Page 73 of Obsession & Oath

But I have thought about a few things. Under cover of darkness, with Dante sleeping soundly beside me, the encounter with Evelina still made my heart ache. Then I’ve let my treacherous brain think…what if this was what my life was like forever?

I pace faster now, my mind moving quicker than my feet.

Of course, Dante hasn’t thought about it likethat. The truth is staring me in the face, and I’m still too afraid to really see it for what it is.

Dante’s not going to let me stay here with him. As soon as Leon sends word, he’ll take me back to Brooklyn.

He’ll take me back to the Cartel, to the life that’s never let me breathe, and I’ll be nothing more than the pawn in a war between two factions that couldn’t care less about me.

I’ve always known better than to fool myself. It’s what I’ve done my entire life: tell myself the things I want to hear until the truth comes crashing down around me.

But that’s not the hardest part.

The hardest part is that I don’t want it to end. Not this. Notus.

I can’t keep pretending that I’m fine with being a hostage, with being on the opposite side of everything that matters to him.

But I also can’t keep pretending that I don’t feel the pull every time he looks at me, every time his hand brushes against mine, every time I wake up to find him beside me.

But what am I supposed to do when I know it’s going to be ripped away from me?

I stop, my hand resting on the window frame, my gaze drifting out over the landscape. The sun is setting, casting a golden light over the gardens. It’s beautiful, perfect in its stillness. But it feels far away from me now. Everything feels distant.

I don’t want to wait until it’s too late. I can’t.

I take a breath, forcing myself to be calm to think. I can’t keep spinning around in my head like this.

I need answers, even if they’re not the answers I want. I need to face him and confront this. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t feel like a fool for letting myself believe in a future that was never real to begin with.

If Dante won’t change the course of things, if he goes back to Brooklyn, to his Guild, then that’s it, isn’t it? I’ll go back to my father, to my obligations. And in the end, we’ll both be caught in a war that doesn’t care about our feelings.

I have to face him. I have to know where we stand.

If I’m willing to give everything up for this. If he’s willing to do the same.

And if we’re not, then I need to stop pretending it could be anything else.

I turn toward the door, a firm decision settling into place. It’s time to face the truth, no matter how much it stings. I can’t live in this haze any longer.

I walk out of the room, my mind set on one thing: confronting Dante.

I find him sooner than I thought I would, staring out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the ballroom. Starlight illuminates his face. He’s seemingly lost in thought.

He’s so unfairly handsome like this. That face, thatjawlinethat I’ve become so intimately familiar with, seems to beckon me closer. To claim. To admire. Tocherish.

(It could be love, couldn’t it?)

The ballroom is bare now that the decorations from the ball have been removed. The echo of our laughter and the music that once filled the space is gone, replaced by a cold silence that wraps around me like a shroud.

It’s as if the room knows what’s about to happen. There’s no warmth in the way the light spills through the windows, no softness in the grandiose chandeliers that hang like ghosts above us.

I stand there, feeling smaller than I’ve ever felt before, my heart pounding in my chest like a prisoner desperate to escape. I swallow hard, my voice catching in my throat as I call to him.

“Dante?”

He turns, his brow furrowing slightly at the sound of my voice. It’s not the greeting I expected.

“Carmen?” His voice is soft but hesitant. He has a look of quiet wariness, as though he already knows the questions I’m going to ask.

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