Page 48 of Damaged & Deadly

Dante doesn’t seem to be listening to me as he storms to his feet, losing his cool as he grabs the first thing within reach—a paperweight—and hauls it across the room. It goes straight through the drywall, leaving a paperweight-shaped hole in the middle. Not that Dante notices as he proceeds to clear the top of a dresser, sending ornaments, flowers, a decanter of whiskey, and two tumblers flying.

My eyes are still scouring the screens while he throws a hissy fit, but no matter how much I will Giovanni to pop up on one, he never appears. The only movement is when one of the men on the ground floor and two younger-looking boys hurry into the elevator, presumably to obey whatever order Cain has given them.

“They must have fucked up,” Dante snarls venomously, garnering my attention as I look away from the screens. “He must have somehow made it into the tunnels, and now he’s in the fucking wind. And he knows we were involved. We’re fucked.” His chest heaves as his shoulders rise and fall on heavy breaths. Lifting his head, his tormented eyes meet mine. “We’re officially traitors.”

Fuck. My eyes drift closed as my own breathing becomes labored. I knew the possibilities when we agreed to this plan, butfuck, after spending most of my life trying to prove I was nothing like my father, I’ve ended up exactly like him. I’ll probably meet the same agonizing end he did, too.

Bile burns the back of my throat as unwanted memories of him chained to the ceiling with his insides trailing along the ground and his skin burnt, sliced, and broken swim to the forefront of my mind. They made my mother and me watch every minute of the torture. Then, when he was hanging on the precipice of death, they did the same to my mother and promised my father that I’d spend the rest of my life atoning for his sins.

Sweat beads along my brow and my skin feels clammy. Only the steady, reassuring warmth of Dante’s hand on my shoulder prevents the downward spiral into a full-blown panic attack. When I open my eyes, he’s standing in front of me. Leaning in, he presses his forehead to mine, his hand moving to cup the back of my neck. His eyes hold mine captive as he breathes with me until I feel more grounded.

“I won’t let the same fate befall you.”

It’s one of the rare times Dante has had to reassure me. In fact, I don’t think he’s done it since we were kids and the vivid dreams of my parents' deaths used to jolt me awake with a cold sweat every night. Reassurance and empathy aren’t exactly Dante’s forte.

However, there is nothing but sincerity in his tone; the truth of his words soaking into my frigid bones. I know he means every word he says. He’d sooner shoot me himself than let me suffer at his father’s hands. Honestly, if this whole thing goes sideways, we’ll probably end up going out in some sort of murder-suicide. Neither of us fears death. It’s a part of this life that you learn to accept at a young age. Death and being an Antonelli go hand in hand. It’s the thought of dying at Giovanni’s hand, at his mercy, that bothers me more than anything.

Tilting my head, I brush my lips over his. His body is rigid against mine, his lips unmoving. I’ve never kissed him like this before, outside the lustful fires of desire and need. Usually, our advances are fueled by anger or his desperation to ground himself. Never because of a craving for intimacy.

After a moment, his lips move against mine, our tongues sliding over one another. It’s got to be the softest kiss we’ve ever shared. It’s nothing like Sawyer’s gentle kisses. I don’t love Dante the way I love Sawyer, but my body enjoys his, and his support and reassurance resonate with me.

Pulling away, he says in a gruff voice, appearing uncomfortable, “No point in hanging around here, so we may as well go find Sawyer.”

As if on cue, gunshots ring out, but there’s no one else around, and it takes a second for me to place the echoing sound as I turn toward the hole Dante left in the wall. Frowning, I slowly approach as another round of gunfire rattles through the wall.What the hell?I’d just assumed the wall bordered another room, but there would be no reason for anyone to be shooting up here, unless they were shooting at us—which most definitely isn’t the case.

Peering through the hole, my eyes widen at what I see. “Dante.” I wave him over as I continue to glimpse around the hidden stairwell on the other side of the wall. This close, I can hear what sounds like people rushing down the stairs, the bang of heavy feet as they hit the metal steps ringing out loudly in the confined space. “I think I worked out where Giovanni went.”

“What the fuck?!” Dante gasps when I move aside to let him see. “A hidden fucking stairwell. Are you kidding me?” Anger laces his tone as he steps back, analyzing the wall and looking for some sort of release mechanism that would grant us entry. Not seeing one, he begins running his hand along the wall before pushing against it. A loud click emanates around the room as part of it separates, forming a door that Dante pulls open, and we both rush onto a small metal landing.

All sound has ceased as I look over the railing to the floors below, noting that the stairwell goes all the way to the ground floor and beyond… into the tunnels.

“Fucking hell. Your dad never told you about this?” I question.

“Nope. It never even occurred to me that he’d have backup plans I didn’t know about. It has me wondering what other secrets he’s kept from me.”

Yeah, me too.Peering down the stairwell, I sigh, “Well, I guess we should see where it goes.”

“And who was just here.”

Moving much more quietly than whoever was here before us, Dante and I descend with our weapons held at our sides. On the floor below, we notice a blood trail, and I cock a brow at him. “Santos?”

He shrugs a casual shoulder. “Or one of those gangsters.”

We follow the trail of blood down numerous flights of stairs until it disappears. We pause outside the door, and I look to Dante again for direction. He shakes his head, and we move on, leaving whoever is bleeding out to deal with their own problems while we continue on to deal with ours.

Another few floors have us passing the door that would open onto the ground floor—presumably into some back room or storage room—but we ignore it as we move further down the stairs until we reach the very bottom.

Dante wraps his hand around the door handle while I train my gun on the door, and on my signal, he whips it open. I rush through it into the frigid temperature of the tunnel, spinning left then right as I assess for any threats. “All clear.”

Dante appears beside me as we stare one way and then the other down the tunnel. “Which way do you think he went?”

His face is set in a hard mask as he tries to figure out his father’s movements, and he runs his hand through his dark hair, causing the ends to stick up when he shakes his head. “I haven’t a clue. I don’t even know which tunnel this is without looking at the maps.”

“Well, Cain claims he’s got all the tunnel exits covered, so your father should stumble across one of his blockades.”

Dante snorts, shaking his head once again. “Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.”

Blowing out a frustrated breath, he storms back into the stairwell and up the stairs. Following behind him, I wallow in our defeat as we head back to our agreed-upon meeting spot.

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