Chapter 6 - THE DANCE ON THE EDGE
Dante stood up slowly from his desk, staring at her as if she were a phantom conjured by his lack of sleep.
"Clara," he breathed. "What are you doing here? Marco was supposed to make sure you stayed in Brooklyn."
"Marco works for your mother when it counts," Clara said, taking three steps into the room. Her heart was beating like a trapped bird against her ribs, but she forced herself to keep her gaze locked onto him. "And I don't take orders from your guards anyway."
Dante rounded the desk, stopping a few feet away from her. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff, desperately trying not to lean forward.
"You shouldn't be here," he rasped, his eyes trailing down to her shoulders, where the fabric of her sweater hid the thickness, jagged scars beneath. "Every minute you stand in this house puts a mark on your back."
"The mark was put on my back the night I took five bullets for your mother, Dante!" Clara said, her voice rising with a sudden, fierce passion that started them both. "You think you can just pay off my debts, buy me a house, and file me away like a completed business transaction? You think that's how this works?"
Dante reached out, his hand hovering an inch from her cheek, disenchanted to touch her, disenchanted not to.
"I am trying to keep you alive!" he shouted, the composure he had maintained for months finally shattering into jagged pieces. "Do you know what my life is? It's blood, Clara! It's blood and fire and waiting for the phone to ring to hear which of my friends have been dumped in the river! I loved my father, and he was gunned down in a restaurant! I loved my brother, and he died in a car that wasn't his! Everyone who stays near me ends up in a pine box!"
"Then let me choose!" Clara screamed back, stepping into the space between his hovering hand and pressing her cheek directly against his palm.
Dante flinched as if burned, but he didn't pull away. His called fingers cupped her jaw, his thumb traced the soft curve of her lip.
"I tried to go back to my life, Dante," Clara whispered, tears overflowing her eyelashes and wetting his knuckles. "I tried to sit in that empty house in Brooklyn and pretend that I was just a physical therapist who had a bad accident. But I can't. Because every time I close my eyes, I don't see the shooter. I don't see the blood. I see you holding me in that garage, weeping like the world was ending."
Dante let out a low, shuddering sound—a noise that sounded like a man drowning after a long struggle. He pulled her against his chest, his large arms wrapping around her with a gentleness that was almost painful, burying his face into the crook of her neck.
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"Clara..." he sobbed into her skin. "I can't protect you from what I am."
"Then don't," she whispered back, her good arm wrapping around his neck, pulling him down until their lips met in a kiss that tasted of rain, salt, and seven months of unspoken agony.
