26. Dante

TWENTY-SIX

Dante

Of course I have to help Rafael. He's here for me, at least in part. But it's agony to leave Tristan. I could barely let him go the first time—and only because he said that word.

Maybe if all this shit hadn't happened, I could have obeyed the rules, could've stayed away from him. Maybe.

But now that I've touched him again, held his body against mine again …

No fucking way.

I can't let him go. I just can't.

But I trust Noah more than anyone, more even than myself, and he is the only person on earth that I would leave Tristan with right now.

I don't let myself look at Tristan before I turn away. I haven't looked at him, not fully, since he said that word.

But then he says, "Dante—be careful." And maybe, because he said it, I will be.

I check my gun and edge toward the doorway. The fight has moved out of the dining room. Fiero's men got to Capelli's semi-rural estate first, but we were right behind them. The chaos worked to our advantage, allowing us to creep across the property and slip in behind their security breach.

I went after Tristan.

Rafael went after Fiero.

I move quietly through the house, checking bodies in the foyer and a drawing room. Gunshots guide me down a hallway toward what looks like a huge office.

I have only a second to take in the scene. Rafael is in the middle of the room with two guns aimed in opposite directions, his body totally unprotected. Fiero is behind a massive desk, his gun trained on Rafael. Capelli is crouched down behind a leather couch.

I can't hit both targets before one of them hits Rafael. Instead I make noise. Guns whip my way. Shots fire. I duck back outside the door at the initial bullet spray then charge into the room, keeping low.

Capelli's gone, having slipped through another door in the chaos. Rafael is on the ground. Fiero fires around the side of the desk, but my shot gets him in the arm. He yelps and drops his gun. I hurry over and kick it away from him. I'm about to go to Rafael, but he's getting up.

"How bad?" I ask.

"Just a graze. Get Capelli."

"Don't kill Fiero."

"I fucking know that, Dante. Go ."

I hurry through the doorway that Capelli used. A trail of blood leads down a flagstone hallway to an open door that lets out onto a patio with a huge pool. Capelli made it halfway across the patio before collapsing.

I walk toward him and kick his gun out of his limp hand. I roll him over with my foot. He flops onto his back, exposing the bloodstain spreading across his chest. He's already dying. I don't need to shoot him. Maybe I won't. I'm not riding my anger like I always imagined when I pictured this moment.

Of course, I always pictured it in the holding cell. I always imagined him begging, like I used to beg on the Island. I always imagined sticking my gun up his ass, listening to him cry and whimper before I pulled the trigger. I wanted him to experience shame.

It's not going to happen. He only has minutes left and is past experiencing much of anything in them.

If anyone had told me years ago, even months ago, that I would be robbed of the sweet bite of my revenge, I would have raged. Now, I find that I don't much care. All I care about is Tristan.

But this man was going to hurt Tristan.

That thought rekindles my anger enough that I raise my gun and aim it at his head.

"No one touches my man," I say and pull the trigger. His body jerks then stills.

Something moves in the shadows. I whip my gun toward the movement. Dominic Capelli steps forward from where he's been watching his father die.

His gun is aimed at me. Then he lowers it. And I lower mine. I won't kill him unless I have to—because I'm not the only one that his father sent to the Island.

I turn and walk away. I wonder if he'll shoot me in the back. He doesn't.