Chapter 20: MOVING IN WITH DANTE

MIA

My phone buzzed at four in the morning.

I'd been lying awake for hours anyway, staring at the ceiling, listening to every sound the building made and wondering if any of them were the stalker coming back. So when the notification lit up my screen I almost didn't look because I knew only the stalker would text me by this time after being silent for long.

unknown number: I take better photos of you than you take of yourself. Want to see?

My stomach dropped before I even opened the attachment.

The photo loaded slowly, making my heart rate climb higher with each second until I thought it would burst through my chest. The picture was taken in my bedroom, I could see my body curled up on the bed as I stared at the ceiling. It had a timestamp of 3:47 AM.

It was taken thirteen minutes ago.

“What the fuck…” I couldn't breathe again.

I had always thought I was just being paranoid but I clearly had underestimated the problem. My hand shook violently as tears rolled down my cheek. The locks didn't stop them nor did Dante’s camera catch them. This was the most violating thing I had ever experienced.

In a flash, I was out of the bed, throwing clothes into a bag without even looking at what I was picking. I grabbed my toothbrush, phone charger and any other thing my shaky hands touched, trying to hold the bag still as I shoved it in.

I need to get out.

I needed to go anywhere that wasn't here. I didn't care where. I was halfway to the door when I realized I had nowhere to go. Yuna's apartment was too far and I couldn't make myself walk to the subway alone at four in the morning, not when someone was clearly watching my every move and knew my route better than I did. A hotel felt too exposed as it was filled with strangers and any of them could be the stalker. I could also barely form a coherent sentence enough to talk to any one.

That left just one option.

I pounded on Dante's door as fast as I could. He opened the door in his sweatpants, tshirt and messy hair from sleep but his eyes snapped alert the moment he saw my face.

"What happened?"

I held out my phone and he took it, reading through the message then clicking on the image and his body went rigid.

"Get inside," he said. "Now."

I followed him inside his apartment and then he closed the door, locked it and then triple checked just to be sure. He walked over to me then opened the security app on his phone and went through the feet while I tried to do the breathing exercises he had taught me last time.

"Nothing," he said after a minute of scrolling. "There were no alerts or motion detected. So either we were hacked or the person somehow slipped past all the cameras.”

“how–” my voice squeaked. “How did they know?”

"Because they've been in here before multiple times. They  could even have their own camera in there which they used to watch everything we did.” He set his phone down then pulled me into his chest. I let him because I didn't have the energy to stand on my own anymore. “You're not going back there. Not tonight at least. We need to figure out how they are getting in first.”

“But the new locks—”

"They're getting in anyway." His hand came up to my hair,gently patting it. “You can stay here as long as you want because I'm not letting you go back there alone.”

I nodded against his chest because I didn't trust myself to speak without crying and I'd already cried enough tonight that my eyes hurt and my throat was raw. He walked me to his bedroom, pulled back the covers, waited until I climbed in before he got in beside me and when I instinctively moved closer to him he didn't pull away as he just wrapped an arm around me and held me until I slept off.

I woke up at noon to sunlight streaming through the windows and it took me a solid minute to remember why I was here as all the memories came crashing down on me.

When I walked out, Dante was in the kitchen making coffee and when he saw me, he handed me a cup just the way I liked it.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Terrified, violated and like I'm never going to feel safe again."

"You're safe here. I promise you that."

"For how long? I can't stay here forever."

"Why not?"

I paused for a moment, realizing that he was actually serious. He was offering me a full time sanctuary without asking for anything else. Did good people like this really exist? In this scary world?

"I'll just stay for a few days," I said. "Until we figure something out."

He nodded. "I still insist that you can stay as long as you need. I'll clear a drawer space for your clothes. You can set up your equipment in the spare room if you want to work from here."

The old me would have felt like we were moving too fast and doing too much but instead all I felt was relief. He was like a lifeline I could hold on to all the time.

Soon the days blurred into a week.

I went back to my apartment just once to grab more clothes and my equipment and of course, Dante came with me because I couldn't bring myself to go in there alone for fear that something would pop out from the shadow and attack me. Everything looked normal and untouched just the way I left it and that made it more eerie. The stalker was playing with me, trying to give me a false sense of security but I wouldn't fall.

With time, my toiletries filled Dante's bathroom, my clothes filled the spare drawer he had cleared and then I set up the spare room as he said into my makeshift studio. My mails also started arriving at his address even though I didn't file for a change of address and when I mentioned it to him he said he had taken care of it to make things easier for me and I had never felt more grateful even though I wondered how he was able to pull the signature part.

We fell into a domestic routine that made the world feel so normal. We'd have morning and evening walks when he came back from work. Some days we didn't speak but the silence was comfortable. He cooked dinner most nights because I had work I needed to finish up but he claimed he liked cooking anyway.

Most nights we'd watch movies together, somewhat cuddled up on the couch and it made me realize that even with Ren, I had never felt so loved—

No, Mia. This isn't love… yet. Don't get ahead of yourself.

"How long am I going to be here?" I asked him one night after dinner.

"As long as you want."

"But I should go back eventually. Right? I mean, it's my apartment."

"It's four walls and a door that someone's been getting through repeatedly." He turned to face me fully. "You're safer here. Why would you go back?"

"Because I can't just live with you forever."

"Why not?"

There it was again. He wanted this to be a permanent thing so that we can start building whatever this was together. But was it too fast?

"I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not a burden. You're—" He stopped then started again. "I like having you here. I like knowing you're safe but you can take your time figuring out what you want to do. No pressure."

But there was pressure. Not from him exactly but from the situation, the stalker had made my apartment inhabitable and each day I stayed here made going back harder.

I woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed.

Dante's side was cold which meant he had been gone for a while. I lay there for a minute trying to hear where he'd gone and when I didn't hear anything I got up and padded out to the living room to check if he was okay.

He was standing by the window, phone in his hand, expression completely blank and this made me stop in my tracks. It wasn't a peaceful look but just.. empty and cold. I shivered, I had never seen such a look on him.

Then he must have sensed me there because he turned and the expression vanished instantly, turning into concern so fast I almost thought I'd imagined the coldness that had been there seconds earlier.

"Nightmare?" he asked gently.

I searched his face, looking for the man I had just seen but found nothing.

"Yeah," I heard myself saying absentmindedly. "Nightmare."