Chapter 44 - Dante’s Reckoning
The heart monitor inside the medical bay spiked with a shrill, rhythmic alarm.
I pushed past Marcus and shoved the partition door open. Dante was thrashing on the gurney, his fingers clawing at the synthetic leather straps securing his wrists. His eyes snapped open, bloodshot and frantic, his pupils blown wide by neurological shock.
"Brianna..." he choked out, gasping for air as if drowning in dry air. "Brianna... don't let them... the penthouse... the safe..."
"I'm here, Dante! Stop fighting it!" I leaned over him, pressing my hands firmly against his burning cheeks, forcing his fever-crazed eyes to meet mine. "Look at me. Look at my face. You're in the bunker. Mateo and Clara are safe. Look at me!"
His breathing hitched, his chest heaving under the surgical gown. The wild terror in his eyes slowly crystallized into an agonizing, broken clarity. He stopped struggling, his head falling back against the pillow as a tear traced a clean path through the dried blood on his cheek.
"I hurt you," he whispered, his voice trembling with an anguish that no bullet could ever inflict. "I let you see her... in my arms. I wanted you to hate me so deeply that you would run to the other side of the earth and never look back."
"You idiot," I whispered, resting my forehead against his, our tears mingling in the sterile glare of the surgical lamp. "You brilliant, arrogant, suicidal idiot. Did you really think five years of love could be erased by five minutes of cruelty?"
"I couldn't let him touch you," Dante murmured, his hand weakly reaching up to touch my jaw, his fingers trembling with failing motor control. "Castiglione... he murdered my mother when I was a boy to control my father. When I saw the protocol file with your name on it... with our unborn child's genetic profile... I knew I had to become the monster in your story to keep you alive."
Marcus walked into the room, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the man who had loved his daughter enough to tear himself apart.
"You did what you had to do, Ferraro," Marcus said solemnly. "Now do what you need to do to survive. The inhibitor we gave you is a battlefield patch. It buys you twenty-four hours before systemic organ collapse. Castiglione has retreated to the Castiglione Tower on Wacker Drive. His personal medical team has the permanent synthetic antidote."
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Dante looked at Marcus, then back to me, a terrifying resolve replacing the weakness in his gaze. "Then we don't run anymore."
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