“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
Dante“What do you mean ‘He’s gone?” I’m barely hanging on to my last piece of insanity and I find myself surrounded by morons. “Who’s gone?”Daveed takes a step forward, asserting himself before speaking. “Richard, one of the men Miss Jean had problems with before, he’s gone AWOL since early today. We’re trying to track him down but he’s gone completely rogue.”“And no one thought to report about it until now?” I say through gritted teeth. Daveed visibly shrinks, this time it’s Luca who speaks. “That lack of foresight was mine. Adeline was the one keeping tabs on him, but since Jean started to work on her father’s case more actively, Adeline’s hands have been full of extra work.” Ah. I’ve truly lost Adeline’s loyalty. She serves Jean now. I won’t say I’m surprised. I should have predicted this given how close they’ve grown over the past couple of weeks.“I should have let someone else keep watch. I’m sorry. This one’s on me.”Damnright you should have. But tossing the blame around
Dante“Are you sure?” I manage to ask Adeline but she can only make a small noise in response. Her injuries might not be grave on the outside but we’ll only know more once a doctor has properly examined her. Between Luca and I, there’s only so much first aid could do.Luca and I exchange one look before he’s tossing me his revolver and I’m dashing toward the edge of the road where the railing had been bent and broken out of place. The drop isn’t too bad. Before I could second-guess it, I jump.With my forearms bent close to my head and chest, protecting my head and ribs, I’m able to ease my fall by rolling over to my side. But it doesn’t do much for my injured arm so, I don’t fight the groan that tears out of me. But I don’t have time to think about my injuries right now. Jean is somewhere in this forest, scared and possibly injured. I need to find her and bring her home.A rolling thunder erupts loudly above us, as the sky dims with dark clouds. If that’s not foreboding I don’t know
JeanTremors overtake my whole body, and I don’t know why. Is it because Richard is dead at my feet or because it was Dante who had killed him? What even is he doing here?This wasn’t supposed to happen. Dante’s not supposed to be here. He should be back at the safe house, resting for fuck’s sake! But with him here, forcing all my bottled-up emotions to the surface is the last thing I want. I wanted to finish this cleanly. The plan was solid. Head to the island, prove that Serafino has been using it as a stop-over point for human trafficking, then let the police do the rest. He would have gone down so easily with all the evidence Adeline and I found against him. I was so close too if it weren’t for Dick showing up when he did.Adeline and I had the scare of our lives when all of a sudden, our car is being pelted by bullets. Had Dick had backup, we would be dead now. And as to how he had so eloquently put it, my corpse would be missing a hand for Dante to jack off with. How fucking d
DanteThe drive back to the estate was by far the longest and numbest trip I’ve taken. With Adeline and Jean properly strapped into the back seat, we make good time.“Shit, Dante. You could have killed her.” Luca commented when I appeared with Jean flung over my shoulder unconscious from the swift chop I did to the back of her head. “Thank God you’re injured. If not, we could be dealing with more than a slight concussion.”I have no energy for Luca’s reprimanding. I just want to go home and get this shit sorted out. Jean now obviously knows more than necessary and I have to fix that. She’s in more danger now than she has ever been before and I will die before I allow her to be in the same position as she has been these past few days.“I panicked, okay?” I whine, letting my head fall back into the headrest. “She was injured and was insisting on staying on that damned mountain. Anything to get away from me. I wasn’t thinking.”Luca scoffs and spares a glance toward Jean in the backseat.