CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

D ANTE CLIPPED E MMA ’ S seat belt and told the driver to take them back to the Cappetta Continental.

She collapsed against the seat and watched out of the window. Everything looked different. Felt different. The sleeping streets were too grey, too dim. The city lights, the busy billboards of flashing images, nonsensical.

Emma hadn’t only betrayed herself. She’d betrayed Dante. And now she understood just how deeply.

She’d run away, abandoned him, without explanation. She’d left him alone in a house with nothing but empty noise. With faces of people who didn’t care, who would walk out of his life without a backward glance. Staff who were there to meet his every need, but who didn’t know his face. They didn’t know his name. They did not know him.

Emma knew him.

Her stomach hurt. She wanted to sob at the emptiness she hadn’t recognised before. This emptiness that had only ever been absent when he’d been with her. Inside her. Filled the hollow where he’d branded her. Ruined her.

And she was ruined, wasn’t she?

She’d ruined everything because she’d caught feelings. So why then did she not feel ruined? Why was she warm? Why was she—

She was a fool.

The car stopped outside the hotel, ablaze in pink light. Dante stepped out of his side and opened her door. She looked up, met the questioning dark brown of his eyes, and she understood her time was up. She had to tell him her memory had returned. She knew why she’d left.

‘Shall I carry you?’

She shook her head. How could she let him carry her, hold her, when she was the enemy? When she was everything he didn’t want? He never should have taken her to his place. He never should have let her in.

‘No.’ She swallowed it down. The lump in her throat felt as though it was blocking her airway, making it difficult to breathe. She had no choice. She was going to have to reveal herself. Expose her crimes. And then it would be over.

They would be over.

‘Come.’ He offered her his hand. Long, thick bronze fingers reaching for her. How many times had he claimed her hand? Held it? Comforted her when she did not deserve it? She did not deserve him. His softness. His trust. She was not his safe place. She was not his garden. And he could no longer be hers.

Emma reached out her hand to him, and he claimed it. Supported her as she stepped out of the car, and together they walked into the hotel, to the lift. And she saw none of the hotel lobby. Only him. Only his hand. The strength of it closing around hers and keeping her steady.

But she was not steady. Inside, she trembled. Inside, she knew, after tonight, after she told him the truth, he’d never hold her hand again.

The steel doors closed, sealing them inside.

Her throat ached. She swallowed repeatedly, trying to soothe it. To prepare it for the story she knew she must tell. But she wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t ready.

How different her body felt from the last time they’d been in here together just a few hours earlier. It wasn’t anticipation flooding through her in waves as it had been before. It was a heaviness. A breathless dread. She was rigid, sweating beneath her coat.

Higher and higher the lift climbed until the ping of arrival boomed into the air between them.

Hand in hand, side by side, they moved through the open doors—

‘Dante,’ she said, and he stopped. Turned. And it was acute. The realisation. The piercing pain in her chest. These would be their last moments together.

‘Kiss me,’ she said, because she needed just one kiss. One last kiss. To feel the rush of his lips. The softness of his mouth. And then she would tell him. Then she would let him go.

She’d let him close the door on them. Lock her out. Because what else could she do? He’d never lied to her. He’d never broken the rules. But she had. She was breaking them by being here. By not being strong enough, the day she’d left Mayfair, to tell him the truth, and ask for a divorce.

‘You must sleep, Emmy.’ Dark eyes held hers. ‘And when you are rested—’ he stepped into her space and the heat of him, the scent of him, a smell unique to him, entered her pores and her heart sang ‘—we will talk about what’s next. What’s next for us.’

He lifted his hand, and with an open palm, he placed it on her cheek. Cradled it. Swiped the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. And she wanted to lean into his softness. Lean against his strength because she was weak.

She was her mother.

Dante would never—

Is it love?

Was that what she was feeling now? Because she might not have felt it when she left. But it felt different now. Stronger.

Not the lie of love she’d watched her mother chase all her life, but the love in her mum’s books. The books Emma had stolen to read in the garden. Stories of a love that recognised not just the flesh, but the person underneath it. Saw beneath skin and bone and stared at their soul. A mirror image of themselves.

Was this what her mother had longed for all those years? What she’d craved? Waited for to her detriment? For someone to let her in. To know what each other needed and to respond to that need with care and consideration. To keep each other safe from the noise—from the hardness—and take care of each other softly.

