Page 134 of The Wrong Man

On the screen, a wildebeest goes under. The narrator explains that this is simply nature taking its course. Survival of the fittest. The strong make it across. The weak become food for crocodiles.

I was weak once. Trapped and terrified in Dante’s lair, certain I was going to die. And then I realized he was lonely. Touched-starved.

And I saw an opportunity.

I remember the moment so clearly. Standing in that tiny kitchen, him offering to buy baking equipment, me thanking him and watching in astonishment as his dark eyes softened.

Then that night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I could go through with it. I couldn’t fight my way out. I couldn’t run. But maybe, just maybe, I could make Dante want me enough to let his guard down. Make myself valuable. Seduce my way to freedom.

It was a good plan. A smart plan. The kind of plan that a survivor makes when they’re out of options.

The macarons weren’t just baking. They were strategy. I knew Dante was watching me. I knew he liked watching me. So I made sure to give him something worth watching. The careful movements, the quiet concentration, the flour dusting my cheekbones. I’m pretty sure that all of it was calculated. All of it designed to make him see me as something other than a victim.

The whisky wasn’t just companionship. It was manipulation. I asked him questions about himself, drew him out, made him feel seen. I laughed at the right moments, and went quiet at the right moments, and let him glimpse my vulnerability in carefully controlled doses.

And it worked. God help me, it worked. I saw the way he started looking at me. The way his hands lingered when he touched me. The way his walls began to crack, letting me slip through into something soft and unprotected underneath.

I was going to use all of it against him. Make him fall for me, then run the first chance I got.

Except somewhere along the way, I fell too.

I don’t know when it happened. The timeline is all jumbled in my head. Maybe it was when he came home with the baking equipment and I realized he’d been paying attention to what I actually needed. Maybe it was before that, when he held me through the fever, his hand in my hair, his voice rough with something that sounded like fear. Maybe it was when he almost killed Carlo for threatening me, and I understood for the first time that his violence could be a shield instead of a weapon.

Maybe it was all real from the very start, and I was just too scared to admit it.

But it doesn’t matter when it became real. What matters is that it started as a lie. And Dante doesn’t know.

On the television, the surviving wildebeest drag themselves onto the far bank. The narrator congratulates them on their successful crossing. I feel like I’m still in the river, crocodiles circling, the current pulling me under.

Dante’s hand tightens on my ankle.

“You’re not watching,” he says.

“What?” I blink, pulling myself back to the present.

“The documentary. You’ve been staring through it for the past twenty minutes.” His dark eyes study my face, seeing too much as always. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just tired.”

It’s the same lie I’ve been telling for weeks. I’m tired. I’m nervous about the bakery. I’m still processing everything that happened. Dante accepts it each time, but I can see he doesn’t believe me. He’s too observant for that. He knows something is wrong. He’s just waiting for me to tell him what.

And I can’t. I can’t tell him. Because if I do, I’ll lose him.

But if I don’t, I’ll lose myself.

The guilt is eating me alive. I’ve lost weight. My hands shake when I’m not paying attention. I lie awake at night with Dante’s arm around me, feeling like a fraud, a con artist, a liar who somehow stumbled into love and doesn’t deserve to keep it.

Dante reaches over and takes my hand. Casual. Easy. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And something inside me just breaks.

“I have to tell you something.”

The words come out thin and strange. Dante goes still beside me, his hand tightening on mine.

“What is it?”

I pull my hand away. I can’t touch him while I say this. Can’t let him comfort me when he doesn’t know what I’ve done.