[WARNING: This chapter may refer to some themes including abuse and rape, which may be upsetting to some readers.]
"It's clear as day," I said matter-of-factly. "Your eyes are practically shaped like hearts whenever she steps into the room."
Damian said nothing. He wiped the chocolate from his mouth, looking into the distance.
My tongue felt too heavy to tell him that Hannah was seeing someone else, so I just looked at him until he finally spoke.
"She doesn't feel the same." His eyes spoke of an agony that lasted longer than anyone knew. "She... always had a thing for my brother."
Oh. Right. I nearly forgot about Luke.
"And I think she's seeing someone." Damian creased his eyebrows. "It's strange, usually she's very open about who she's with. She posts pictures with them. She speaks about them. Sometimes it almost feels like she does it to hurt me on purpose. To drive me away. But this time she's quiet. Too quiet. It worries me."
"Me too," I said.
I couldn't stop the genuine sympathy I felt towards him. It must have torn him apart to see her with another guy every other day - only for her to come back to fool around with him again.
I loved Hannah. She was my best friend. But why was she letting her broken heart bleed on Damian? I couldn't imagine what it was like to wonder when someone will love you again - or when they'll leave you again.
"I'm sorry," I said to Damian, sending the message straight from my heart to his through my eyes. He might be my enemy, but I felt like I should apologize for Hannah.
Damian's eyes were half closed as he looked at the stone patio beneath us and shook his head. "Don't be. I knew what I got myself into when I fell for her."
A few more days past, which made me more frustrated to get information. Every time I wanted to ask Danté about his father and my father, he had to go do something. Or he would say that he had more fun things to do than talking about his father.
"Like you," he said with his famous mischievous grin. I turned on my heal, and left immediately. He knew just how to make me flustered and how drive my soul from my body.
Tonight I had another nightmare. Whispers telling me that I was knocked from my pedestal - telling me I was a filthy slut. Pain radiating through my body. My throat choking on tears and screams.
I awoke with a gasp and a little cry. I pressed my hands over my mouth, keeping the cries from slipping out and alerting everyone that was still in the house. I knew the others often left in the middle of the night for gang business. I hoped they had some business to do tonight.
I glanced at the digital clock on my cell phone screen. 1:34 am.
I took a few calming breaths, before deciding to go make myself something to drink down the agony in my throat.
Once down stairs, Danté looked up at me from where he sat on the sofa in the lounge. Papers were strewn all over the coffee table.
"Trouble sleeping?" His eyes looked tired, like he himself was trying to keep himself from falling into nightmares.
I nodded. "You too?"
Danté shrugged.
"Do you want some sweet chamomile tea?" I ask him. "I find that it helps."
He tipped his head back, and looked at me with an intensity you rarely see from him. "How often do you have those kinds of nightmares?"
I stared at him. My heartbeat sped up all over again. Please tell me he didn't hear me. Please tell me I didn't scream.
He looked at the paper on his lap, leaning his head into his right fist. His bicep flexed so beautifully. I would never have imagined that I would think that thought.
"I heard faint noises coming from your bedroom when I passed by, and looked to see if you weren't being attacked by someone that might have slipped past my men. But then I saw you, clearly in deep sleep, crying and whimpering like a kicked puppy." Danté looked up at me.
I couldn't breathe. The world was spinning.
"I heard once that you shouldn't wake anyone while they're having a nightmare because they could have a heart attack," Danté said. "But I was pretty close to waking you up."
I wish he had. I wish he saved me from the hell in my subconscious mind where that demon held me captive during whole nights. Even if he was a monster himself. Even if I had a heart attack. Anything just to be set free from that terror.
"Because your whimpering was pretty bothersome," he smiled teasingly, but it didn't meet his serious eyes.
It was quiet. Danté didn't say anything. I couldn't speak.
Danté witnessed me during one of my most vulnerable moments. It was the one thing that I didn't want to happen the most.
He got up and walked towards the kitchen, where he switched on the kettle. Then he dug around in the back of one of the top cabinets. His back muscles flexed beneath his shirt as he pulled out a pack of chocolate chip cookies.