Dante had treated her softly. Gently, he’d claimed her and their marriage when she didn’t even remember what she’d done. She’d run fast and far away from him. From all the things growing inside her. And still they grew. Her heart bulged in its confines. Strained to be released from its bony cage.

‘Kiss me, please,’ she begged. ‘Now.’ She needed his mouth on hers. She needed to say with her lips what she couldn’t find the words to say. Didn’t want to say.

‘One kiss,’ he breathed, and it was all she wanted. One last kiss before he thrust her from him. Called her a liar, a betrayer. An infiltrator. And—

His hand slid down her arm, sneaked beneath her coat and claimed her hip. He pulled, and she followed. Let him mould her body to his.

How perfectly they fit. How perfectly her body aligned with his.

She lifted her hand to his shoulder, clung to it— to him —and watched his mouth descend. Felt the warmth of his breath feather her lips. And she opened for him. Parted her lips for his.

She closed her eyes as his hands claimed her face. She pressed her palms to his cheeks and held his face just as carefully. Just as softly.

His lips met hers. Brushed against them so softly. So tenderly. And she wanted to sob—wail her distress, but she held it in, pushed her mouth against his harder and thrust her tongue inside his mouth. And she felt it. The rush. The headiness of his possession as his tongue pushed inside her mouth and met hers. And she kissed him. Harder. Deeper. She pushed all those feelings inside her chest into this kiss.

She let him taste the ferociousness of them. Of these feelings she’d run away from in Mayfair. She’d fought it that day. This knowing she wanted more. Needed more of him. Until she could no longer fight it and ran away before she could confess it.

Emma didn’t fight it now. She let it drive her. Her tongue. Her kiss. She kissed him with need, with longing for all the things she wanted and knew he didn’t. She kissed him with her goodbye. She kissed him with everything she’d never allowed herself to feel. With warmth. With passion. With need. With love.

Something fundamental had shifted between them. Changed. They were different. She was different. She was changed. And he’d done it to her. He’d shown her tenderness, passion, cared for her softly, and she’d transformed because of him.

He was right. The night they’d met the sex had been carnal. Their relationship passionate. Intense. More. And that’s all they’d ever wanted, all they’d ever claimed from one another.

But tonight, and since her fall, he’d been... different . Softer and more patient. Gentle. Never had their relationship been gentle. Never had they talked. Never had she asked questions. Never had he allowed it. Never had he been around long enough. Never had she understood why everything they’d agreed to meant so very much to them both. Why, they were a match in and out of bed.

She understood now.

‘Emmy...’ he moaned into her mouth, and she ached. Her heart ached. He knew her. He knew her name.

She tore her mouth away from his, and it was agony to end their last kiss.

‘Dante,’ she began and kissed the tip of his chin. ‘Dante,’ she repeated and kissed his cheek. ‘Dante,’ she said again, and applied her lips to the softness of his other cheek. ‘I know your name, Dante,’ she said, and this time the tears built as she brushed her lips across his closed eyelid and then the other. ‘I know your face,’ she said, and dropped her hand from his face. From the warmth of him. She stepped back, dislodging his hands, his body, from hers. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, moving backwards, back towards the lift. And it hurt to be so far away from him, and yet so close. ‘I know you ,’ she said, and it trembled, her voice. Her words.

They recognised each other, didn’t they? Were drawn to each other without rhyme or reason. Without logic. Their bodies knew, if not their minds, not their hearts, that they belonged together. And they’d lied to themselves, created rules and signed contracts to make the illogical logical. They’d given themselves a way to understand it. This connection that ran more than skin-deep. It was more than the sharing of heat between flesh. Bodies. It was deeper. It was a connection of the souls.

Soulmates.

She recognised his soul, didn’t she? She’d recognised it the very first night, and she’d thrown caution to the wind, broken her every vow to be with him. To have more of him.

Fate had slammed them together when the probability of them ever meeting was not only improbable, but it should have been impossible.

And yet it had happened.

They had met.

They had recognised each other.

He knew her.

He’d always known her.

But this she must do.

Confess.

‘Come to bed, Emmy.’

