Old Flame: Dante’s Story by Sam Mariano
3
Colette
“Colette,honey, why don’t you get up on the bed? Some sleep will do you good right now.”
I pull my thoughts from the past at the sound of my aunt’s voice. I look up at her from my spot on the floor and try to focus, but the present feels foggy. As terrible as those days after Beth’s death were, some part of me would rather be there than here. If I could go back, I could change everything. I could make a different choice and stop all this from happening.
I will never forget the day I realized that the man I loved was dangerous, the torturous evening when all my doubts about our future were born. I’ll never forget the sleepless nights that followed, or the punishing distance I felt from him—punishment for a crime I didn’t even commit.
After what happened to Beth, I was so afraid for myself that all I wanted was to get out while I still could, but I should have stayed. I’m the one who chose to get involved with Dante. I knew exactly who he was. I knew what I was doing. On some level, I knew what I was signing up for.
Declan didn’t. All he saw was a quiet, lonely florist who kept to herself and had weird, paranoid quirks because of a toxic past relationship that didn’t end well.
Declan is a lawyer, so it took a while before I opened up about that ex, before I finally told him it was Dante Morelli—yes, from that Morelli family. The dangerous, powerful mob family that runs so much of Chicago, you can never even be sure who is connected to them and who isn’t.
Was a lawyer, I mentally correct myself. Declan was a lawyer.
Fresh tears spring to my eyes, the horrifying reality of my present wrapping its claws around my throat until I can’t breathe. Panic sets in and I struggle to draw air into my desperate lungs.
This isn’t the first time this has happened today, so my aunt isn’t entirely unprepared this time. She kneels on the ground beside me, pushing aside the big, tulle puff that is my wedding dress. She tugs on me urgently, attempting to pull me upright.
“Come on, Colette, sit up and breathe, sweeting.”
I dissolve into tears, collapsing against her shoulder. “This is all my fault, Aunt Aggie.”
“No,” she assures me. “Don’t think like that, Colette. You’re not responsible for anyone’s actions but your own. I know this hurts, I know it’s a horrifying loss you’re suffering, and so early in life, but you listen to me,” she says firmly. “You didn’t know he was in danger, and you couldn’t have done anything to stop this.”
She holds me and rubs my back, murmuring empty reassurances that everything will be okay, but I don’t believe her. I’m pretty sure nothing will ever be okay again, and I know I’m the one who put Declan in harm’s way, whether I meant to or not.
“Maybe I could have. I should’ve… I shouldn’t have said yes when he asked me to marry him. I shouldn’t have tried to—” My voice breaks on a sob and my aunt continues to rub my back.
“Nonsense. That’s nonsense, Colette. You were living your life; you weren’t doing a thing wrong. There’s no evidence they even did this,” she adds, refusing to utter their family name, like that might summon them. “It was a tragic accident, that’s all it was. It’s no one’s fault.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” I whisper, shaking my head and pulling back from her shoulder to swipe a hand under each eye.
“Now, now, Colette. Don’t let your imagination get carried away with you.”
After all this, how can they still think this is all in my head? I’m too tired to argue. My aunt tells me how okay everything will be a few more times like she can will it to be true, then she props me up so I’m leaning back against the bed.
“I’ll get something to settle you down.”
Resentment rears its head through the grief as I watch her leave my bedroom. I don’t want pills or empty reassurances. Why doesn’t anybody understand? This monster isn’t in my head, it’s in my past, and now he’s burst into my present and ruined my life. Punishment for daring to have one without him in it. Punishment for leaving, even though he let me go.
Nobody understands. Nobody believes this was him, and I’m so tired of people doubting me. I’m so tired of people acting like I’m crazy for feeling afraid of his very real danger. Dante isn’t some monster I’ve made up; he’s real, and he just struck, and these fucking people all want to believe it was an accident.
When my aunt returns, she has a small white pill and a glass of water. Anxiety meds. I don’t have anxiety; I have a fucking hellhound right on my heels, but nobody believes me.
I let her dump the pill into my hand, but I don’t take it right away. I don’t want to take it at all. I fucking hate taking these pills. They don’t really fix anything. Sure, they calm me down so I can breathe easier, they slow my mind down and bring me some measure of peace, but I don’t deserve peace. I led the devil right to Declan’s doorstep, and it’s my fault that instead of a wedding, his mother will be attending his funeral.
The pain comes back and the pill starts to tempt me. I know I don’t need it, I know I’m not crazy, I’m just haunted. I know that, but the temptation of relief… just for a little while….
Before I can think better of it, I pop the pill in my mouth and swallow. I grab the glass of water from my aunt and drink it all, even though it’s lukewarm tap water with a funny taste.
“There you go,” my aunt says, her tone comforting as she rubs my back. “I know it hurts, sweeting, but just let yourself get some rest and you’ll feel better soon.”
---
I sat on the edge of the black leather couch, my clammy hands clenched tightly into fists, my shoulders so tense that I knew I would be sore later. My nerves had been fried since before I told him we needed to talk, and having him bring me into his study—which was usually reserved for business—didn’t make my heart race any less. I looked down at the hardwood floor so I didn’t have to look up into Dante’s face while I broke both our hearts.
He sat a glass down with purpose, the clink as intimidating as he intended it to be. I jumped, glancing up just enough to see his shiny loafers slowly moving across the floor in my direction.
“What do you mean, you don’t want to be with me anymore?” he ground out.
