It was the most alive I have felt in years. The joy rushing through my veins were intoxicating. Nick smiled breathlessly at me, probably feeling something similar.
In that moment, when we shared a gaze, I laughed the most genuine laugh I have laughed in forever.
I don't know how long we've been playing, but by the time someone switched on the lights, it was dark outside.
Danté stood by the door, arms crossed. His expression was all teasing. But his eyes were unreadable.
How long has he been standing there?
"I wondered where you lovebirds were." He looked at me, then at Nick who had jumped up, then back at me. "But then I heard Disney Princess movie background music playing from somewhere and I knew where to find you."
I was genuinely insulted. "Disney Princess background music?!"
I wanted to close my hand around his tattooed neck and squeeze. Hard.
"Boss, that were some very hard pieces that we completely nailed," Nick said as he walked towards Danté. "And you know damn well how well that was done."
Danté snorted. "Whatever twinkle fingers," he pointed at me, "Can I borrow your girlfriend?"
"I'm not his girlfriend!" I barked out a little too harshly, considering the bit of pain that reflected in Nick's eyes.
"Come look at your clothes in your room," Danté said, leaving the room and expecting me to follow him.
I sent Nick an apologetic look, to which he smiled.
'My room' was the guest room. Sometime while I was geeking out on the piano with Nick, they had gotten a big bed in here, and on the floor was a few shopping bags from expensive clothing stores.
"I picked them out myself, but I obviously had to guess your size," Danté said while emptying the bags onto the bed.
I was stunned as I stared at the heap of clothing. It must have cost a fortune.
"Why did you buy me so many clothes?"
"Well, would you have liked to wear mine instead?" asked Danté with a cocky grin.
I remembered the blood stains on his shirt when I visited his office the second time and shuddered.
I picked up a black bra, completely decorated in lace. My brows furrowed in horror and my cheeks blazed.
"Oh, that was just I little something I liked. I hope the cup size isn't too big. You seemed like a B cup to me, but now that I look again..." He studied my chest, arms crossed and one hand scratching his perfect chin.
"Danté!" I shouted, tossing the bra at him and crossing my arms across my tiny chest.
He caught it with no effort, "I got you one in every color. The violet one will go well with your eyes~"
"Can you stop?!" I was so uncomfortable I could jump out the window.
Danté snickered.
"Get dressed and come change my bandage," he ordered nonchalantly as he left the room and shut the door behind him.
"Asshole," I muttered under my breath. He did only what he wanted - said only what he wanted - and then he would just leave. Danté had that dominant energy always resonating from him, and those around him had to live by his ways.
I took a few breaths to calm my boiling blood. I was surprised to find a feint floral scent tickling my senses. Did someone spray perfume in here? My eyes searched the neat room, which was the only one in the house that was decorated in white, accompanied by lighter woods and bits of beige. A bottle of my favorite perfume sat on the vanity table. How did he know it was my favorite? Or was it just a coincidence?
Besides the extravagant underwear, the clothes he got me was very much to my taste. I liked everything, and everything fit like a glove. That made me angry.
The bras were a bit too big, though, and I suddenly felt self-conscious about my chest.
But then I mentally slapped myself. What does Danté's opinion on my chest matter anyway?
I put on a yellow sweater with a little daisy embroidered on the front, and a pair of white leggings, before pulling my hair into a bun.
While I did my hair, it was the first time I really looked in the mirror since I got here.
My one cheekbone had 'n big blossomed bruise, and was swollen so badly, the corner of my eye was shut.
I lightly grazed the swollen skin with my fingers. It felt warm and soft under my touch, and it still ached.
My chocolate eyes were rimmed with red, probably from all the crying.
I refrained from staring at myself too long, because it would remind me that everyone else had to see it the whole time.
I didn't understand why Danté said I was pretty, because I really wasn't. He was probably mocking me, as he usually does.
I knocked on his door, which stood open by a bit.
"Finally. I thought my wound would start to fester at this rate." He looked up from his cell phone screen, where he sat on his bed.
When his eyes landed on me, his eyebrows tripped. "Screw violet. Yellow definitely does it."
My look questioned him, as I picked up the first aid box that sat on a small table near a bookcase.
Who knew Danté liked to read? Maybe it was just for show.
"The color of your top. And you should wear your hair like that more," Danté said in a low tone, sitting up as I sat down on the bed by him. He sounded playful, but also a bit serious. I didn't know how to respond so I didn't.
He took off his shirt and I had to look away from his torso for a second. My mind took me back to this morning, when it was covered in little droplets, refracting all kinds of colors from the light that shone on them.
I became very aware of how close I sat to him. I became very aware that both of us sat on his bed. Danté seemed unbothered though, glancing at me through his long lashes.
I tried to blink away the fog in my brain and removed the band-aid as quickly as I could.
Danté flinched.
"Sorry," I apologized before kicking myself internally. For all his shenanigans he deserved the pain.
"It's just a little prick. No biggy," Danté responded. His chest was moving up and down slowly and steadily. Tattoos snaked up from his left arm, all the way up the side of his neck. Roses, and thorns, and butterflies. Flames and daggers. Skulls and chains. Scars.
I cleaned his wound with an alcohol swap. "Where did all these scars come from?"
Venus, why did you even want to know?
"Fights, and," Danté sighed, "my father."
My eyes met his. His father, who he killed.
If his father did this to him he must have been abusive. Was it possible that he killed his father in self-defense?