It would be so easy to pretend. To walk inside their suite and follow him to bed. To climb inside the sheets and wrap her body around his. It would be so easy to shut her eyes and claim one more night. To keep him in the dark. To shield him from the truth that would end them.

‘I can’t,’ she croaked, denying him, denying herself, because if she did, if she stayed, if she went to bed with him, she knew what the jail sentence would be.

She’d lived it. Understood exactly what she’d be signing up for. And she’d only fall deeper for him. Get deeper into a situation that would echo her mum’s. And she knew how that ended.

So she couldn’t follow him. She couldn’t pretend even for one more night. Because if she did, it would be worse than loving him. It would be knowing she loved him. It would be hope that one day he’d love her back. And hope killed.

If she followed him, if she waited for his love, it would kill her.

She wasn’t naive anymore. She’d left him because she’d been afraid of her developing emotional attachment to him. But now... She understood him better than she ever had in their marriage. Understood herself more. And what she’d tried to stomp out and forget the day she’d left Mayfair had grown beyond attachment.

She was his worst nightmare come true.

She was emotionally attached.

She was his soulmate.

She was in love with him.

And she’d been fighting it for months. She’d still been fighting it when he’d come for her in the hospital. She’d clung to her younger self. That naive young woman who was certain she wanted nothing like that for herself. She’d had rules in place. Knew what love did to a person.

And even without her memory, she’d needed a way out too. In case she’d needed it again.

She’d demanded a divorce if she wanted one, as he’d demanded a get-out clause in their marriage contract. He’d needed it as much as she had. Because his wounds ran as deep as hers, didn’t they? And she didn’t know how to mend him. Mend herself. Mend them.

She knew what he wanted. He’d never lied to her. Never failed to deliver what he’d promised. But the goal posts had changed. She was changing them. She wanted something different.

She wanted a real marriage.

‘Why not?’ he asked, his eyes pinning her and penetrating hers deeply. ‘Why can’t you come to bed with me?’

Her time was up.

The end was coming and she would summon it with her confession.

Unless this wasn’t the end of them.

It was a beginning.

She should have used her words three months ago. But she had been afraid. Afraid his needs would not align with hers.

And she was still afraid now.

But he was her match.

And she was his.

Together, what if they could beat the fear?

Together, what if they could learn to love and define it for themselves?

Together, what if they could transcend?

Hope bloomed inside her.

‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Should I call a doctor?’ he asked, and she saw it. The flash of worry.

He cared.

She shook her head.

It wasn’t enough.

‘I remember.’

His mouth opened, those competent lips she wanted to kiss again and again, until she was breathless with his kiss. Now. In this penthouse suite in Japan. She wanted to kiss his cheeks again, his stubbled jaw, his eyelids; she wanted to tell him she knew him again. She knew his face. And she wanted to take him somewhere too. Somewhere new, where they both could live in safety, wrapped in the warmth of love. To prove to him that they were the same. They belonged together.

She closed her eyes, because it was easier to confess when she wasn’t looking at him. At the face of the man she loved.

‘I remember everything,’ she confessed, and her heart raged in a deafening roar. ‘I remember why I left. Why I ran away from you—’ And she faltered, shame stabbing into her core. Because she had been weak, and she had abandoned him like everyone else in his life. She would not abandon him now, not without explanation at least.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I—’ Slowly, she opened her eyes. Looked at him.

She would not hide anymore. She would own her feelings and she would survive them.

He deserved her love.

She deserved his.

They deserved each other’s.

And so she let him in. His dark gaze, Emma let it in behind the walls she’d built.

‘I was afraid,’ she confessed.

‘Of what?’ he asked, and she heard the hardness in his voice. The resistance to whatever was happening between them. Because it was happening. The air was thick with it. With change. With possibilities.

‘I was scared of you, Dante,’ she confessed. ‘Of what you made me feel. I feared for myself.’

‘I’ve never given you reason to fear—’

‘And yet I was afraid,’ she said. ‘I broke the rules. I got emotionally attached. I caught feelings. I am having feelings right now. Big feelings. Scary feelings, Dante. And I am afraid still. Afraid when I tell you, when I confess what it is I have done—what I am doing, what I feel—you will send me away.’

‘Come to bed, Emma,’ he said, and this time, it was not a request. It was a demand. And he moved towards her. And all she could see was him. Dante Cappetta. Her husband. The man who had given her the tools to heal herself. The man who held her hand. Her body. The man who took care of her.

