Page 7 of Dante

Her voice.

Christ.

Her voice cuts through the fog like a blade. Clear and sharp and real. I close my eyes. Let it wash over me.

Two years. Two miserable fucking years of watching her from the shadows, and her voice still does this to me.

I should leave.

I should turn around, go back down those stairs, call the number, do the smart thing. She told me to stay away. She meant it. And here I am, bleeding on her doorstep like some wounded animal crawling home to die.

This isn't fair to her.

I push off the doorframe. Take a step back.

"Dante."

My name. Just my name. But it's enough.

Silence.

Long. Heavy. The kind of silence that stretches into forever.

I wait for her to tell me to leave. Wait for the sound of her footsteps walking away. Wait for the rejection I deserve.

Instead, I hear the locks.

One. Two. Three.

The door opens.

And there she is.

Marina Reeves.

She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I try to speak. Try to explain. Try to say something—anything—that makes this okay.

Instead, my knees buckle.

The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is her face.

There she is.

CHAPTER THREE

Marina

Dante collapses at my feet.

For three seconds, I don't move. Can't move. My brain short-circuits, stuck in a loop ofthis isn't happening, this isn't real, this is a nightmare and I'll wake up any second now.

Then I see the blood.

It pools beneath him, dark and spreading, soaking into the carpet of my hallway. The copper smell hits me and my stomach lurches.

"No. No, no, no."