MARÍA POLICE DEPARTMENT, November 23
Handcuffed in an interview room. As usual.
But I didn't care. Me and Dante were together. We weren't gonna let Sylvia or Vinnie or Steph's ghost come between us. I didn't know how long Dante would need me, but I was gonna take so much care of him that he'd stay long after he'd healed. Maybe even stay forever.
I was gonna do everything right by Dante, I knew it.
Sylvia tottered in, all pursed lips and furtive eyes, without her usual sneering confidence.
She waved a tired hand at the guarding officer. "Marisol, take his cuffs off. And there's no need to record anything. Just go."
"Inspector Payne, I'm not supposed to leave you alone with the detainee."
Sylvia threw Marisol a look that could dissolve rocks. Marisol scuttled outta the interview room.
"Don't lie." Sylvia dragged over a chair and settled next to me. "Gabi and Rayan told me everything."
No need to lie. Everyone knew why I'd gatecrashed the SWAT Team's operation.
"I wasn't gonna let Dante—"
"I told you to stay away from him!"
I couldn't fucking believe this woman.
"Is that what this is? You arrested me because you're pissed at me and Dante? Did you give Leila my number thinking she'd distract me from him?" I shoved my chair away from Sylvia's. I didn't wanna be anywhere fucking near her. "Since I got outta Alcor all you've done is fucking manipulate me and use me."
Sylvia rubbed at her temples. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I know how you feel about Dante, but—"
"You don't know anything about us."
"I've known Dante a lot longer than you have. I know he's mixed up. He's not thinking straight right now."
Again, the same old shit. Like this was all Dante's fault, and not just Sylvia and Vinnie conspiring to save Dante from the shame of an ex-criminal boyfriend. Unless...was there something else Sylvia was scared about? She didn't have time to waste on keeping me and Dante apart unless she needed us apart.
"What's this really about? Dante's personal life is none of your fucking business, so why are you meddling?"
Sylvia stood so abruptly that her chair almost toppled. She leaned over the interview table, smoky eyes locked on mine. "I'll offer you a deal. I'll tell you why you need to stay away from Dante, and in return you'll tell me what really happened to you in Riyadh." She folded her arms, as if waiting for a confession.
Was forever with Dante worth confessing my crimes?
Sylvia would tell me Dante's secrets, and in return I'd tell her everything. But Sylvia wouldn't keep my crimes to herself. Everyone in María PD would come to know what I'd done. Dante would learn what a vile, shameless murderer I was. I'd succumbed to the Demon. I'd killed dozens of Alcor's enemies: rivals, debtors, mutineers, escapees. I'd slept with her, the very woman who'd killed Dante's fiancée. The very woman who'd killed my own mother. If Dante knew half of what I'd done, he'd never wanna see me again.
Sylvia chuckled through barely-parted lips. "Didn't think so."
Sylvia didn't have shit on me. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
She raised a manicured finger at me. Her voice was a terse whisper. "It's written on your face, Jason. You're terrified of yourself, and you're terrified of Mira al Assad. What did she do to you?"
I stood and slapped my palms on the table, towering over Sylvia. "Are you gonna charge me with anything, or is this unlawful arrest?"
Sylvia shrank away across the room. "Fine, go. But please think about what I said." She turned back to me, absentmindedly twirling her engagement ring around her finger. "I know what it's like to want someone, to see them every day, and to know that you can't ever have them. But sometimes that's—"
"Don't fucking compare Dante and me to whatever fucked-up shit you have with Hamish McCloud."
Sylvia curled in on herself, as if warding off a blow. She murmured into her chest, "Just go."
"I'm sorry, Sylvia." I shuffled around the interview table toward her, but she shrank further away from me. "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."
"I wish I didn't have to say this, Jason. If you don't leave Dante alone, I'll see you back in this interview room very soon, and I'll say I told you so. And, you'll willingly tell me everything that happened to you in Alcor."
"Stay away from me and Dante." I tugged at the interview room door's creaky handle. "I'll look for another apartment. I don't wanna stay with you anymore."