"It must have been horrible. I'm sorry you had to go through that." I broke away from the intense deep pools of blue and removed the wrapper off a new bandage. "I guess we both had fathers that hurt us in some way."
Danté shook his black locks. They fell in his face. "No, I should thank him. He made me strong. Each scar he gave me made me a better man than he ever was."
I gently stuck the band-aid on his wound. He wasn't the best person on Earth. He had many sins. But he seemed to at least protect the ones he loved. That was something an abusive father would never do.
That's something my father never did for me. He tore me away from everything I loved. He forced me to become a police officer. He forced me to risk my life. He forced me to become engaged with an abusive boyfriend.
Yet, I still fought to make him proud. I still broke my limbs to become a puppet to dance to his strings.
"It's funny how we still defend them, regardless of how much they trampled on us," I say in a whisper, more to myself than Danté.
Danté breathed a bitter chuckle. "At least my father is no longer there to trample on me."
I almost replied with "Lucky you," but I caught my tongue before it formed the words. What was I thinking? I didn't want my father dead.
"There, all done." I said, breaking the moment in half, before I think any more absurd thoughts.
Danté nodded in thanks, silently watching me through his lashes as I put everything back in the box.
"You know, I thought you'd be different, Princess."
"Different, how? Flashing my badge every moment I could and arresting every person that littered on the streets?" I ask closing the box.
"No. I mean I thought you'd be more... I don't know? Prissy? High and mighty?" Danté said.
The last three words were like a gunshot in my chest. I could feel my chair fall backwards and my back cracking at the impact.
"You won't be so high and might after tonight," the voice from the demon in my head said. I could feel the pain in my body all over again. I could smell his sweat. I could taste the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
"But you've got balls, and you are always looking at things from a different perspective," he snorted, "and you're f*cking stupid and weak as a mosquito in a blizzard."
I shot him a look of death, only cracking him up more. This man couldn't be serious for more than two seconds.
Days past by like seconds. I finished writing up my first report to Danté on Lieutenant Parker. I added everything I now knew about how he was receiving bribes from The Riot to cover up their crimes from the police. I added William's suspicions and warnings as well.
I also got confirmation from Damian on the fact that it was The Riot that murdered those boys. He said that Vlad Belikov loved to cut off the skin with the tattoo his of victims if they were in the mafia. He kept the skins as trophies.
I still had to figure out how exactly Lieutenant Parker was tied to the gang war.
The other night he was on the news, standing by a podium with crutches in his uniform. He claimed that he warned me to stay in the car, but I wrecklessly darted into the abandoned factory after the gang members. According to his story, he had to rush in after me to save me. While trying to shoot a thug, I missed and shot him in the knee, rendering him powerless. He left to get backup and when they arrived, I was being abducted.
"We're doing everything we can to get Officer Bellingham back," he said into the microphone, full of fake emotion. William and Jace stood nearby, looking mortified. My father was also standing nearby, his face the picture of an emotionless block of concrete.
"The f*cker is making you look bad now." Nick barked at the television. Damian looked cool and calculated as always as he spoke. "You were kidnapped and are in serious danger for what they are concerned, but instead of worrying about you, they will now question your adequacy to be a police officer, since you placed your superior in danger and shot him in the knee."
"Why does your dad look so unbothered?" Nick asked in a furious tone. I didn't answer.
I got some more information about the mafia from Damian, since he seemed to know pretty much everything.
Apparently, they had a hierarchy among the groups. The Inferno were of higher class than The Riot, and The Free. That was because they were the original mafia, before it broke up many years ago, to form The Riot and The Free.
There was also a ranking system within each group. Danté was the leader of The Inferno, so he called all the shots. Damian and Nick were his right hand men, meaning that they can take charge if he wasn't around. But Damian had more power than Nick, because his father was a very powerful member in The Inferno, while Nick was adopted by Danté's uncle when he was a child.
Damian told me that the other groups had their own way of running things within them, and he wasn't entirely sure who all the most powerful members left in The Riot was.
The Free usually kept to themselves. They were also the only group among the mafia to recruit female members. They also didn't like to stoke direct conflict. They would only kill those that came on their land without permission, and defend what's theirs.
"That doesn't mean you can call them 'the good gang'. They exploit the businesses on their turf, and if they don't pay up, they get tortured," Damian explained. "Also, they might seem neutral, but they could partner up with The Riot in the blink of an eye if money was involved."
I had a seperate encrypted file on my laptop where I typed up everything that I might be able to use against The Inferno and the other two gangs.
Damian and I sat outside in the garden. We sat across from each other by a small white outdoor table, each with a cup of hot chocolate that I made.
He took a sip. "If you have any more questions, I'll answer them the best I can."
His blonde hair looked even lighter in the sunlight. His sunglasses rested on the table and I could see my reflection in them.
"I actually wanted to find out why Danté killed his father. And what my father has to do with all this mess," I scrolled through the document on my laptop.
Damian turned to me. "Danté will have to tell you the answer to the first question. And the second one," he shrugged, "you'll have to find out the answer to that on your own."
I groaned in frustration, scratching my scalp. My reflection in Damian's sunglasses showed what a feral mess my hair was.
Damian only smiled, amused, as he drank more from his dark blue mug. It had a doodle of a sheep on it. Hannah had one just like it, but in pink.
I stared at him for a second, making him glance at me self-consciously. "What? Do I have a chocolate mustache?"
That was something Hannah always said. Only Hannah spoke of chocolate mustaches.
"You're in love with Hannah," I realized.
Damian choked.