I tried to swallow, but bile rose in my throat. Despite the distance between us in the days leading to that point, I knew he hadn’t anticipated I’d try to leave him.
I also knew he didn’t take rejection well, so my insides were quaking. Memories of Beth came flooding back, and I wondered if he might hurt me for trying to leave—was that as great a sin as cheating, like Beth allegedly had?
“Do I not take care of you?” he asked lowly, reaching out and placing his hand under my chin, tilting my head up so I had to look at him.
“You do—of course you do,” I said a little too obsequiously. I didn’t want to piss him off, but none of the sleepless hours I spent rehearsing my logical speech mattered at all, considering my mirror was not nearly as intimidating as the man standing before me.
“Then what? Is there someone else? Is it him? His fucking girlfriend’s dead now, so you see an open spot—”
“No!” I blurted, eyes widening. “No. God, no, Dante! Don’t be ridiculous, it’s nothing like that—”
“Then what?” he asked, eyes narrowing on my face.
I looked away, side to side, anywhere but at him. It was foolish, but I felt like I might burst into tears at any moment. Knowing I couldn’t do that—he would pounce on the show of weakness and talk me right out of my good sense—I pulled myself up, squared my shoulders, and said quietly, “A woman died the other day, Dante. A woman I was close to, even if we didn’t always see eye to eye. She would be alive right now if she hadn’t gotten involved with your family. I know I’m already involved, but I don’t want to be anymore. I don’t want to get in any deeper than this. I don’t want this life.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “I know this lifestyle isn’t ideal for you, but it comes with me, Colette. It’s a package deal. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“I know,” I offered, quietly. “That’s why I want out.”
He sighed loudly, irritated that he wasn’t getting his way. He shot me a menacing look that would make much tougher people squirm, at least inwardly. It did rattle me, but I didn’t let him see that. I knew I couldn’t. If he believed I had doubts about my decision, he would never let me go.
“You don’t love me anymore?” he asked simply.
Feeling my heart contract painfully in my chest—was that possible? It felt possible—I had to stifle a raw groan, just at the thought of telling that lie.
No, I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t.
“Of course I still love you,” I told him, quietly. “I don’t know if you know this about yourself, but you’re not an easy man to stop loving.”
The left side of his mouth turned up just slightly, but he didn’t smile. “You’ve tried, huh?”
Nodding hopelessly, I said, “It isn’t that. I miss being normal. I miss not being afraid. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want all this drama and danger. I mean, when we first got together it was stupidly sexy and exciting, but I’ve aged a lot in these two years, Dante. I can’t imagine how much I’d age—if I survived them—in another two.”
“You talk like you’re an old lady,” he remarked blandly.
“I feel like one sometimes. Do you have any idea how much I worry about you? For Christ’s sake, if you don’t answer your phone for a half hour, I think you must be dead.”
“That’s stupid,” he informed me. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Colette. Things are getting better for us now that Mateo is running things, not worse. I have more power than I ever had when Dad was in control, and it’s only going to grow from here. You stick with me and you’ll see. You are not fucking Beth. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Feeling more despondent since his reaction wasn’t as violent and angry as I had prepared myself for, I shook my head sadly. “I don’t want to. I mean, okay, a part of me wants to, but… no part of me wants to want to, and… even if I did, I’d have to overrule that desire. It’s time for me to grow up and make this change for myself. It’s time for me to be sensible, not follow my fool heart.”
“What if I say no?” he asked, turning and picking up his glass, swirling it for a second and then tipping it back and draining the rest of the amber liquid.
“That’s not how this works,” I said, for lack of a better answer. “I’m not one of your lackeys, Dante.”
“You don’t think I can make you stay?” he asked, disbelief evident on his handsome face.
“Of course you could make me stay,” I said, not stupid enough to think otherwise. “But you can’t make me want to be here. It would only make me resent you, and resentment poisons love. Before long, what would be left of the girl you love?”
“So it’s like that,” he said evenly.
I watched him cautiously; I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and the uncertainty was more than a little unnerving.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, just… telling you how I feel,” I told him.
Dante was silent, staring off at nothing, his lips pursed in mild irritation. Until that point, I felt the conversation was actually going as well as could be expected, but I couldn’t tell what his next move would be.
Finally, he uttered one word: “Fine.”
My eyes widened a little. It seemed suspicious that he was letting it go just like that. “Fine? So… you’re letting me go?”
He turned a rather cynical smile on me and made a little noise, like a tenth of a laugh, because that was all that comment deserved. “No,” he replied, almost sympathetically. “You can leave, I won’t stop you, but I’ll never let you go.”
Unsure of exactly what that meant, I nonetheless took his permission to leave at face value. I picked up my little leather clutch, smoothed down the skirt of my too-snug dress, and glanced at him uncertainly. Should I give him a goodbye hug? That might be stupid, since all of my possessions were in his house, so it wasn’t like I’d never see him again.
When I hadn’t been sure how things would go down, I packed an emergency bag with a little money and enough clothes for a week, but I had a walk-in closet full of clothes in our bedroom. It would take much more than one trip to clear everything out.
“Thank you, Dante,” I said, before I could think better of it. “I wasn’t sure… how this would go.”
He didn’t respond, merely picked up his empty glass, turning his back to me, and went over to the decanter to pour himself another drink.
After standing there awkwardly for a moment, waiting for him to turn around or say something, I finally accepted that he wasn’t going to. I had been dismissed. It stung, but it was better than a fight, so I turned around, swallowed the lump in my throat, and walked out the door.
