The apartment was small but clean, and Dante had chosen this place for two reasons. First, it had two exits, one through the front door and another through the fire escape in the bedroom. Second, there were no neighbors who asked questions because the neighbors were either too old to care or too smart to get involved in other people's business.
He liked it that way.
The walls were white and bare. The furniture was black and simple. There were no pictures on the wall, no plants in the windows, nothing that said someone actually lived here. Dante had spent years making sure that his home looked like a hotel room because hotels did not have memories and memories were dangerous.
But tonight, for the first time, the empty walls felt different. They felt lonelier.
Sloane was sitting on his couch, and she had not moved in twenty minutes. His jacket was still wrapped around her shoulders, swallowing her small frame like a blanket. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was staring at the floor with those empty eyes that made something inside Dante's chest ache.
What am I doing? he asked himself as he stood by the window, watching the street below. I don't know this girl. I don't know if she's lying. I don't know if she's working for someone. And I brought her to my home.
He should have left her in that alley. He should have walked away and never looked back. That was what the old Dante would have done. The Dante before the blood oath, before Don Vitale, before everything went wrong.
But that Dante had died a long time ago.
"You should clean that cut," he said without turning around from the window.
"I did," she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Better."
She did not respond, and the silence between them grew heavy and thick like smoke. Dante could hear her breathing, shallow and uneven, like someone who was trying very hard not to cry.
He turned to look at her. The cut above her eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but there was dried blood on her cheek and her lip was swollen on the left side. Someone had hit her. Hard. More than once.
Who hurt you? he wanted to ask. And why do I care?
"Who was he?" Dante asked instead, walking away from the window and sitting down on the chair across from her. Close enough to see her face but far enough to give her space.
"The man I killed?" Sloane looked up at him, and for a moment, her eyes flickered with something that was not emptiness. Anger, maybe. Or pain.
"Yes."
"I don't know his name."
"He must have said something," Dante pressed, keeping his voice calm. "They always say something. Men like that, they can't help themselves. They want you to be scared. They want you to know why they're doing what they're doing."
Sloane's jaw tightened, and he could see her hands clench into fists in her lap. "He said I was pretty. He said I should smile more. He said if I was nice to him, he would let me go."
Dante felt something cold settle in his chest. He had heard those words before, not spoken to him but spoken to others. Victims. Women who had crossed paths with the wrong men on the wrong nights.
"And then?" he asked, even though he was not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
"He lied," Sloane said simply, and there was no emotion in her voice at all. Just fact. Just truth.
Dante stood up and walked to the kitchen. He took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and set it on the table in front of her. Then he sat back down and waited.
She's strong, he thought as he watched her take a small sip. Most people would be crying right now. Most people would be begging for help or begging to go home. But she's just sitting there like she's already accepted everything that happened.
That kind of strength did not come from nowhere. It came from surviving again and again until surviving was the only thing you knew how to do.
"The bruises on your arms," Dante said quietly. "The yellow ones. Those aren't from tonight."
Sloane pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders, and for a moment, he thought she was not going to answer. But then she spoke, her voice so soft he almost did not hear her.
"No," she said. "They're not from tonight."
"Who gave them to you?"
She looked away, her eyes fixed on the blank wall behind him. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
She turned to look at him, and there was confusion in her eyes now. Confusion and something else. Something that looked like suspicion. "Why? You don't know me. You found me in an alley an hour ago. Why do you care about my bruises?"
Dante did not have an answer, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He did not care about people. That was the whole point of his life. He killed people. He did not save them. He did not worry about their bruises or their empty eyes or the way their voices cracked when they talked about men who lied.
But you saved her, a voice in his head whispered. You broke the rules for her. You brought her here. You're sitting in your apartment with a witness, and you're asking about her bruises like you have the right to know.
"I don't know why I care," he finally said, and he meant it. "But I do. And until I figure out what to do with you, you're stuck with me. So you might as well answer the questions."
Sloane stared at him for a long moment, and he could see her weighing her options. Trust him or don't. Talk or stay silent. Fight or give in.
Then she took a slow breath and pulled up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing her arm. The bruises were worse than he had thought. Yellow and purple and green, layered on top of each other like someone had been hurting her for weeks. Maybe months.
