Dante's Weakness

Chapter 17: Dante’s Weakness

The room was still draped in the aftermath of their passion, the air thick with heat and the scent of skin and sweat. Isla lay against the silk sheets, her body still tingling from Dante’s touch. She should have left. Should have wrapped the sheet around herself, gathered her clothes, and walked out of his bedroom with her mind intact.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she lay there, watching him.

Dante was different now. He wasn’t the untouchable mafia prince she had grown accustomed to. He wasn’t the ruthless man who commanded rooms with a single look.

He was just a man.

His dark hair was messy from her fingers, his bare chest rising and falling with steady breaths, a rare moment of vulnerability in the way he lay beside her, eyes half-lidded as if the weight of the world had momentarily lifted from his shoulders.

She had never seen him like this.

“You’re staring,” Dante murmured, his voice raspy from exhaustion.

Isla blinked, quickly looking away. “I’m just... thinking.”

His lips curled into a lazy smirk. “About how good I made you feel?”

Heat crept up her neck, but she rolled her eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

Dante chuckled, but it wasn’t his usual arrogant laugh. It was quieter, softer. He turned onto his side, his fingers trailing along her bare shoulder.

“I don’t let people get close to me, bella,” he admitted, his voice quieter now. “Yet, here you are.”

A lump formed in Isla’s throat. This was dangerous—he was dangerous—but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

“You don’t seem like a man who lets himself get attached.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “It’s a weakness.”

Something in his tone made her chest tighten. “Why do you think that?”

Dante exhaled, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. For a moment, Isla thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then, he spoke.

“When I was younger, I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.” His voice was raw, edged with something dark. “It cost me.”

Isla turned onto her side, watching his profile. “Who was it?”

Dante’s jaw tensed. “My mother.”

The admission hit Isla harder than she expected. She had assumed Dante’s mother had passed away or was simply an absent figure in his life.

But there was more to this story.

“She left,” he said, his voice tight. “I was twelve. One day she was there, telling me bedtime stories, kissing me goodnight. The next, she was gone.”

Isla swallowed. “Did she... did she die?”

Dante let out a humorless laugh. “No. That would have been easier.” He turned his head, his dark eyes meeting hers. “She left by choice. Walked out on my father, on me, on Sofia.”

Isla felt something twist inside her. She wasn’t expecting this—wasn’t expecting him to be the one who had been abandoned.

She knew what it felt like to have someone taken away. But Dante... he had been left.

“What happened to her?”

Dante scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “She ran off with a man who was supposed to be my father’s friend. A traitor. She didn’t even look back.”

The bitterness in his voice was thick. It wasn’t just anger—it was pain. Wounds that had never fully healed.

“Sofia was too young to understand, but I did,” he continued. “I spent years wondering why. If it was something I did. If I wasn’t enough for her to stay.”

Isla’s throat tightened. She knew this feeling. The gnawing ache of loss, the unanswered questions.

But this wasn’t just about Dante’s mother. This was about him.

About the way he refused to trust. About the walls he had built so high no one could climb them.

Isla hesitated, then reached out, her fingers brushing against his. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Dante was silent for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he turned onto his side again, his fingers tracing circles on her hip absentmindedly.

“I tell myself that,” he murmured. “But I don’t believe it.”

Isla wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it, but she lifted a hand and gently brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. “You should.”

Dante’s gaze softened in a way she had never seen before. It made her heart stutter in her chest.

This wasn’t the powerful mafia prince.

This was the boy who had been abandoned.

And that made him more dangerous than ever.

Because now, she didn’t just see him as a target.

She saw him as a man.

A broken one.

A man who had just let her see a part of himself that no one else had.

A man she wasn’t supposed to care about.

Dante let out a slow breath, his fingers tightening against her skin. “You make me forget,” he murmured.

Isla swallowed hard. “Forget what?”

“That I don’t trust people.” His thumb brushed against her lower lip. “That I shouldn’t trust you.”

A chill ran through her.

He was right. He shouldn’t trust her.

Because she wasn’t here for him. She was here for revenge.

And yet, in that moment, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

She let herself lean into his touch, let herself get lost in the warmth of his body, the steady rhythm of his breathing.

For one night, she let herself forget too.