And she wanted to take care of him. She wanted to hold his hand. She wanted to shelter him from the hardness with her body. But she wanted his heart. She wanted to put it in a safe place and hold it with her own. She wanted to love him and she wanted him to love her.

‘In bed, I will claim your big feelings with my lips,’ he said, and took another step closer. ‘I will drive myself inside you until the bigness of your feelings can escape. As we have always done. When we make love. When I love your body, there is no fear. No escape from the flame within us. In bed, we let it roar, let it consume us.’ Another step. ‘Do not be afraid of it. Do not fear—’

‘Stop!’ she cried, and halted him with a raised open palm. ‘Our contract is void, Dante. I broke—’

‘It does not matter. I do not want to know. You are here now, Emma. We can continue as we agreed.’

‘We can’t,’ she corrected.

‘We can,’ he rasped. ‘Here with me, you can have it all. Physical pleasure. Security. Safety in my arms. Everything I have promised is yours.’

‘It isn’t enough anymore,’ she admitted, her chest tight and heaving. ‘I lo—’

‘Emma, don’t,’ he warned, his every feature tight. Drawn. Pained .

But she would. All her life she’d been running from her feelings, her needs, her secret desires. Afraid she’d turn out like her mum. Unloved and unwanted. But Emma was wanted. And she wanted to be loved.

Loved by him.

‘I’m in love with you,’ she said, and it felt freeing. Liberating. So she said it again, ‘I love—’

‘Do not say it again, Emma,’ he warned darkly.

‘I know right now you’re afraid.’

‘I am not afraid.’ His black gaze intense beneath arched brows, he said, ‘You have betrayed me, Emma. You have betrayed us both.’

‘I believed that too. It’s why I left. Why I wrote that note. I knew I’d betrayed us both. But those two versions of us, they betrayed us ,’ she corrected,

‘There is no us ,’ he said.

‘Our parents. Our pasts. The ghosts of both, they are dragging us down, forcing us to deny our feelings, making us hide them underneath our fear. They are defining our lives, our relationships, because of their mistakes.’

‘Nobody defines me. I live my life my way, by my rules.’

‘You know that isn’t true,’ she said. ‘Your mother was the reason you had a vasectomy when you were all but a child.’

‘I was a man.’

‘You were a boy entering manhood the only way he could,’ she rejected. ‘You severed any potential threat that a child could be used against you. Because you have been taught, as I have, that people use other people for their own selfish desires. You’ve learned not to trust. Not to let anyone get close. Not to love anyone, or let them love you, because ultimately, they will betray you. That’s why you have so many rules. It’s why we had a contract. So you wouldn’t get attached. Because all the people who should have been attached to you emotionally, unconditionally, they abandoned you. So you created a world full of safety nets and get-out clauses for when things got too real. Too risky—’

‘Do not twist my words, Emma,’ he said. His voice was a low hiss of warning. ‘I meant, I mean , exactly what I said.’

‘I know,’ she soothed.

‘Do not try to placate me.’

‘I’m not. I meant every word I have ever said to you too, and we were both wrong,’ she said. ‘I won’t hide under false promises anymore. Or fake rules. To live a safe existence. To simply survive this life I’m meant to be living because I’m afraid. I will be free of them. I will exorcise those that wish to trap me in a life of fear. Of rules. Of contracts. Those who would deny me what I deserve. And I deserve to be cared for when I’m hurt. To be treated softly when I need soft. To be kissed passionately whenever I want. I will have it all. I will be loved.’

‘Do not use words when you do not understand the definition. We both know that love is a lie. There is only lust. There is only the body—’

‘I don’t believe that anymore. What about the soul?’ she asked. ‘You recognised mine the night we met. I recognised yours. We recognised each other. We were drawn to each other without rhyme or reason. Without logic. Our bodies knew, if not our minds, our hearts, that we belong together. We have lied to ourselves. We created rules and signed contracts to make the illogical logical. We gave ourselves a way to understand it. This connection between us. But it is deeper than sharing our bodies. We are—’

‘Compatible,’ he interjected. ‘In bed.’

‘We are soulmates.’

‘You are deluded.’

‘I am enlightened.’

‘I will call the doctor.’

