Page 32 of Unorthodox
She walks out without another word, past me and Dante standing in the doorway of the dining room.
There’s a sliding glass door straight across from me that leads to the screened-in porch. The pool is beyond that, shrouded in darkness now that night has fallen.
I tug at the hem of my t-shirt, flex my bare feet against the floor as I take in the place settings, across from one another. Taking a deep breath, I smell something that makes my stomach growl.
I’m not sure what it is, but a glance at the grey marble island in the kitchen and I see several dishes full of food.
That hollowness of my stomach quickly turns to dread as I wonder which dish is drugged.
Then again, there are two place settings.
Maybe tonight is different. Maybe Max won’t come.
I turn to Dante, at my back.
His green-brown eyes, flecked with gold, are on mine. His face is lean, almost hollow around his cheekbones, and it’s a structure that I find myself at once envious of and…attracted to.
“Are we eating?” I ask him quietly, still fisting my shirt in my hands.
Dante’s brow furrows. “Max is coming soon.”
My stomach flips. The scent of the food is no longer inviting. It’s…oppressing.
Will he watch me drug myself with each bite? Will he fuck with me here, for Dante to see? What hell will he punish me with tonight, for my aggression in the shower?
Then again, I was allowed to wander today.
And for one moment, my door was left unlocked and unguarded.
That ended when I watched Dante lead a man out of the front door.
The one I tried to run from.
He led me back to my room afterward.
I close my eyes, for just a moment, aware Dante is seeing everything I’m doing. Aware that he is Max’s eyes and ears when Max isn’t around. Aware that I can’t trust anyone in this fucking house.
“Why?” I finally ask, opening my eyes to stare at Dante. I know he isn’t good, either. He works for a man that makes Satan look like a soft kitten. But Dante has yet to hurt me, to touch me at all, save for when he steadied me on the treadmill. “Why can’t we eat alone—”
“Don’t ask Dante questions that he can’t answer.” Max’s cold voice cuts me off and I turn to find him coming down the hallway, dressed in a black button-down shirt, tailored pants, hands in his pockets. As he gets closer, I see him take in my sweats and t-shirt, and he furrows his brow, but says nothing. Instead, he turns to Dante.
Dante’s spine straightens, and for half a second, I almost expect him to salute his boss like they’re in the military. But despite the guns and the torture and the mind games, this isn’t the military.
The wars waged within this world may be as brutal, as depraved, but no one is fighting for a country. No one is fighting for a cause.
They fight because they can.
“The front door,” Max says quietly. “Evora will be here. Take her to my room.”
I try not to react outwardly, but my mind is spinning.Evora.Who is Evora? Is she a hostage too?
Dante walks off down the same hallway Max came in from and we’re alone.
I step back from him, like one would a wild animal.
“Sit,” he says, ignoring my retreat, and heading to the kitchen.
I wrap my arms around myself and try not to think about the basement. Anything that happened there. Or the shower afterward. My spine against the tile. His rough hands on me. The way he washed my hair. The way he held me after…
