Page 52 of The Wrong Man

He nods slowly, and I can practically see the wheels turning in his head. Ways to make the flat nicer. Ways to make me more comfortable. Ways to transform this prison into something that might feel like a home.

For both of us, he’s probably thinking. For our unconventional future together.

He has no idea that I’m plotting how to leave.

“I should get you back to bed,” he says eventually. “You shouldn’t overexert yourself.”

I am tired. The tour of the flat has taken more out of me than I’d like to admit. But I’m also buzzing with something that feels almost like energy. Almost like purpose.

I have a plan now. Not a complete one, not yet. But the seed of one. The beginning of something that might, if I nurture it carefully, grow into my escape.

Be kind to Dante. Make him need me. Make him trust me. Make him lower his guard inch by inch until the day comes when I can walk out the door and never look back.

It will take time. Weeks, maybe months. But time is the one thing I have in abundance.

“Thank you for showing me around,” I say as we walk back to the bedroom. “It was nice to get out of bed for a while.”

“Tomorrow I’ll get the baking supplies,” he promises. “And maybe some things to make the living room less...” He gestures vaguely.

“Depressing?” I offer.

That almost-laugh again. A real one this time, with actual warmth in it.

“I was going to say austere, but depressing works.”

I climb back into bed and let him fuss with the blankets. Let him adjust them around me with that careful attention he brings to everything. His hands are gentle. His eyes are soft. He looks at me like I’m something precious, something fragile, something he can’t quite believe he gets to keep.

The guilt is a physical weight in my chest. But I don’t let it show on my face.

“Rest,” Dante says softly, straightening up. “I’ll bring you lunch in a few hours.”

“Okay,” I say. And I smile at him again. Let it reach my eyes. Let him see warmth that I’m not sure I actually feel.

His breath catches. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.

Then he’s gone, pulling the door mostly closed behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my plans and the strange, dark thing growing in the space where my innocence used to be.

I stare at the ceiling and think about what I’m about to do. The lies I’m going to tell. The trust I’m going to betray. The heart I’m going to break.

Because Dante does have a heart. That’s the terrible thing. Underneath all the violence and the cruelty and the blood on his hands, there’s a man who just wants to be loved. A man who has been alone so long he’s forgotten what connection feels like. A man who looks at me like I’m the sun and he’s been living in darkness his whole life.

I’m going to use that against him. I’m going to make him love me, and then I’m going to leave.

It’s the cruelest thing I’ve ever done. The cruelest thing I’ve ever even contemplated.

But I think about Aunt Moira, probably sick with worry. I think about my bakery, probably struggling without me. I think about the life I had, the life I want back, the life Dante stole from me.

And I harden my heart.

Survival first. Guilt later.

I can hate myself when I’m free.

Chapter sixteen

Dante

I’m standing in the middle of a kitchenware shop in Central London, surrounded by things I don’t understand, while trying to find everything Dylan asked for. Mixing bowls. Measuring cups. A whisk. It seemed simple when I first read the list. Now, faced with an entire wall of options in different sizes and materials and price points, I realize I have no idea what I’m doing.