Stolen: Dante’s Vow by Natasha Knight
Dante
She leans over the edge and throws up as soon as I dock the boat.
I rush to her, wrap a hand around her arm when she leans too far out. When it’s over, she looks up at me, her red-rimmed eyes shiny making the blue look like shards of glass. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
I could chalk it up to travel. Time differences. Jet lag. Lack of sleep and sea sickness but I know that’s not what this is. And as much as I wish I could tell myself all of those things, her words quash any hopes of that lie.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asks.
I see the door open over her shoulder, see Lenore rush out but stop. See little Alessandro and Scarlett behind her. She turns to follows my gaze too, but I stop her, take her arms and rub.
“Your family is here, Mara. This is where you belong.”
Her eyes mist with fresh tears, sadness softening her features. “I can’t do this,” she manages, her voice barely a whisper before it breaks on a sob.
I pull her to me, and she lets me. For the first time since I found her, since I carried her out of that penthouse, she gives herself over to my embrace. She lets me carry her full weight, hugging her arms tightly around my middle and pressing her face into my chest as if she can burrow inside, disappear there. If my heart hadn’t already broken when I first saw her, saw what they’d done to her, it is surely and wholly split in two now as I hold the trembling remnants of what was once a beautiful, vibrant girl in my arms.
I gather my own strength. Collect my rage. Build it like a weapon around all the pain, all the loss and my arms wrap tighter around her.
I will kill the men who did this to her.
I will tear them limb from limb.
* * *
I walkwith her around the island first. Cristiano and the others go inside. I see Lenore watching from the window. See her face as she takes in her granddaughter, a woman now. A stranger. She hasn’t seen her in fifteen years. I don’t know what she expected. A happy reunion, maybe. It was naïve if she did. Wishful thinking.
We walk for more than an hour along the beach, climbing the cliff to a midway point. I avoid the top. The mausoleum. She knows it’s there, but I get the feeling she’s avoiding it too.
She doesn’t talk. Neither of us do. Her arms stay wrapped around herself and I know I should give her space, but I don’t. I can’t. I stay close. She has to know I won’t let anything else happen to her. Because I still remember those words she spoke to me in the beginning.
“Dante would never have let what happened to me happen.”
I will never forget them. Forget how she sounded when she said them. Forget how she looked at me then.
When we’re back down on the beach around the back of the house we stop, and she sits in the sand. I sit beside her.
“Do you remember what I told you?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. Her gaze is fixed on the water, fingers digging in the sand. I get the feeling she’s holding on by a thread. Her anxiety is a living, breathing thing.
“I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again. You’re safe here, Mara. Safe with me.”
She turns to me, opens her mouth to say something but just then comes a bark from around the corner of the house. We both turn to find Cerberus charging toward us at full speed, a giant beast of a dog.
I get to my feet, ready to grab him before he can get near her and scare her half to death. Who the fuck let him out here?
After he gives me a cursory lick on the face, I pull him away, only to see her extend a hand to him, letting him sniff it, then laying it on his head to pet him. He seems to understand to be gentle as he licks her hand, then her arm. I loosen my grip as he brings his face to hers, sniffing loudly before nuzzling his cold, wet nose in her neck. This makes her close her eyes and giggle when she lets him tackle her to the ground and lick her face excitedly.
I stand back and watch in awe. Her eyes are closed against the onslaught of affection from my brother’s would-be beast who is a gentle giant at heart.
And when I hear footsteps, I turn to find Noah, Scarlett’s younger brother, walk casually toward us, a smile playing on his lips at the sight. I look at him. He’s twenty years old now. Mara’s age. Still a kid in my mind but not really, not if I look at him in this moment. He’s a man. Like me.
Mara sits up when she sees him and something about her expression rubs me the wrong way. It’s not the reaction she had to me or to my men. She doesn’t cringe away, getting to her feet, looking to me for guidance. Hiding behind me. No, she remains as she is and watches him come toward us, her gaze curious. I feel something in my gut that is the opposite of what I should feel.
“He’s not a puppy but I figured you still loved dogs,” Noah says in English. We speak English at the house mostly for Scarlett and Noah, although they both speak Italian fluently now. I still don’t know how much Italian Mara remembers but her English is perfect. She even has an American accent. I know Helga wasn’t American according to Scarlett and I wonder if she had American teachers.
But I don’t much care about that right now.
Right now, I’m watching this strange interaction playing out before me.
Noah greets me with a nod. He still isn’t my biggest fan after what happened five years ago. Talk about holding a grudge. I nod back and watch him take a seat beside Cerberus and Mara. He throws the ball out into the water and Cerberus goes after it. Noah has been working out, bulking up his skinny frame. I only now realize how much bigger he is, although nowhere near as big as me.
He switches his gaze to watch the dog, but Mara keeps hers locked on the side of his face. And as she watches him, there it is again, that tightening in my gut, the energy in my hands as if they want to fist. To attack.
“Noah,” she says.
He turns to her, gives her a smile that’s not quite a man’s smile just yet. He nods. “Wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”
She smiles at him and I see a warmth in that smile that she’s shared with no one else. Not even me.
My jaw clenches and it takes all I have to keep my hands from turning into fists.
Cerberus comes running out of the water, drops the ball and shakes off, sending water all over us. Mara and Noah laugh. I mutter a curse as a cloud crosses the sun stealing its heat.
“We should get inside. I’m sure your grandmother wants to see you,” I snap. I’m talking to her but looking at him and wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. This is what I want, right? Her home. Her relaxed. Her feeling safe. Normal.
This is exactly what I want for her.
So what the fuck is my problem?
“Okay,” Mara says and when I shift my gaze to hers, she’s looking at me again. But the moment I meet her eyes, she blinks, swallows, stands up a little taller as her gaze grows a little more distant, a little more closed off.
She’s steeling herself. It’s not against me, I tell myself. It’s against what’s to come.
But when we head to the door, I notice she falls back to walk beside Noah, not me, as we enter the house. They’re all waiting, like they were watching, Lenore wringing her hands with worry, tension high. Then Alessandro charges around the corner, pulling his eye patch in place as he crashes into my legs. His greeting is warm and welcoming, a reminder to get my head out of my ass and be happy that she remembers Noah. Be happy of her instant connection with him.
Because what the fuck is wrong with me that I would feel like this.
Fucking jealous.