"My stepfather," she said quietly. "He's been hitting me since I was fifteen. My mother knows. She doesn't do anything about it."
Dante felt his blood run cold. "Fifteen?"
"I'm twenty four now," Sloane said, pulling the sleeve back down. "Nine years. You learn to live with it after a while. You learn to wear long sleeves and make excuses and stay out of the house as much as possible."
Nine years, Dante thought, and something dark and angry stirred in his chest. Nine years of someone hurting her, and no one stopped it.
"Why didn't you leave?" he asked, and he immediately regretted the question because he knew how it sounded. Like he was blaming her. Like he thought it was her fault.
But Sloane did not look offended. She just looked tired. "Where would I go? I don't have money. I don't have friends. My mother is the only family I have, and she won't leave him." She paused, and her voice dropped even lower. "Besides, it's not that easy. People think leaving is simple. Just pack a bag and walk out the door. But he always finds you. They always find you."
Dante knew she was right because he had seen it before. Women who ran from abusive husbands. Men who ran from loan sharks. People who thought they could escape their pasts by moving to new cities and changing their names.
The past always found you.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. He was not sure he had ever meant anything more.
Sloane looked at him with those hazel eyes, and for a moment, the emptiness in them faded. Just a little. Just enough for him to see the girl she might have been before the world broke her.
"You're the first person who's ever said that to me," she whispered. "The first person who actually sounded like they meant it."
Dante did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He just sat there in the silence, watching her drink her water and wrap his jacket tighter around her shoulders.
What am I going to do with her? he asked himself. I can't keep her here forever. Don Vitale will find out. He always finds out.
But another voice in his head, quieter but more insistent, said something else. You can't send her back to that house. You can't send her back to a man who hits her. You know what that's like. You know.
Dante stood up and walked to the window again. The street below was quiet now. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were beginning to clear, revealing a sliver of moon in the dark sky.
"You should sleep," he said without turning around. "There's a bedroom down the hall. The bed is small, but it's clean. I'll stay out here."
"I can't sleep," Sloane said, and her voice was so small that it made his chest hurt again. "Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. The man I killed. He just kept bleeding and bleeding, and I couldn't make it stop."
Dante turned to look at her. She was crying now, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, and she did not even seem to notice.
She's not a killer, he thought. She's a girl who did what she had to do to survive. There's a difference.
"The first time I killed someone," he said slowly, "I didn't sleep for a week. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face. Every time I opened them, I expected the police to be standing over me with handcuffs."
Sloane looked up at him, her tears still falling. "How did you make it stop?"
Dante hesitated. He had never told anyone this story. Not Marco. Not Don Vitale. Not any of the women he had spent the night with over the years.
"It didn't stop," he admitted. "I just got used to it. The faces change, but the feeling stays the same. You learn to live with it, or you let it destroy you. There's no other choice."
Sloane wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and she looked at him with something new in her eyes. Not emptiness. Not anger. Understanding.
"You've been alone for a long time, haven't you?" she asked.
Dante did not answer because he did not need to. She already knew.
"We're the same, you and me," Sloane continued, her voice stronger now. "We've both been hurt. We've both done things we're not proud of. We've both survived when other people didn't."
She's right, Dante thought as he looked at her. She's exactly right. And that's what scares me.
"Go to sleep, Sloane," he said, turning back to the window. "We'll figure out the rest in the morning."
She stood up slowly, still wrapped in his jacket, and walked toward the bedroom. At the doorway, she stopped and looked back at him.
"Thank you," she said. "For not leaving me in that alley."
Dante did not turn around. He could not. Because if he turned around and looked at her face, he was afraid of what he might do. Afraid of what he might say. Afraid of what he might feel.
"You're welcome," he said to the window.
He heard her footsteps fade down the hallway, and then he heard the soft click of the bedroom door closing.
Dante stood by the window for a long time, staring at the street below, his mind racing with thoughts he did not want to have.
What have you done? he asked himself. You brought a stranger into your home. A witness. A girl with a stepfather who hits her and a past she's running from. You don't know anything about her.
But that was not true. He knew one thing. He knew that when she looked at him with those hazel eyes, he felt something he had not felt in fifteen years.
He felt alive.
And that terrified him more than any enemy ever could.