‘And what will you tell him?’ she asked. ‘Your wife is in love with you?’

‘You are not my wife,’ he spat. ‘You are an imposter.’

‘You’re right. I am. I’m not the woman you married. I’m not the woman content to be in a relationship where nothing but the physical means anything. But you are an imposter too. You have changed. You let me in, Dante. You took me to your place. You have done so many things our contract doesn’t allow for. You came for me when I fell. You brought me to Japan. You trusted me, only me, enough to take me there tonight and tell me your story. I know how hard that was for you, because it was hard for me to tell you everything about myself the other night on the terrace. You love me, Dante,’ she said, and prayed. Prayed everything she’d said was enough. Because she wanted to stay. With him. ‘Even if you won’t admit it to me, can’t admit it to yourself.’

The pressure built behind her eyes, and she couldn’t hold the tears back. They splashed onto her cheeks in hot, salty streams. There was too much to hold in. She did not want to say it. She did not want to leave. But she understood. She knew him. What this would cost him. But she was not her father. She would not use a language of lies to take what she needed from him if it meant he would lose himself. But—

‘Is it such a great sacrifice, Dante?’ she asked, and stifled the tears—wiped them away. She tilted her neck, straightened her spine—her shoulders. ‘To let me love you? To love me in return?’

‘I do not love you, Emma,’ he said.

She wanted to block her ears. Close her eyes. ‘Dante—’

‘I have listened to you, and now you will listen to me,’ he said. ‘The contract was clear. I have been clear. And now it is over, Emma. I am ending it.’ The coldness of his words, his voice, stabbed into her chest. Into her heart. And it cracked. Not a split. Not a fracture.

It was fatal.

A killing wound.

‘I’m sorry,’ she husked, because she was. She was sorry she couldn’t lie. Couldn’t pretend. She was sorry her feelings were too big for them both. ‘I’ll leave. Now.’ And she dragged her eyes away from him, turned her body away from the only man she’d ever trusted. The only man she’d ever loved and wanted to love her back.

And it was agony.

It was like a death.

She took a step forward, and she felt it. Her heart breaking. But she would stem the flow. She would survive him. The way her mother hadn’t survived her father. Because she at least was honest enough with herself to know what she needed. What she deserved. She was honest enough to walk away with the knowledge that he couldn’t return her love.

Firm fingers caught her wrist. She looked up in to his eyes. And they blazed. His nostrils flared.

‘You do not get to leave me ever again.’

Dante’s chest heaved. His every muscle stretched tight.

He’d let her get too close. Let her become essential to his survival, let her become his air. But he would learn to breathe without her. This was the ultimate betrayal. He’d trusted her. Told her things. Shown her things. He’d allowed her to get too close. She’d taken his power. Dulled his defences with her tears and tales.

‘Do you know why I came to get you from the hospital?’ He stepped closer to her to prove he could be near her without reaching out and touching her.

He would claim his power back.

‘Because you care, Dante,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Because you love—’

‘I came to out you.’

‘Out me?’

‘Expose you,’ he said, and watched her pale face drain of colour.

‘Expose me?’ she gasped.

‘It was not hard to work out, Emma, because you are all the same.’

‘The same?’

‘You all want more. You are no different from any of them.’

He’d been right all along.

She was playing with him.

She was a liar. She knew, as he did, that love didn’t exist. And yet she used this word like ammunition. But her words would not pierce his armour. He would not let her in. He would not let her leave. Abandon him. Again.

‘My mother. She was like you,’ he said, and he saw her frown, watched her lips compress, as she waited for him to explain. So he continued, because she needed to understand that he saw straight through her.

‘She married my father with a contract such as ours. A marriage contract that stipulated the conditions of their marriage. The rules. And my mother used them to her advantage. She manipulated my father into giving her a bigger settlement. She used what she thought he wanted most and manipulated him. I have never hidden how much I want you. I never tried to hide the power you have over me. Even without your memory, you have seen it. My desire to keep you. And you use that admission against me. But I will not be manipulated.’

‘What is it you think I want from you if not what I’ve asked for?’ she said. ‘I want your love. And I’m willing to walk away without it.’

‘And it is too big a payment,’ he rasped. ‘An impossible request. It does not exist. It is a lie.’

