That night, sleep offered no relief. It pulled me back to the cold, damp warehouse, to the metallic scent of blood and the haunting sound of gunshots. In my dream, the scene replayed vividly, but this time, when Valerius pulled the trigger, the bullet didn't hit me. It hit Dante. I watched him fall, his green eyes wide with shock as his blood pooled on the concrete.
I woke up with a scream trapped in my throat, my body slick with cold sweat, and my heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted to escape.
The door to my room flew open so fast it slammed against the wall. Dante stood there immediately, a dark silhouette in the hallway light. He wore just a pair of black sweatpants, his chest bare, showing the strong lines of his torso. He hadn't been sleeping.
"Isabella? What's wrong? Are you in pain?" he asked, his voice thick with concern as he rushed to my bedside and turned on a small lamp.
The soft golden light revealed the panic on my face and the genuine fear on his. "A nightmare," I managed to whisper, my voice trembling.
His posture softened. The fierce protector faded away, replaced by something gentler. He didn't say anything. He simply sat on the edge of the bed, a silent and solid presence in the dark, waiting for my breathing to steady and my heart to slow. The silence felt comforting, a shield against the lingering terror of the dream.
"I'm sorry I woke you," I finally said, feeling foolish.
"I wasn't sleeping," he replied, his gaze distant.
In the quiet vulnerability of the night, with our walls down, a different kind of truth emerged. "Do you get them?" I asked softly. "Nightmares?"
He didn't pretend not to understand. He fixed his gaze on a point on the far wall, his jaw tight. "Sometimes," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Not of warehouses or gunfights. Those are just business. The nightmares are always of the closet."
My heart tightened. The closet where he and Aria had hidden, where they had watched their parents die.
"It was the smell I remember most," he continued, his voice low and haunted, as if speaking to himself more than to me. "The cedar wood. And the iron smell of... after. For years, I couldn't be in a room with cedar paneling without feeling sick."
He was sharing a piece of his pain, an echo of the trauma that had shaped him. It was a confession, a view into the wounded ten-year-old boy still living inside the ruthless man. It was the most intimate moment we had ever shared, more intimate than mingling our blood.
"I'm so sorry, Dante," I whispered, and for the first time, I used his name.
He finally turned to me, his green eyes dark and deep in the lamplight. A silent understanding passed between us, an acknowledgment of the violence that had shaped our recent lives. He reached out, gently brushing a damp strand of hair from my forehead. The touch was light, yet it burned my skin.
He stayed until the first grey light of dawn began to creep in through the window, not speaking, just sitting there as a guard against the shadows, both real and imagined.