Page 20 of Obsession & Oath

He’s deflecting.

“You hate it here, don’t you?” I observe. “You dislike your mother. You thought my display when we arrived was amusing.”

The muscles of his jaw jump a little. “Enlightening, perhaps.”

“Why are you here?” I change tactics as the pieces fall into place.

“To check on you.”

“You checked on me yesterday after three days. There’s no need for you to be back so soon. Pierre tends to me well enough. He could have told you if anything had changed. Which means you must really truly hate it here.”

“Pray tell, how you made such an incredible leap?”

“You’ve come down here without any reason other than to torment me. Ergo, whatever is happening up there is somehowworsethan talking to me down here.”

Dante’s mouth opens. Then, it closes again. Then there’s a soft little hum of discontent.

Bingo.

“Did you come down here to complain about how much your mommy is tormenting you?” I coo, batting my eyelashes slightly.

For a moment, I think he might fight back. But he’s too caught now, too proud. He storms off to the sound of my laughter.

* * *

“Okay. Fine. You’re right, she’s a nightmare, and there’s no one in this fucking castle that won’t regale her with my complaints as soon as they get the chance to fuck me over. So please, be a good little prisoner and listen to me before I actually go insane.”

Dante is breathless as he stands before the bars of my cell, eyes frenzied, anger rolling off his shoulders in waves.

I pretend to check my watch. “That was quicker than I thought.”

It’s not. It’s been two days and three meals since our last interaction. I hate the way it almost feels like a relief to see him again.

“She wants me to attend a ball. With actual dancing.” Dante begins to pace in front of the cell. “There’s a tailor coming this afternoon and everything.”

“You poor bastard,”I drone in Italian.

“I think I’d rather slice out my own eyeballs and feed them to myself.”

“Dickhead.”

“It’s like she’s doing all this on purpose to enact some kind of revenge plot over the fact that I left in the first place.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Dante carries on his tirade for at least an hour, giving me plenty of time to practice my ever-growing list of insults. At one point, he stops waxing lyrical about the dangers of ballroom dancing to correct my pronunciation so that I might insult him properly.

By the time he leaves, there’s an odd warmth in my chest that has been absent since I was able to pull one over on that Max guy back in Brooklyn.

As I stare up at the renovated dungeon ceiling from my bed, I turn over every new piece of information I’ve managed to extract from Dante’s ramblings, searching for anything that might help me in my escape.

His disdain for his mother. His anxiousness to be back in Brooklyn. Is there a reason he despises social gatherings? Does he have any allies here? Friends? Family beyond Evelina Grasso?

I fall asleep with questions that I ponder most of the following day. Some of the answers arrive sometime after my third meal, along with Dante and another tirade. This time, it’s about traveling to Modena to get things done.

Dante’s visits became a pattern in the following week. Each evening presents a fresh irritation for him to lament, sprinkled with just enough important information for me to pay attention.

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