Dante's POV
I ignored him, my eyes locked on Cassidy's. "Tell me, Hart," I continued, my voice dropping lower, sharper, cutting through the sudden tension like a honed blade. "What's the plan? You gonna cozy up here for a while, bleed him dry, and then disappear like the trash you came from?" The words were ice, designed to freeze her, to chip away at her composure. I wanted to see her crack, to see the desperation beneath the veneer of indifference.
Berenda gasped softly, a little mouse-like sound. Her cheeks flushed a deep, indignant red, and her pearls seemed to vibrate with her suppressed rage.
Cassidy stiffened, her hands clenching into fists under the table. But then, something ignited in her eyes. Not fear. Not shame. Fire. A raw, untamed fury that blazed brighter than any fear.
"You think you know me?" she snapped, her voice tight with controlled rage, barely above a whisper. It was less a question and more a snarled defiance.
I smirked, a cruel, triumphant twist of my lips. "I do know you," I said, leaning forward, resting my elbows on the table, invading her personal space even from across the expanse of wood. My voice was a low growl, an intimate threat. "I've seen a hundred girls like you. Little street urchins with big eyes and even bigger ambitions, pretending to be delicate flowers while planning how to strip everything bare. And your mother?" I scoffed, my gaze flicking to Berenda, who was now gripping her wine glass so tightly her knuckles were white. "Please. I've seen a thousand of her. Clawing their way into houses like this, thinking diamonds and marble will wash the dirt off them. News flash – it doesn't. You both reek of desperation, no matter how much expensive perfume you douse yourselves in."
She slammed her fork down on her plate, the clatter echoing violently in the sudden, ringing silence. It was a defiant, desperate sound.
"You're disgusting," she hissed, her voice trembling with barely suppressed fury. Her eyes burned into mine, molten gold and hazel.
I laughed again. Low. Dark. A sound that belonged in the shadows, not at a civilized dinner table. "And you're predictable."
"Dante!" Berenda finally shrieked, her voice shrill with outrage, no longer bothering with the pretense of politeness. "That's enough—"
"No," I cut her off, my voice a whip-crack that silenced her instantly. My eyes, sharp as shards of glass, pinned her to her seat. "You don't get to tell me what's enough in my house, sweetheart. You and your daughter can play the victims all you want, but don't think for a second I don't see through both of you. Every fake smile, every simpering word, every calculating glance. I see it all. And I promise you, you won't get away with it."
Cassidy's chair scraped hard against the polished marble as she stood abruptly, the sudden movement jarring in the quiet room. Her fists were clenched at her sides, her whole body rigid with suppressed rage.
"Don't worry," she spat, her voice trembling now, not with fear, but with a raw, visceral fury that mirrored my own. "I don't want anything from you. Or this house. Or your miserable little life." Each word was a poisoned dart, aimed directly at my heart.
"Good," I shot back, leaning back in my chair with a cruel, triumphant smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "Then leave. The door's wide open." I gestured dismissively towards the foyer, as if ushering out a persistent pest.
Her eyes narrowed, blazing with a dangerous light. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing shallow and ragged. For one brief, electrifying second, I thought she might actually pick up her glass of water, or perhaps her plate, and hurl it directly into my face. A thrill, dark and forbidden, coursed through me. And for that fleeting instant, I almost wished she would. I craved the escalation, the open warfare.
But instead, she just let out a guttural scoff, a sound of pure disgust, and spun on her heel. She stormed out of the room, her footsteps echoing down the long, silent hall like a furious drumbeat, each one a testament to her incandescent rage.
The scent of her perfume – faintly sweet, maddeningly distracting, a jarring counterpoint to the bitterness in the air – lingered long after she was gone, a phantom presence that continued to irritate me.
I picked up my knife again, its cold metal familiar in my hand. With a precise, almost surgical motion, I cut into my steak, a calm, deliberate action that belied the storm raging within me. I ignored Berenda's tight-lipped, venomous glare, which was now fixed on me, and my father's silent disappointment, a familiar burden I had long since learned to carry without complaint.
Because even though I hated everything about them – their intrusive presence, their transparent lies, their pathetic, transparent act – there was something about the way her eyes burned when she looked at me. Something about that raw, untamed fire that flared in their hazel depths.
Something that felt like a dare.
And I'd never been good at walking away from a dare. The thought was a dangerous whisper, a promise of a battle I was already eager to fight.