Page 112 of The Wrong Man

“I know enough. I know you are weak. I know you have always been weak.” He stands, pacing the room with restless energy. “Do you know what Ma said when she found out you had been taken? She cried. Not because she was worried about you, but because of the shame. Her son, kidnapped by Italians. Her son, too pathetic to escape on his own. Her son, probably enjoying every minute of it because he is a twisted little deviant.”

The words hit like blows. I should be used to it by now. Should have built up a tolerance to Declan’s cruelty over the years. But somehow it still hurts. Somehow my family’s rejection still feels like a wound that will never fully heal.

“Ma and Pa made their choice a long time ago,” I say quietly. “They chose you. They chose the family business. They chose to pretend I didn’t exist rather than accept who I am.”

“Can you blame them?” Declan stops pacing and looks at me with something that might almost be pity, if he were capable of such an emotion. “You were always an embarrassment, Dylan. Too soft, too sensitive, too bloody gay for your own good. They did you a favor, sending you away. At least in London, nobody knows who you are. They don’t know you’re not normal.”

“I am normal.”

“You are a freak who let his torturer fuck him. That’s not normal by anyone’s standards.”

I have no response to that. Because maybe he is right. Maybe there is something fundamentally broken inside me, something that makes me crave the very things that should destroy me. Maybe falling for Dante is just the latest symptom of a sickness I have carried my whole life.

Or maybe my brother is wrong, and it’s not as crude as he’s making it sound.

Because it’s love. And love is never wrong.

Love doesn’t follow rules. It shows up in the strangest places, between the most unlikely people, and all you can do is hold on and hope it doesn’t tear you apart.

Declan’s phone buzzes. He checks it, and his expression shifts. Darker. More paranoid.

“I have to deal with something,” he says, heading for the door. “Try not to do anything stupid while I am gone. Not that you are capable of anything else.”

The door closes behind him. I hear the lock click into place.

I am alone again. Alone with my thoughts and my fears and the growing certainty that I am running out of time.

Declan is falling apart. I can see it in his eyes, in the way his hands are shaking slightly. He is cornered, desperate, and desperate men do desperate things. If he decides I am more trouble than I am worth, or if his negotiations with the Italians fall through, there is no telling what he might do.

I need to get out of here. I need to find a way to escape before Declan’s paranoia turns into something worse.

But how? The window is locked, and even if I could open it, we are on the second floor. The door is solid wood with a deadbolt that only opens from the outside. I have no weapons, no tools, no way to contact anyone.

I am completely helpless. Just like I was in Dante’s torture chamber. Just like I have been my entire life, always at the mercy of people stronger and crueler than me.

No. I shake my head, rejecting the thought. I am not the same person I was when Dante first took me. I have survived torture and illness and falling in love with a monster. I have baked perfect macarons in a murderer’s kitchen.

I am stronger than Declan thinks. Stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.

I just need to figure out how to use that strength.

I move to the window and look out at the garden below. There are guards, two of them, walking the perimeter. But they seem bored, distracted, more focused on their phones than on actually watching for threats. Sloppy. Declan is paying for quantity over quality.

I start cataloguing details. The guard rotation. The layout of the garden. The trees that might provide cover, the walls that might be climbable. Information that might be useless, or might save my life.

And underneath it all, a constant refrain that I cannot silence no matter how hard I try.

Dante.

Is he looking for me? Does he even know I am gone?

The last time I saw him, he was walking out the door without a word. Leaving me alone after my panic attack because he didn’t know how to help. Because my trauma is his fault, and there is no easy way to comfort someone you have broken.

Maybe he is relieved. Maybe he sees this as the universe solving his problem for him. No more complicated feelings. No more captive who doesn’t want to leave. No more Dylan.

But even as I think it, I know it’s not true. I saw the way he looked at me that night, when we were tangled together in his bed. I felt the way his hands trembled when he touched me, like he couldn’t quite believe I was real. I heard the words he didn’t say, the ones that hung in the air between us like promises waiting to be made.

He cares about me. Maybe even loves me, in whatever way a man like Dante is capable of love.