Stolen: Dante's Vow

“Do you think I’ll ever forget?”

“No,” I tell her. It’s the only honest answer.

She’s quiet for a long moment before speaking. “In a way, I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I can’t lose another part of myself, you know?”

I tug her closer to me. “You’re a survivor. It takes strength to survive and you’re strong.”

She shifts her head a little and I can feel her looking at me as she begins to caress the scar on my cheek. “Do you want to forget all the things that happened to you and your family?”

“No. I only wish I could undo them.”

“Do you miss them?”

I nod once.

“Is it strange that I don’t miss anyone? Not even my grandmother?”

I turn my head to look at her then. “What do you mean strange?”

“I don’t know. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

“I think you did what you had to do to survive. Stop thinking about it. You can’t change what happened to you. You can only move forward.”

Silence again. And again, I think she’s asleep but then she brings her fingers to the patch. The instant she does, I capture her wrist.

“Don’t.”

She gasps, not expecting that. “What’s under it?”

“Nothing you need to see.”

“Why? Do you think I’ll find it ugly? Do you think I could find anything about you ugly?”

I switch my grip so I’m tracing a circle on her wrist with my thumb and close my eye. “Leave it alone, Mara. Get some sleep.”

“You know what happened to me. The things they did.” Her eyes fill up. “Do you think I’m ugly?”

I look at her. “No. Fuck no. Never.”

“Then how can you ever think I’d find anything about you ugly?”

“Sweetheart, I’m not worried about you finding it ugly. I just don’t want to scare you.”

She laughs outright. “Scare me? Dante, I’ve lived with monsters. I can’t be scared by my angel.”

I must look confused because she lays her hand softly on my cheek.

“It’s what you are. An angel who fell and broke when he hit the ground. Who has now become my guardian angel.”

“You mean your avenging angel. Or devil more likely.”

She smiles again. “Angel for sure. My avenging angel.” She grows quiet, the sad smile vanishing. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re like the other half of me. Always were all those years. I thought of you every day. You’re the only person I thought of. How can I be scared by something that is so much a part of me?”

I just watch her, take in her honesty, her strength. And what I want to do is keep her with me forever. Spend the rest of my life slaying her demons. But there’s a part of me that’s torn. That knows why she thinks she loves me. That part that knows there’s better for her. Better than me. Knows if I were a better person, if I were truly the angel she believes me to be and not a devil, I’d let her go.

“It’s empty. Under the patch. I don’t wear the prosthetic.” I reach up, pull the patch off. I don’t know what I expect. A gasp. A cry. Her hand covering her mouth. The disgust she’ll try to hide.

But her expression is unreadable and a moment later, she leans in and kisses my eyelid. And I think how good she is. How much better than me she deserves.

38

Dante

The next night I leave Mara in the kitchen when I get a text from Charlie to contact him right away. Matthaeus and I make our way to the study where my laptop is already set up to log on to FaceTime Charlie. He answers on the second ring. He’s in Cristiano’s office on the island.

“Matthaeus updated us on Viktor Petrov,” Cristiano says.

“One more down. One to go. Plus, whoever Pérez’s buyer is. Any word on that?” I hope that’s why he’s reaching out because it’s late in Italy.

“No, but there is something else. I got my hands on a photo that I’m not sure what to make of,” Charlie says. “It’s old, I’m thinking five years.”

“Five years?”

“I’ll show you why I think that in a second. I can’t be sure where it’s taken but I’d guess Mexico, not the states.” The screen flicks and I’m looking at a photograph where Felix is sitting on the couch. Behind him stand two guards. There’s a couple beside them. The woman is heavily pregnant. But it’s not her that has piqued my curiosity.

“Is that Jericho St. James?”

I peer closer, try to figure out what’s changed because yes, that’s him. But not. This man is younger, obviously. And his expression is happy. He has his arm wrapped possessively over the shoulders of the woman.

“Is he married? Is that his wife?”

“No, not married. At least not that I could find. And no kids. I’m doing more digging but look at the far corner. I’m going to zoom in.”