Sylvia wasn't gonna threaten me and Dante, ever. Nor was she gonna find out what I'd done.
Ever.
ESTRELLA BARRIO, MARÍA, November 26
Dante slammed open the door of the first airless little taqueria that we came to, one of dozens that dotted Estrella's portside streets. He slid along a bench and lay his head on the table, cocooning himself under hoodie sleeves.
I flashed an apologetic smile at the waitress then sat close, my fingertips running in gentle strokes over Dante's clenched knuckles. His grip loosened.
"Better?"
A mumble broke from under a fraying hoodie cuff. "A little."
"I wanna see you."
Pretty eyes peeked out from between folded arms. "I'm sorry I ruined it."
I eased up Dante's hoodie sleeve a touch and brushed his wrist, fingertips chasing his trippy pulse. "Nothing to be sorry about."
He didn't shrink away but his hands trembled, as if Stephanie Grey's ghost was hovering next to him demanding why he'd honored her memory by sleeping with a killer.
Not that things were gonna go in that direction any time soon.
I'd showed up at Dante's too fucking eager to touch, taste, breathe in all of him. But Dante had panicked, hard, the moment I'd gotten close. Every attempt to hold him, to kiss him, to slip a hand up his T-shirt, to do fucking anything and he'd scramble away, a hyperventilating wreck clutching at his chest like I'd just stabbed him in the heart. I'd figured that the hubbub of a taqueria might be a safe place to abort mission, but somehow Dante's defeat was even harder to witness than his panic.
But I got him. He'd only ever been with a high school boyfriend, and then with Steph, before Alcor had taken her. Dante was gonna need time. Luckily, now that I wasn't going to Riyadh to kill her, I had all the time in the world for Dante. So close to having won him back, I tried to hide my dismay when he buried his head under clenched fists again.
"I keep telling you, Jay. We can't be together. I'm sorry."
"Stop saying sorry, OK? Tonight we're gonna eat tacos, and tomorrow we'll take things way slower."
"That won't work." Dante huffed out a frustrated breath, sending black wisps of hair flying. "I shouldn't have done this to you."
My heart quivered. Nobody had the right to be so beautiful when angry. "If it takes months, or even if you never wanna touch me, that's OK." I nestled my hand into his. He didn't flinch away. "I wanna be with you, whatever."
Dante shook his head, defeated. "Why did you have to be so perfect?"
Perfect?
Was he talking to me? I craned my neck behind me. Nope. Nobody was sitting at the table behind us. Dante was definitely referring to my highly non-perfect thieving murderous self. What the fuck did he see in me?
No point trying to over-analyze shit. No way was I gonna let cold feet keep me and Dante apart.
123B MORENO DRIVE, November 27
Second time around, I took things real slow. Dante watched me watching Amor y Balas, while I ran gentle fingers over his wrist. His pulse jumped under his skin every time he snuck a peek, like the sight of me was slowly driving him crazy.
Sylvia's cats crowded him for their usual strokes and nuzzles, which Dante doled out like arctic rations, all his attention on me. It was almost too much, my heart fucking trembling with the delicious anticipation of it all.
Dante finally shed the kitties and led me by the hand to bed, Diablo and Lover slinking away with jealous hisses as I stepped over their fuzzball asses without a care. Fuck those guys.
Dante pulled me down onto the bed, so eager that it raised goosebumps all over me.
"Nuh-uh." I backed away. "We're gonna do this my way."
Dante raised a charming eyebrow. "Your way?"
I pulled my T-shirt over my head, tossed it across the room and lay down, palms pressed against the mattress.
"I'm gonna keep my hands right here on the bed. I'm not gonna touch you. But you can touch me wherever you like, at your own pace. And if you don't wanna, that's cool too."
That had been how I'd fucked things up at Dante's place the previous night. I'd assumed that his body and mind were in the same space. His brain wanted me, but the fear of moving on from Steph was holding his body back. However much he insisted he didn't need it, I was gonna give him all my time and patience.
