavy as my mind does.
... Our child needs you.
The meaning of her last words seem obvious, but the specifics are impossible to grasp. The only two people who could tell me what the fuck is going on are nowhere to be found; the last I saw of them, they were surrounded by corrupt cops.
As frustrating and heartbreaking as all this is, I haven’t been able to wallow in my misery for long. Instead, I’ve been busy at work, enacting the plan that Juan and I conceived during our reunion.
The line rings and rings and no one picks up, but I can’t quit now. Catalina still needs saving, and apparently so does our child.
I’m a father...
It hardly seems real. I haven’t seen a baby, I wasn’t around when Cat would have given birth; I don’t know the details of how any of that works with Dante in the mix... So, I try my best not to think of it.