Dante // February 27
•••
"Want to tell me why my Nonna just called me all concerned about the wellbeing of the 'sweet young girl with freckles'?"
I'm sitting in the living room, rethinking my conversation with Celeste while enjoying my last minutes of silence before the chaos that awaits me at the mayor's event. But of course, Ricardo had to come and ruin it.
"No," I answer.
I'd remembered Mirabella's request to tell Ricardo to call her, but I hadn't honored it for multiple reasons.
Number one being that I didn't want Ricardo to know I'd taken Celeste to his nonna's ice cream place. I know him well enough to know that he's going to read way too much into it, and he knows me well enough to know that all of those things would be true.
Number two is that I don't want any more attention on Celeste than necessary.
And the final reason is that Mirabella would have my head if she knew I'd brought the woman who'd been the bane of my mafia's existence for seven whole years into her sacred ice cream salon.
Ricardo sits down on one of the black leather chairs in the seating arrangement with a sigh. "You know you can talk to me, right?"
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Oh no?" he challenges. "So you think it's normal to take nine shots of vodka just to keep yourself from going back into the medical room to check on her while she was being examined by Amani?"
I send him a glare, remembering how I'd forced myself to leave and stay away from her last night after she'd woken up. My emotions had ridden up so high that I felt like there was a thin threat holding me back from doing something as irrational as kissing her.
"You think it's normal to get yourself twenty six speeding tickets just because she asked you to pick her up? You think it's normal to invite her for breakfast with Adriana?"
"Okay, cazzo, I get it." I lean back into the cough while using my thumb and index finger to rub my eyes until they're pinching the bridge of my nose.
"Look I get that she's pretty-"
A chuckle void of any humor leaves me at his choice of words.
Pretty wasn't enough to describe her in any context whatsoever.
"-but as a friend, I'm telling you that you're getting too deep into this man."
If only he knew how far gone I truly was.
Every conversation, every word she speaks and every bit of personality and past that gets revealed draws me in more.
It's like quicksand, but for some reason I'm not afraid of sinking in entirely.
"Thanks for the advice."
He frowns at me, unimpressed at my dry tone. "Why do I have the feeling that you're not going to listen to me?"
"Because I'm not."
He shakes his head. "Well I guess she's an improvement from Natalia."
"Everything is an improvement from Natalia, Ricardo."
"No, I mean it," he says. "She's good for Adriana. They spend an entire afternoon making flower combinations and stuff."
I lean forward. "They did?"
He's about to say more when the sound of heels ticking against the floor fills up the room. I glance up to find Celeste standing in my living room, casually looking like she's on a mission to get me too hard to get up from this couch.
The dark green dress she's wearing suits her body in all the right places. The swell of her breasts are pressed up and the long slit in the gown allows for one of her long legs to be visible.
The fabric is skin tight around the waist, showing off her figure and probably her ass as well.
I feel Ricardo's stare at my face as he mumbles something I can't be bothered to hear. Celeste is adjusting one of the high gloves that match her dress and suddenly, I want my hand to replace the pearls around her neck.
•••
Celeste // February 27
•••
Dante and I are sitting silently in the back of a limo.
I haven't looked at him ones the entire twenty minute drive, because the more I look at him the angrier I get.
It's not fair for someone to look so.. so..
I don't even have the words to describe it.
He's dressed in all black. His suit made to fit every inch of his muscular body perfectly and his hair styled in a way that makes me want to run my hands through it while he'd be on top of me.
His signature rings and thin chain are around his fingers and neck, and the contrast of the gold against his tanned tattooed skin sends a wave of warmth to my core.
I gulp and snap my eyes away to the window on my side. This isn't the time to lust after him. I need to focus.
I was going to be seeing Josette again tonight. The girl who was there at my highest and lowest points. The girl who was there to bring me to life and to suck it out of me. The girl who had taught me how to love and then took my capability of doing it away.
She'd be there, with her soft blue eyes and bouncy blonde curls. With her red lips and sweet smiles. She'd be wearing a pink dress and silver jewelry, talking about the newest romance book she'd fallen obsessed with.
She'd be frowning at the nail polish that she'd taken hours and hours to decide on, wondering if it was truly the most flattering shade of off-white while already planning out her next set of nails.
She's going to be there. After seven years.
Suddenly, the reality of it all settles in and my throat closes in nervousness.
It's then that I realize that she's going to be standing there, looking every bit of the princess I'd fallen in love with, while she held on to another's arm.
How could she marry someone like him? Someone so cruel and violent and unsympathetic and sure – I recognize that I share many of those same personality traits, but at least I have some redeeming ones.
At least I didn't target the weak or found pleasure in hurting innocent people.
Surely Josette wasn't so blind or ignorant to not see what kind of monster Tobias was? Surely she'd seen by now that he's not a good person, just like I told her all those years ago.
Or maybe she hadn't changed at all. Maybe neither of them had.
"Dante?"
His head turns to me. "Yes?"
"I know you don't want me to kill them yet," I start cautiously. "But can I.. can I please stab them ones or twice? Non-fatally of course."
"I don't think that'll play out well, Celeste."
My eyebrows push together. "Why not? I can make it look like an accident."
He chuckles before mindlessly putting a stray of my hair behind my ear. "I know you can, but no bloody messes tonight, okay?"
"How about internal bleedings then?" I try.
He gives me an amused look that somehow lessons the weight of the ugly bunch of emotions that're twisting in my stomach.
