Page 78 of Bad Girl Dilemma

So I stay silent.

And I pray she doesn’t see through it. Doesn’t see the chains silently unfurling. Ready to capture and keep what might not be mine.

Dahlia

The code blurs.

My fingers hover over the keyboard, the screen glowing with lines I can’t focus on. The digits and backdoors and security tunnels—none of it matters right now.

Not when I can still feel the ghost of Dante’s touch and silence, even when he’s across the room.

He sits by the fire now. Not close enough to burn, but close enough to feel the heat. One leg sprawled out, his elbows on his knees, head bowed like he’s bearing some invisible weight. Like if he looks up, the world might crack open and swallow us both.

I close the laptop slowly. Swallow hard.

“You’re doing that thing again,” I say softly.

His gaze lifts. Charcoal-grey eyes like a storm held behind glass. “What thing?”

“The silence thing. The blaming yourself thing.”

A beat.

“Isn’t that what ended us here? Another fucking safehouse?”

My heart squeezes. “You can’t take the world on your back and pretend I don’t get to choose. Not for Rina. Not for me.”

His eyes narrow. Probe. “I didn’t choose for you to almost die.”

“You didn’t choose to love me either, I think.”

Fuck.Not what I was going to say.

The words hang there. Heavy. Awful.

True.

Dante flinches, just slightly. His hand flexes against his thigh, like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t trust himself to. Or worse—doesn’t trust me to want him anymore.

I rise from the armchair and cross the room, slow and quiet. Bare feet on the old wood floor, wearing nothing but his shirt, like it still matters whose skin it touched last.

When I stop in front of him, I don’t speak. I lower to my knees instead. My favorite place.

He exhales like I’ve hit him. Not with force. With mercy.

“You shouldn’t be down there,” he says, but he doesn’t stop me.

“I want to be.”

He brushes a hand through my hair, fingertips skimming my cheek. “You scared the fuck out of me with that close fucking shave. Again.”

I nod, my throat tight. “You scared me too.”

His voice turns ragged. “When I thought I lost you?—”

“You didn’t.”

“Not yet.”

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