Still, I don’t know why he stopped at three. He’s had plenty of time to even out the score.
“Did you have a nice time with your schoolboys?” he asks.
“Don’t be jealous, you’re the one who let them in.”
“They were going to get themselves killed snooping around. I just sped up the process of you ripping off the Band-aid,” he says. At least he agrees with me that letting them go is for the best. Though, I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, given his desire to always be alone.
I sigh and draw my knees up onto the bed, trying not to shiver. The room is ice cold. I bet if I breathed out, you’d be able to see it misting.
“If you’re cold, get out,” Dante says, taking another sip of water.
“Whose side are you on?” I come out and say it. I’m not one to beat about the bush.
“My own.”
I give him a look. “Don’t lie. You’re on the side who pays the most.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because I want to know if it was you who told my father where my mother was.”
He gets to his feet, holding the water bottle, and walks over to where I am until he’s at the edge of the bed. I unwrap my arms from my legs and casually lean back, looking up into his cold blue eyes. Despite the chilly air, he smells of sweat and cologne.
“Rebecca was like a mother to me. I would never hurt her.”
“Says the killer who works for her tormentor.”
“Your father pays me well. I’d be a fool to let sentiment get in the way of business,” he says, looking down on me. His gaze, cold and clinical as always, stokes a flame in my very soul. No one looks at me like Dante does.
As he turns away, the cold air rushes in from where he was blocking the draught and a chill runs over me.
It dampens the fire inside too.
And I feel empty once more.
“Is that all I am to you? Fucking business?”
He picks up a shirt and throws it on, half looking back. “You’ve always been business, V,” he says.
Dante takes a blade from his desk, twiddles it in his hand, and tosses it to me. “And a little pleasure.”
I catch it. The metal is glacial in my fingers, burning its own kind of fire.
“What’s this for?” I ask, frowning up at him.
Dante approaches with a couple of manila folders. He drops them on the bed next to me. They’re the type of folders Polina used to send us, ones that contains all the data Quinn could ever access about a mark.Paper being 100% untraceable.
I open the first one and look inside.
“My next victim,” Dante says, lips curling into an evil grin as I see who it is. “Is your next ally.”
Griffin.
“I thought he was my father’s business partner?”
“He is. Your father wants him gone. He’s got too much control over the streets and Adrien doesn’t like that. But it’s what’s going to give us leverage to make him ours.”
Us. Ours.
Is this another test? I look at my mentor with guarded eyes. If Dante was an enigma before, he’s a fucking paradox now.
“And this one?” I open it. Inside is another of my father’s associates. “Is he your target too?”
“No, V, he’s yours.”