Dante peeked along the expanse of battle-scarred caramel from my neck to my belt. His shy gaze on me was turning my heart inside-out.
"You don't have to touch me if you don't wanna. We can just sleep." I grabbed fistfuls of bed sheet to drive the point home.
Dante sat close, hesitant fingers hovering. He was sat for so long that I didn't think he was gonna do it, but then, he reached for me.
My threadbare resolve was almost worn away at the first touch of his fingertips, feather-soft. I pressed my itching palms harder into the sheets.
He traced a slow arc from cheek to chin, to neck, to clavicle, his fingers inspecting the length of an old scar on my shoulder, eyes wide like he was exploring an uncharted landscape.
"You don't have much hair," he murmured, still observing, noting, analyzing like he was at work, even when making love. "A lot of scars."
His fingers slid lower, looping a nipple before walking a meandering path toward the Algol tattoo at my hip. Couldn't keep my teeth from grinding with pleasure. It hadn't ever been like this with Leila. With her I'd wanted it to be a performance, to regale her, to give her something mind-blowing to brag about to her friends. But with Dante, all I wanted was to keep him close, however he needed me. My heart began to ache with it all.
Black eyes met mine. "Does it feel good?"
"Yeah," I breathed, drinking Dante in from under my lashes, so desperate to slide a finger along the sliver of brown at his waist. "Real good."
My admission seemed to ignite something in Dante. He leaned closer, his lips following the path of his fingers. I closed my eyes, savoring the tingling of my skin as the softest kisses trailed along my jaw, hesitant, like Dante was daring himself.
Eyes still closed, the gentle press of Dante's lips against mine made me gasp. Another kiss followed, deep and perfect. Light fingers slid tortuously slowly through the hair at the back of my neck. Dante's breaths quickened against my lips as we kissed again, and again.
More kisses came, slow and unending, until my heart was wrecked and a sob broke free. I didn't wanna ever let him go. How could I have considered revenge over this? How could Dante have been scared of this? If only Mamá could see me with a beautiful, gentle, brilliant cop. She'd have adored Dante. She'd have been proud of me.
A rush of tears overtook me outta nowhere. Dante cradled me, eyebrows pinched with concern.
"Dante," I breathed. "I love you."
Gentle fingers followed my salty tear-tracks. "I love you too."
"Can I touch you?" Unable to resist any longer, I lifted trembling hands from the bed and looped them around his neck, holding on until my tears dried.
Dante loved me. He couldn't possibly, could he? What was there to love? But, my heart shuddered under my ribs at the words. However it had happened, Dante loved me.
Rough palms roamed my skin. Dante's lips burned a trail along my chest. The swirl of a tongue around one nipple, then the warm, perfect slide to the other dragged a groan outta me. Dante popped each button of my fly as he licked.
And then, somehow, his hand landed on my scar.
The lightest press of Dante's palm against the bumpy scar tissue on my arm sent a bolt of white-hot pain through my entire body. Every single tortured neuron in me screamed and crackled like I'd been struck by lightning. I sank my teeth into my cheek to stifle a cry, but a wail of agony burst out from between my lips, my body writhing across the bed with the pain.
Dante sprang away from me, arms hovering like he was unsure whether to comfort me or run.
Then, I felt it. The slow crawl of blackness across my corneas. No. Not now. This couldn't be happening now. The pills had been working. Sylvia had promised that I wouldn't black out again.
My scar pulsed like a fresh brand, the inky tentacles of the Demon clouding my vision and slurring my words. "Run, Dante."
Under the screeching of my nerve cells I heard Dante pleading, "You won't hurt me, Jay."
My arm throbbed hard. The agony had me writhing across pillows like a worm. Tenderly pressing at the gnarled flesh of my scar did nothing to calm it.
With my jaw locked and grinding in pain, my warning cry to Dante came out as a piercing scream. "Run, Dante!"
As I fell into darkness, a plea managed to escape from between my lips. A desperate plea to the Demon not to make me kill the man I loved.