‘But it does exist. You collected me from the hospital because of love. You have taken care of me with love. You—’

‘Kept my promise to you!’ A roar built inside him. And he wanted to release it. Call her names. Call her a liar. A manipulator. ‘And you have broken them all. I told you my story of a boy—’

‘A lonely boy.’

‘And you have twisted everything I told you, and now you threaten to take away the one thing I want. You . So, what is it, Emma? Tell me,’ he roared. ‘What do you think I will give to you if you offer me love?’

‘Love in return.’

‘You are a liar.’

‘Can’t you see?’ she asked, and there were her tears again. And she placed her open palm on his chest. Over his heart. A reflection of where their relationship had started.

And the organ that gave him life, it was betraying him. It pumped too hard. Too fast under the pressure of her fingers. ‘They, our parents, are dragging something beautiful into their ugly mistakes. I have never played with you or toyed with you. I have been honest with you since the night we met. I am being honest with you now. And I know what I’m saying is against the rules. But I have changed. We have changed. Let me in, Dante. Let me inside. Let me love you.’

‘No.’ He shrugged off her hand. Her hold on him. He would have his power back and he would have it now.

‘I came into this marriage with nothing, and I’ll leave with what I came with, because I don’t need any of it. The things in Mayfair that I left behind in the first place, I don’t want them,’ she husked. ‘I only want you. I only need you. This isn’t a plan of deception. I am not trying to deceive you. I am not your mother. I... I love you. And I know you love me. But I won’t...’

‘You are wrong, Emma. I do not love you. I do not want your love. I will not beg you to stay. I will not accept your lies. Your broken promises in place of something we both know doesn’t exist. And yet you use it, this word love as though it means something to me. It means nothing .’

His fingers were still clenched around her small wrist. He looked down to where he held her, tethered her to him, and his fingers ached with every demand he made for them to loosen. To release her.

‘And now you mean nothing to me.’

He let her wrist go, and he couldn’t inhale.

He could not feed his lungs enough air.

He could not breathe deeply enough.

‘But I keep my promises, Emma,’ he said, because who was he without rules, without the playbook? He was weak. He would not be weak. But it flashed in his head. Emma’s hardness. Birmingham. The hospital. The blood—

‘Tomorrow, I will call a car to collect you. Book the jet to take you back to England. The Mayfair house is yours. The deeds will be at the house when you arrive.’

‘Dante—’

‘You will be financially secure for the rest of your life.’

‘I—’

‘I do not want to listen to you anymore, Emma. I do not want to be anywhere near anything you have touched. Tainted with your lies and broken promises. Everything in the house is yours. I do not want any of it. I do not want—’ he looked at his hand, at the gold band that signified their union ‘—this.’

He took it off, his wedding ring, and displayed it in the air between them and held her gaze, ignored the tears streaming down her cheeks and the instinct to use his thumb to wipe them away.

He dropped the ring to the floor.

She gasped.

‘I am leaving you ,’ he said, and the words were fire in his mouth. ‘And there will be no second chances, Emma. I will not come for you. I will not wait for you to come to me with some tale of woe. It is over. We are—’

‘Dante, please .’

He shut his ears. Blocked the Emma-shaped hole in his head. He would not let her. He did not need her. He did not want her.

Liar .

He walked past her. And it hurt. The pull of her against him. The urge to give in to temptation. To go to her and not to step around her, to enter the lift and keep on going. To walk away from her.

‘Where are you going?’

His hand on the button, his feet stalled. He did not turn. He would not look.

He’d go where he should have the night they’d met. He never should have clasped her hand. Claimed her lips. Possessed her body. Because that night she’d possessed him, his body, his mind, until everything he did was unnatural to him.

‘As far away from you as I can,’ he said, and firmly pressed the button, walked inside the opening doors and kept his back turned on the lie of Emma. The lie of their marriage. The lie she had turned it into with her broken promises.

Because if he looked, if he watched the doors close on her, doubt would blur the edges of his conviction. Doubt would weaken him. But he was resolved.

He did not want her love.

He was not changed.

He was not weak.

The doors closed.

A coldness tore through his flesh and entered his bones. His lungs.

He placed a hand on the mirrored wall. He held himself on his feet.

There was no oxygen.

He was cold.

He was alone.

And Dante couldn’t breathe.