Page 49 of The Wrong Man

But that would be stupid. That would be caring about his comfort when I should only be caring about my own survival.

I finish the porridge and set the bowl aside. “Ready when you are.”

Dante stands and offers me his hand. I look at it for a moment. Large and strong, with long fingers and neat, clean nails. Hands that have done terrible things. Hands that have also fed me soup and washed my hair and held me through the worst of my fever.

I take his hand and let him help me to my feet.

His grip is warm and firm. He holds on just long enough to make sure I’m steady, then releases me and steps back. Giving me space. Always giving me space.

We walk down the hallway together, Dante matching his pace to my slower one. The flat looks different in daylight. Less menacing. Still sparse and sad, but almost ordinary in the grey afternoon light filtering through gaps in the shutters.

He shows me the kitchen first. It’s tiny, barely more than a galley, with appliances that look like they haven’t been updated since the building was converted. The refrigerator hums loudly in the corner. The stove has four burners, but only two of them look functional. The counters are bare except for a kettle and a single mug.

“It’s not much,” Dante says, and there’s something almost apologetic in his voice. “I don’t cook often.”

I think about my kitchen at the bakery. The gleaming surfaces, the professional-grade ovens, the shelves lined with ingredients I knew by heart. The smell of bread rising and sugar caramelizing and butter melting into pastry.

My chest aches with missing it.

“Do you have any baking equipment?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Mixing bowls? Measuring cups? A decent whisk?”

Dante blinks. The question seems to have caught him off guard.

“I don’t think so,” he admits. “I have a pot. And a frying pan. And...” He opens a cupboard and peers inside. “A spatula that might be older than I am.”

Despite everything, I feel my lips twitch. “That’s not exactly a well-stocked kitchen.”

“No,” he agrees. “I suppose it isn’t.”

We stand there in the cramped space, both of us looking at the pathetic contents of his cupboards. A tin of beans. Half a packet of pasta. The porridge oats he’s been using to feed me. Salt and pepper shakers that look like they came free with something else.

“I could get things,” Dante says slowly. “Equipment. Ingredients. If you wanted to...” He trails off, seeming uncertain how to finish the sentence.

“Bake?” I supply.

“Yes.” He turns to look at me, and there’s something almost hopeful in his expression. “Would you want to? It might help pass the time. Give you something to do while you recover.”

The offer is unexpected. He wants to buy me baking supplies. He wants to give me something to do, something familiar and comforting, something that might make this prison feel slightly less like a prison.

It’s kind. Genuinely, surprisingly kind.

“I would like that,” I say softly. “Very much. Thank you.”

Dante’s reaction stops me cold.

He blinks, as if astonished that I’ve said something nice to him. Then his dark eyes soften and I can practically see him melt. The tension in his shoulders eases. The hard line of his jaw relaxes. For just a moment, he looks almost vulnerable. Almost young.

This big, dangerous man isn’t used to kindness. He is starved of it.

The realization hits me like a slap to the face.

All his careful considerations, his gentle handling, his desperate attempts to make amends. They’re not just guilt. They’re hunger. A bone-deep craving for connection that he probably doesn’t even recognize in himself. He has been alone for so long, isolated in this sad flat with only his work for company, that even the smallest scrap of warmth affects him like water on parched earth.

And just like that, something shifts inside me.

It’s not a comfortable shift. Not a pleasant one. It feels like a door opening onto a room I didn’t know existed, a room full of possibilities I never would have considered before Dante broke me into pieces.

Because if kindness affects him this strongly... if simple gratitude can make him soften and melt and look at me like I’ve given him a gift... then maybe I’m not as powerless as I thought.