24. Dante

TWENTY-FOUR

Dante

I'm sitting on the floor with my back to the wall when Noah arrives.

He answered on the first ring, like it wasn't the middle of the night, like he didn't even consider ignoring my call in spite of what I said to him. Like he's actually been waiting for it.

I wasn't able to speak when he answered. He didn't ask if I was okay; he only asked where I was. Warehouse , I told him, and he said, Sit down. Don't move.

So I'm sitting down, not moving, when he walks in. His mouth is set in a grim line as he scans the area for signs of trouble or another person. Then he crouches in front of me.

"One to ten," he says.

One means I'm okay. Ten means I'm about to lose my shit.

I just shake my head. I don't know.

He holds out his hand. "Gun."

I reach behind my back and pull out my gun. I hand it to him. He checks the safety then sticks it in the back of his jeans.

"Knives," he prompts.

I give him the knife that's up my sleeve. His hand remains out and expectant. I extract the one stuck in my boot and yield it.

"Did you take anything?"

I shake my head. He knows that's not likely—I'm not Rafael, who will put just about anything in his body—but he has to ask.

"Is anyone in danger that shouldn't be?"

"Tristan …"

"Where is he?"

I close my eyes. "I don't know. He left."

"From here ? Was Tristan here ?"

"Yes."

"Fuck, Dante."

He doesn't have to tell me how bad that is. I'm compromised. Tristan knows about … all this. But I can't bring myself to care about that aspect of it. He's fucking gone .

"He used the safe word," I tell Noah.

"How did he find … never mind, he obviously followed you. How did he react? What happened?"

"He's … Evan's brother."

" What? How can that be?"

I do my best to explain what Tristan told me. I hear how flat my voice is, but I do manage to focus. To function.

"What led to this?" Noah asks when I finish. "Why would he have followed you here?"

That's when I can't breathe anymore. It's happened a lot over the past two days.

"Count to ten, Dante. Out loud." When I've done that, he asks, "What did you fight about?"

"I don't know."

"Walk me through the day."

I close my eyes as everything tries to sweep in at once. My father. Tristan coming to my office. Tristan on top of me during sex. The fact that I came like that, with him on top of me . Fucking Tristan after, trying to forget, trying to sleep. Then the nightmare. Then waking up to the sense of someone in the bed with me.

I can't walk Noah through all that. Not because he can't know, just because I can't talk about it, not yet. He might get it out of me later. But I do tell him, "I had a nightmare. Two days ago."

Noah is silent for a moment, trying to fill in a whole lot of blanks, but he only asks, "And Tristan was present for this?"

"Yes."

"He tried to talk to you?"

"Yes."

"You chased him off?"

I close my eyes, and that's answer enough. Noah takes a deep breath then asks, "What have you been doing since?"

I barely know. I'm so fucking exhausted that everything is hazy. All I know is that when a lead on Evan's handler popped up, it was like a goddamn blessing. Something to focus on.

I tell Noah, "Tracking down Evan's handler. I have …" I press my fingers into my eyes. "Fuck, I'm supposed to be meeting him tonight."

"And you're going to kill him?"

"Of course I'm going to fucking kill him! He's the reason Evan was already gone from the Island when you arrived! He'd already fucking taken Evan!"

"I know, Dante."

"Evan never escaped."

"I know ."

"So his handler, that mob shithead Giovanni Fiero, needs to go in the fucking cell!"

"I know, Dante."

"And before he dies, he needs to tell me everything he knows about the Society. Everything . He can put more names to my descriptions—"

"You're not stable enough right now."

"Fuck that—"

"You're not . It's against the rules."

"Fuck the rules—"

"The rules exist because of this, Dante. They exist for moments precisely like this one, and I exist to enforce them. I have no other reason to be on this earth anymore."

It makes me pause. I know that. Noah has given his life over to it. It's why I knew I could tell him to fuck off. He let me say it because I needed to say it. It wasn't the first time I said I was done with him. It didn't mean anything because Noah will never, ever be done with me. Or Rafael. Or any of the other boys he rescued from hell.

