Page 64 of Thorns of Silence

I hate you; I love you. You used me; you broke me. I still need you.And I hated myself for it. Why couldn’t I move on?

Something in the darkness of his eyes shimmered, maybe even softened. Maybe he had regrets. Maybe he’d stop pretending now. We could talk about what happened two years ago and—

I didn’t know what, but I needed to know.

“Are you in the habit of ghosting people?” I signed, my fingers trembling, but that simple question opened the dam and flooded all my senses. “And why are you still dressed? Is that meant to be a power trip or something?”

The expression on Dante’s face turned blank and downright terrifying.

“What the fuck did you say?” His voice was ice cold as he grabbed my neck with a raw power that chilled me to the bone, then slammed me against the wall.

My teeth clattered as the pleasure immediately turned into fear. My hands came up to his chest, my nails digging into his shirt, wanting to claw out his heart, tear it to pieces. Just as he had torn out mine.

“Let go.” My lips moved, although it was as if he hadn’t seen them. Or maybe he truly didn’t care. He was like a feral dog, crazed and wild, thirsty for chaos, pain, and punishment.

This was the second time in my life that I’d felt this defenseless. Dante’s eyes were emotionless, void of life, difficult to read. He studied me with apathy bordering that of a psychopath.

I was frozen. Stunned in disbelief at how fast he went from passionate to this. A cruel monster. This man in front of me was unrecognizable.

My vision was blurring from lack of oxygen and the impossibility of this moment. It almost felt like I was watching it happen, detached from my own body. Just like when I was in the hospital and kept begging for him.

Click. Click. Click.

I felt the final crack in my soul. Or maybe it was my heart. My body pulsed with pain that traveled all the way to my chest. I felt it in every fiber of my being.

No more. Never fucking again.

I tried to swing my fist at him, but he caught my arm effortlessly, and I felt it go limp beneath his grip. I chanced a final glance at his face and knew this was how I’d die, choked to death by a man I once knew, the one who I’d given my fragile heart to. Because for the life of me, I couldn’t find Dante behind the cold, bitter fury his eyes shone with.

A gleam of silver inside his jacket pocket caught my attention. Not pausing to think, I reached into his coat, and my hand wrapped around the metal handle of his gun. As black dots started to appear behind my eyelids, I pulled it out, flipped the safety switch—just the way I’d seen Papà do it—and blindly pulled the trigger.

The power and strength of the weapon was disarming, the sound so loud even I could hear it. The reverberations pierced my ears and pulsed through my body.

His eyes met mine, and they weren’t emotionless anymore. A range of emotions danced through them. Shock. Horror.Regret.

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. He shook his head very slowly, then dipped it down, his nose brushing against mine while I stood frozen.

I had no idea what had just happened. How he’d gone from wanting to kill me to… kissing me.

I shoved him away and his knees hit the floor. My gaze locked on his side, the crimson bleeding through his crisp white shirt and slowly expanding.

Oh my gosh, I shot someone.I freaking shot Dante.

“You shot me.” I nodded, not quite as smug and happy about it as I should be. “Why did you do that?” I read his lips because he was gripping his wound, applying pressure to stanch the bleeding.

“I warned you.” My hands trembled as I signed, my lips barely moving as I mouthed the words. “I warned you I’d shoot you if you didn’t stay away from us. I came to settle the score, and while it went differently from my plan, I can see plainly now that the Leone family is a danger to us all.”

“A bullet won’t stop me.”

“I’ll do it again.” Maybe he wasn’t reading my lips right, so I signed the words. “I’ll shoot you again.”

“Better end me, then.” He swayed slightly, the blood loss getting to him. “Aim for the heart this time. It’s yours anyhow.”

I swallowed. The man was insane.“I’ll kill you.”

“You kill me and I’ll come back as a ghost and attach myself to your soul.” God, he reallywascrazy. “I’ll crawl through the fires of hell to get to you.”

I dropped the gun and bolted out of there with tears streaming down my face and a desperate sob pushing at my lips.