I stood bolted to my spot while he made two cups of chamomile tea and brought them along with the pack of cookies. He placed everything on the coffee table.
He invited me to sit down, but I still couldn't move.
Without a word he guided me with his hand softly on my waist, and then made me sit down.
He handed me a cookie, but when I reached to grab it too slowly, he held it to my lips. "Say 'ah'."
I blinked, but did as he said, and bit into the cookie. Crunchy chocolate filled mouth, and I felt like it gave me a jolt of energy.
Danté chuckled. "Nick said you liked sweets. I didn't know it was this bad."
I gazed at him, taking the cookie and eating it further.
"You're like a little baby. When you cry, we should just shove something sweet into your mouth and you'll stop," his smile told me he was amazed.
I pouted. How dare he call me a baby?
I wished I wasn't as aware of his arm behind my back, resting on the back of the sofa. Or how warm the air felt in the little bit of space between us.
"I know how bad nightmares can get. And I know what it's like to have devils from your past haunt your dreams," Danté said softly. His head was tipped downward so he could look at me, so a few thick dark waves of hair fell forward. It looked so soft.
He was so close. I wonder if he felt my ragged breathing in his face.
"When I had a stressful day, my father would curse at me in my dreams. He would take the poker near the fireplace, stick it in the fire, then press it against my body. Over and over again." Danté's eyes glazed over, like he was looking at the memories he was mentioning. "Sometimes he would put out his cigar on my shoulder--" he pointed at a little whitish scar on his shoulder, well concealed by his tattoos-- "other times he'd nick me with his pocket knife--" his fingers traced about three little white lines hidden among inked roses on his arm-- "And sometimes he would throw my mother against the dining room table."
His eyes hid an anger that must have been burning for his whole life; unable to ever be extinguished.
Why did I want to put my arms around him and tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he was a kid, that it was okay to be angry - be afraid?
I burned the thought as soon as it surfaced.
"I'm sor--"
"Don't." Danté cut me off. He breathed a bitter laugh. "You're such a f*cking fool, Princess. Always apologizing for other people's mistakes. Yet here you are. No one is apologizing for you. No one comes to save you." His eyes burned straight through mine. "And no one is risking their lives to save you."
I broke away from Danté's gaze to stare at a little hole in the hem of his black tank top. He was right. I was always living my life for others. But I couldn't stop, no matter how much it hurt. It was like falling in love with your captor. Stockholm Syndrome.
"If I didn't, who would?" I didn't look at Danté as I spoke in voice barely audible. "Someone has to be the fool. Otherwise what hell would the world be if it was full of selfish devils?"
Danté studied my face with fierce emotions fighting each other beneath the surface. He looked like he was holding himself back from smothering me with one of these scatter pillows on the sofa, or his own mouth.
He suddenly blinks and stuffs another cookie in my mouth.
"Mmf!" I wanted to yell and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.
"You're going back tomorrow night," Danté said as he got up. I stared up at his back.
"We'll drop you off in an alley about a block away from the police station. Damian said that your big brother William will be in his office since he is on duty.
You will storm into his office and collapse on the ground. Then you'll tell him you escaped when we had another fight with The Riot."
Danté paced towards the sliding doors which looked out over the pool. The moon left a big round light in the water, which rippled as the wind blew over the water.
"How did I get loose?" I ask his reflection in the window.
"You're clever enough to figure that one out, Princess," Danté's toothy grin answered.
I sipped at my tea and mulled it over. What would be most believable?
"The Riot... wants me. They know that I'm the Chief of Police's daughter and want to use me as leverage to get control of the city.
You kept me in the store room of the old supermarket that had been put up for sale and abandoned 3 months ago - near Emerald Street. The Riot found out, stormed in, ambushed you. Someone dropped a knife and I maneuvered it to cut myself loose and slip out."
Danté was impressed. "You certainly have a brilliant lying conniving little brain in that head of yours." He sneered.
"You'll have to beat me up a bit," I suggested. "They won't believe I've been held against my will if it doesn't look like I've been fighting for my life."
I thought I caught him hesitate for a moment before his signature up-to-no-good smile crept up his lips. "Of course. Beating people up is my specialty."