"And you called me," Noah goes on in a softer voice, "because you know you need me to do that."

"I have to do something ."

"What are your other options?"

Fucking Noah. He always does this, makes me sort it out myself. If he told me what to do, I'd refuse on instinct. He makes me think instead.

"If I tell Fiero about Capelli killing Evan, Fiero will go after Capelli."

Noah is careful not to leap on that. It's what he's wanted for years: for me to stop fucking around with Capelli. For Capelli to be put down. For me to stand apart from it.

It's not what I want. It's not how I want to do it. But things have changed.

Noah thinks it through. "You're afraid Tristan will go after Capelli."

"Yes." Tristan might not do it right away, but in time? Yeah. I think he would. He's fucking fearless. So I have to take care of Capelli first.

"What about Fiero?" Noah asks.

"I'll deal with him another time."

"Then I'll meet with Fiero."

"No—"

"Yes. Because you need to go find Tristan."

My heart sinks. "But he said the safe word."

"You're compromised, Dante. He's a liability. You need to figure out what to do about that."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I'm on my feet so fast that Noah is forced to take a step back from me.

Noah won't yield any further. He's not afraid of me. Someone like him, with nothing to lose, isn't afraid of anyone.

"How much are you willing to risk for him, Dante?"

" Everything ."

Noah takes that in—and so do I. For the first time, I admit it to myself: I love Tristan.

I know I'm too fucked up for love. I know Tristan didn't mean it when he said it to me. We were fucking. He was out of his head. Even if he did mean it on some level, he doesn't now. I saw his face when he mentioned the pictures of the boys. He thinks I'm a child abuser. He doesn't know that one of the pictures is of me.

I don't want him to know that. I don't want him see me that way. But I also don't want him to look at me like I'm the most disgusting thing he's ever seen.

Maybe he will anyway. Not just because of what happened to me, but also because of what I do. He may have misunderstood the pictures, but he didn't misunderstand this warehouse. That cell. What I do here.

I torture and kill people. Only certain types. Only for certain reasons and with certain goals.

But that wouldn't make any difference to most people. It wouldn't make the fact that I love Tristan mean any more to him. But that fact means something to Noah.

He nods, like I'm confirming what he already knew. And that's when I realize that he wasn't busting my ass that night at Rafael's. He was trying to get me to acknowledge this very fact—and to deal with what it means.

But I wasn't ready then. And now it's too late.

But Noah acts like it's not when he says, "Then I think you'd better go talk to him."

"You're telling me to break the rules."

"The rules exist to protect you and other people. This one time, one time , Dante, you need to break them in order to do that. Now give me what I need in order to sic Fiero on Capelli, and go find Tristan."

* * *

Tristan doesn't answer his phone, of course. And he's not at the apartment I rented for him. Rafael hasn't seen him. No one has because no one usually does. He's such a loner. I don't even know where he was for the past two days. He doesn't have anyone.

I'm back at the warehouse checking my camera feeds for some idea of which direction he headed. I should've checked that before, but my head is so fucked up I can barely think.

I'm watching the footage of Tristan running—fuck, I hate that—when I notice the black SUV that pulls away from the curb and follows him.

What the fuck?

I zoom in and try to clarify the image. A horrible premonition overtakes me right as my phone vibrates. I know the number and I almost know what I'm about to hear, but it still doesn't prepare me for Lorenzo Capelli saying, "If you want your fuck toy in one piece, come and get him. He's in my dining room."

Rage and terror burst through me. "If you fucking—"

The call cuts off. Fuck!

Hands shaking, I call Noah for the second time tonight. When he answers, I say, "Please tell me you haven't sent Fiero after Capelli yet."

"He just called up his men. Capelli sold him some story about Evan reneging on the deal and vanishing. He's pissed as hell about the truth. I think his connection to Evan was … personal."

Sexual, he means. He'd abused Evan, groomed him, kept him for years.

"Then we have a big fucking problem," I tell Noah, "because Capelli has Tristan."

"Fuck."

"I'm calling Rafael. We end this tonight."