"None of that tonight." He smoothly closes our distance, bringing his lips to my ear. "Patience."
He pulls away enough for me to tip my head up and look him in the eye. "I'm not a patient person."
"I'm aware," he says, placing a hand on my hip. "That's why I'm going to need you to give me your knife."
I'm caught off guard briefly, but recover quickly. "I don't have one."
"Oh no?" He frowns as the hand on my hip slips lower until it reaches the slit in my gown. "So if I'll search I won't find anything?"
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak with his hand so close to the bare skin of my thighs.
His hand slips underneath the dark green fabric, his skin warm against mine and the cold gold of his rings sending tingles up my thighs. He moves his hand slowly, teasingly, until he reaches the strap.
I try to close my legs, but he tsks and pries them back open.
"What's this then, hm?" His finger hooks underneath the strap attached around my thigh before it moves to the inner part where I'd stashed my knife.
He frees the weapon and pulls it out from underneath my dress with a satisfied glint in his eyes. I look away, ones again unable to stand the sight of him.
Dante puts the side of the blade against my jaw, guiding my head back to face him. I expect him to lower the knife after, but of course, he keeps it there resting against my skin.
"Promise me something."
He tried to word it as a question, but there wasn't much room for choice in his tone. "Okay."
"Don't ever try to lie to people," he says. "You're very bad at it."
And just like that, his audacity manages to piss me off again. "I am not."
He gives me a tired look, one that tells me he knew we were both aware of the fact that I'm a bad liar.
"But who needs lies when you can just shoot people?"
He shakes his head and a small smile appears on his face as he stacks my knife away into his black suit jacket. Just in time, our driver gives us a sign that we'd arrived and opens the door on his side.
We were entering through a backdoor. When I asked why, Dante told me there'd be many camaras, shouting people and photo flashes at the main entrance and that he disliked being around paparazzi.
I'd believe him, if only there hadn't been pictures of him entering this very same event through the main entrance last year.
But it's not like I'm complaining, I rather don't have the noise and chaos.
Dante holds a hand out for me and helps me out of the low vehicle, and just like that, we're on our way to destruction.
I'm hanging on to Dante's bicep for dear life as we make our way into the party, but he doesn't seem to mind.
It's pretty here. The ceiling is high in a way that makes the space seem fancy instead of empty, and the interior of the mayor's house screams old money.
Seriously, you can't make it five meters without seeing some old dead white man immortalized on a portrait.
"Do you want a drink?"
"No- I mean, yes." I shake my head before looking up at him. "I mean, do you want one?"
I'm bad at making decisions and the fact that I'm in de midst of an important party, overstimulated and with no knife to defend myself isn't helping in the slightest.
"Let's get a drink," he decides.
We make our way to the bar and on the way there I can't help but notice how people react to Dante's presence.
Some quickly move out of his way, like he is something deadly that'll catch them if they come too close. Others gape at him, scanning his body from head to toe before they try and fail to make eye contact with him.
And then of course, you have types that puff out their chests, trying to appear tough and powerful while pretending not to be intimidated by him.
We reach the bar and he puts a hand on my lower back before giving me a drink-cart.
"Alcohol?" I read. "Ehm, can I get a water? I can't have that."
I remember what happened back in France. Celia had always had a curiosity for the two grownups that put us in the world. She had this fantasy that we'd ended up in the orphanage by mistake, that our parents would welcome her back with open arms and warm smiles when she'd find them.
So it was quite a letdown for her when she found out her mother died of alcohol poisoning.
Celia explained it to me when I asked her about it. It was poisonous, she'd said, it was bad for your body and it would cloud your judgements and reduce your ability to function until you'd finally die. Painfully and slowly.
"You don't drink?"
I shake my head. "Where I come from, people die from that."
He flips the cart in my hands, this one titled as 'non-alcoholic drinks'.
"You're not going to die from a cocktail or glass of wine, Celeste."
I give him an questioning look, recalling all the late-night horror stories that Celia would tell while she shone a flashlight underneath her face and used skin-shivering language.
"I'm not so sure about that." I raise my eyebrows at the long list of options and immediately realize that it's going to take me at least an hour to decide. I look at Dante and give the cart back to him. "Can you choose for me, please?"
His hand on my back tenses for a split second before it slips over the fabric of my dress to hold my waist.
At first his hold on me could've been necessary to guide me to the bar or something, but this – well, this I couldn't find a logical reason for.
But I didn't mind.
Dante orders for us both and a moment later the barman places two drinks in front of us. He gives me the one with a pretty red color and a strawberry on the side of the glass.
He remembered I like strawberries.
Or maybe it was just a lucky guess.
Yes, that was probably it.
I give him a thankful smile and ask him what he's drinking.
We start talking and somehow, somewhere along the lines, I forget that I'm standing in a crowded room, I forget that I'm willingly letting Dante Alessi touch me in a non-sexual manner and I forget that we're supposed to be focused on more important matters than each other.
But that all changes when I see her.
Even though I can't see her face, I know it's her.
She's wearing a dark pink dress and white lacy gloves. Her hair is even fuller, shinier and bouncier as what I remember it to be and she's holding on to someone's arm.
And then she turns.
We make eye contact for less than a second, yet it feels like hours before I look away.
My stomach twists, it's like someone is wringing out every single organ in the most nauseating way.
"They're here," Dante says. "You ready to walk up to them?"
No, but I nod anyways.
And just like that, he walks me over to them, my two ghosts from the past.
•••
Cliffhangerrrr
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