Move. Fucking move!
But my legs remain rooted to the floor.
My eyes are fixated on Dante’s, wanting nothing more than to gut every person who hurt him. Seeing him hurt, makes me hurt so I want to hurt someone and everyone else.
My feet begin to move then, running toward him only to be stopped by the two men in white lab coats. I struggle in their holds, screaming as I do so, calling for Dante over and over but he never looks at me, just keeps thrashing and screaming. And God,
“Dante?” I call out weakly. I’m at his side now, stroking his bruised face as gently as I can. “Hang on.”Ricci has fallen to the ground after I shot him, hand flying to his stomach where the bullet had found its home. His pained howling fades into the background because I can’t be bothered to pay attention to that pig right now. Dante needs me.Gently, I take out all the syringes that were jammed into his arm. Luckily, not all of the liquid has been injected. Carefully, I pull each syringe out, finding caps on the trays and closing them, hoping that Luca can find more about them.“They’ll be here any second now,
Escaping that stronghold was a blur. I vaguely remember Daveed barking orders, telling our men to retreat. I remember hearing the gunshots. I remember stumbling forward but Luca was there to haul me back up on my feet. And I remember being shoved into the back of the SUV, with Dante beside me, thrashing in pain. His eyes were closed but I could tell he was conscious.“Keep the pressure here. Don’t let go.” Daveed instructs, pressing my palms harder against Dante’s wound. “We’re busting out of here. Try to stay low.”“H-He’s—Dante’s--”“Dante will be alright, Jean. Focus.”
I spend an hour like that. Staring openly at the ceiling, doing everything I can to not close my eyes for too long, because then, I’ll start to see their faces again. I’ll start to see how their faces contort in pain before their bodies drop dead to the ground with a heavy thud. My mind is so fucked up, maybe I should have asked for sleeping pills. “Please just go away,” I mutter under my breath, eyes squeezing shut. “Please leave me alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please go away. I’m sorry--” I choke on the last word, as a sob leaves my lips. “I-
“I’m coming for you, my sweet, Jean.”“You look so much like her… so much like your mother…”The voice filters into my head like hot lava, heavy and dreadful. It sears into my brain and invades all of my senses leaving me scratching at my head, my face, my ears, and even my eyes for any kind of reprieve from the pain.“You grew up to be so strong… so murderous.”No!
I leave that room with Natalie calling after me but I don’t spare her another glance or another word. Her words may mean something but I’m not in the mood nor in the right state of mind to dwell on it.Time to find Luca, my original goal before getting sidetracked.“How is he? Is Dante well enough to travel?” I ask Luca once I’ve flagged him down outside the infirmary. I’m grateful for how attentive he’s being towards Dante, especially now when I’m too hurt and confused to stand by his side.Luca looks at me with a bewildered expression, one eyebrow quirking in question. “He’ll be alright as long as w
Never in my life had I thought I’d be running away from my savior, but here I am running away from Dante.“So, it’s just us?” I ask Adeline after a while of spending the car ride in comfortable silence. I realize that it’s nice like this, that somehow, I could pretend that Adeline and I are just two friends going on a road trip. That for a moment, I could forget about what awaited me.Adeline offers me a sheepish smile. “For now, Miss,” she replies softly. “The boss needs more security, and we have the boys back at the estate.”Right. The men we left behind. I still feel iffy about that. When we escaped in the dark of the night, we left eight men—eight! Had our enemies launched an attack, they would have all perished. That has never sat right with me, but maybe I can at least make amends.“Adeline,” I start, not knowing how to impose more work onto Adeline. She’s done so much for me already. But there are things regarding the research that I cannot do on my own. “I need your help with
Two weeks pass like that. With Adeline and I passing information back and forth, with her on the outside, I operate from within the walls of the estate.Every person Adeline needs to contact, I was on it. Every reservation she needed, every resource, I was there to provide it for her.Because as much as I want to be out in the field with her, it’s still too dangerous. With the estate being closely monitored by Serafino, there’s not really an option but to stay here. Despite our lack of guards, the estate itself is a stronghold with accessible escape routes—something that Adeline and I discussed with the men before we decided to camp out here while Dante’s recovering.“I think we have everything we need, Miss Jean,” Adeline tells me over the phone, “With this confirmation, the only thing left to do is go there and talk to them personally.”“That’s true, come back to the estate, Adeline. It’s time to figure out our next step.”But I already know what my next step is going to be and it’s
It takes me two days to finalize my plan before deciding to have my long overdue talk with Dante. Even on the drive up here to the safe house, I knew this could only go one way, and that is not going to end well. And that fact weighs heavily on my shoulders.I took Luca’s advice. I thought about it, slept on it, and weighed all of my options before deciding. And this is the best-case scenario for everyone.It’s the first time that I’ve seen Dante since we rescued him and he looks much better. The bruises on his face are starting to fade. Gone are the dark blue and purple patches of skin, replaced with the yellowish hue of healing skin.He’s out of the bed now, sitting on one of the stools on the kitchen counter, but instead of breakfast, there are documents spread all over the counter. Nothing has changed about him since his near-death experience. Still the hard worker. One would think that after an event like that he’d be resting, but getting beat up to within an inch of your life mu