Chapter 74: MARCO’S WARNING AGAIN

MIA

Day twelve and I'd gotten good at looking relaxed.

Dante was in his office on a call, door closed, the low rumble of his voice just audible through the wall, and I was on the couch with a book I wasn't reading when Marco knocked and let himself in with the key Dante had given him years ago.

"He's on a call," I said without looking up.

"I know." He didn't go to the office. Instead he came to the living room and stood there until I looked at him then tilted his head toward the kitchen. "Come talk to me."

I followed him feeling every confused.

He stood at the counter, pouring himself water from the tap and looked at me for a moment with an expression I couldn't read.

"You're good," he said. "Very good."

"I don't know what you mean."

"The cooking, the movie nights and the way you are suddenly the most perfect girlfriend." He set the glass down. "It is very convincing but not convincing enough.”

I didn't say anything.

"I'm not going to tell him," he said before I could figure out what to say. "That's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because you need to understand something before this goes further than it already has." He crossed his arms and looked at me steadily. "If you betray him, if you try to destroy him, he will destroy you back and everyone around you. His obsession doesn't do half measures. It never has."

"He kidnapped me."

"I know and I told him it was wrong. I told him it was kidnapping and torture and that he was destroying what he claimed to love." He said. "But didn't listen. We may not be the best men out there but I couldn't just watch that, something didn't sit right with me."

"So you're warning me off."

"I'm warning you to be careful. There's a difference." He picked the glass back up and looked into it. "You're planning something and I don't know exactly what it is but I know it involves people outside this apartment and I know it involves evidence." He met my eyes. "Whatever you're planning, you need to be sure it works the first time. Because if it doesn't, if it goes wrong or he finds out before you're ready, he won't offer thirty days again or anything at all. You only have one shot so make sure it works. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

I understood.

"Then why aren't you stopping me?" I said.

He was quiet for a moment, turning the glass in his hands.

"Because maybe you're the only way out of this for both of you," he said finally. "He can't let you go on his own because he doesn't have that in him. But if something external forced his hand, if the situation resolved in a way that he didn't choose—" He stopped. "I've worked with Dante for more than a decade. I've watched him do things I can't undo and I stayed anyway because I believed in who he was underneath all of it." He set the glass down. "I'm not sure I believe that anymore. And you're the reason I'm not sure."

"You're saying I'm his only way out of himself."

"I'm saying be careful. You're playing with a man who has nothing left to lose except you. That makes him the most dangerous person in this building." He straightened up. "Don't let him know you're playing. Don't let him see you until you're ready for him to see you. And whatever you're planning, make sure it's bulletproof."

He left the kitchen and went to knock on the office door while I stood there for a minute before going back to the couch and the book I wasn't reading.

Dante came out twenty minutes later and looked at me on the couch then toward the front door.

"Did Marco speak to you?”

"yeah, but he was just checking on me," I said. "And being friendly."

He looked at me in suspicion but I kept my guard up.

"He likes you," he said. "But be careful with Marco."

"Why?"

He came and sat on the other end of the couch and turned to face me with a serious expression.

"Because he's loyal to me," he said. "But he's also moral. And those two things have been pulling in opposite directions for a while now." He looked at his hands. "If he ever had to choose between my happiness and what he believed was right, I genuinely don't know what he'd choose. And that makes him unpredictable."

"You're saying you don't trust him."

"I'm saying I trust him until I don't. And I won't know which it is until the moment comes." He looked up at me. "That's true of most people."

I thought about Marco in the kitchen telling me to make sure it was bulletproof and Dante on the couch telling me Marco was dangerous and both of them watching me from opposite sides of the same fire.

"That sounds exhausting," I said.

"It is." He almost smiled. "But it's just how things are."