Chapter 130

Hatred was a sentence.

In the first moments, it was violent. In the next, it aged bitterly, poisoning every ounce of the heart. It condemned the souls who submitted to resentment. It was cruel, painful, and vengeful.

Hatred was never the opposite of love. Because I felt both. I was capable of loving and hating in equal measure. I was capable of destroying it and crying for its death with the same intensity.

Love was an immense universe. It gave. It embraced. It kissed. It swore. But it also scratched. Hurt. Brought tears. Stole smiles.

Hatred could do the same, but with a reason. With a purpose. At least, there was a rational explanation for anyone who felt deceived. Betrayed. Trampled.

Love was poison, and hatred was the enhancer.

That’s why it was stupid of me to say I hated him.

What I felt was on a whole other level.

Disgust.

I looked at him and felt the repulsion take over my insides.

If Dante saw my heart, he would see it dead, necrotic from the pain he had left four years ago when he ran away and destroyed my life.

"Not gonna say anything, Gray?"

I spat on him.

The spit hit his beautiful face, completely changed by the years that had passed.

Dante’s reaction was minimal. Any trace of amusement from seeing me trapped in that chair in the middle of a disgusting place, probably a place for burying the dead, was gone.

He wiped it off with his arm and looked at me with his dark eyes.

"I’ll take that as I missed you."

I wanted to beat him. I wanted to crush his skull with my hands. But I was determined not to give him anything. He wouldn’t hear my voice. He wouldn’t hear how seeing him hurt me. How much I regretted ever giving my heart to a son of a bitch.

Dante didn’t deserve anything from me. I wouldn’t make the same naïve mistake I did seven years ago by reaching out to him.

"I was told you don’t like your role in our search for the map," Dante went straight to the point, still squatting. "But this isn’t about what you want, it’s about what I need. So, let’s get to the point—where did your shitty parents leave the map?"

He had to be kidding.

Faulkner was begging for me to place my fingers around his neck and choke him until nothing was left but rolled-up eyes and an open mouth.

I kept staring at him as if it was possible to kill him with a look, and he sighed.

"Emília, my patience has an expiration date, and you don’t want to see me being an impatient man."

His calmness was threatening.

He was different. Even though his black hair still made him devilishly handsome, his dark orbs hid so many secrets, he had changed. He had matured.

Dante had grown in muscles, and I could see from his lack of a shirt how his skin was marked by ugly scars and toned arms. There was a crown of thorns in the V-line that descended to his pants. The chain on his neck played with all the coldness that resided in that man.

The word on his chest, tattooed as if giving life to his internal wounds.

INCIPIT.

I felt a little more disgusted by it.

I never thought hell could be a human so beautiful.

"Speak, Gray. Better open your little mouth if you don’t want me to do this job for you. I guarantee you won’t like it," he threatened again.

My nose wrinkling was my only answer.

Dante clicked his tongue and signaled backward. The door slammed shut suddenly, thundering like lightning.

In the urge to turn my face to see what was behind me, I was surprised when the handcuffs were removed from my wrists.

Faulkner stood up, raising his entire stature. He had grown a few centimeters as well. I was tall, but everything about me seemed to shrink, making me feel small while my ass remained stuck to that wooden bench.

I lifted my head to scrutinize him with all his sovereignty. Dante used to be my comfort. Right then, he was my nightmare in the flesh.

Before I could breathe, my neck was seized by his hand. His strength threw my body against the old wall, and a subtle pain took over my ribs.

"You’ve always been a stubborn little brat, shit," he muttered, his fingers still marking my throat.

"Don’t. Touch. Me."

My teeth gritted three words that sparked a playful look on his face.

"Then the bitch barks."

"Let go of me, you idiot," I shot, grabbing his arm and sinking my nails into him.

"Now you’re cursing," he commented, his hand relaxing on my neck but still remaining intact.

"I’ll do worse things to you."

And I spat on him again.

Dante didn’t blink, and amusement gleamed in his irises.

"Save your lust for someone else, bitch."

"You have no idea."

His eyes printed disgust. His lips soured, just as his jaw clenched.

He didn’t like my answer one bit, and I took the opportunity to shove him, kicking him away.

Dante staggered slightly, giving me space to escape. But as soon as I ran to the door and opened it, four men rose before me, darkening my vision with the shadows they cast and the dark power they held.

My body was collapsing, especially as I finally recognized their faces.

They were no longer just voices.

It was them.

Asher Hawthorn. Jaxon Fish. Vance Campbell. Cole Van Doren.

All of them covered in black cloaks. Bringing with them the aura of Death that no ordinary human could ever possess.

I had believed they had been betrayed by Dante. That they were as indignant as I was. His escape would have affected all of us, and nothing could heal the wound he had left. I was completely mistaken. I saw each of those guys at college, living an ordinary life like me, assuming they would have let normality return.

It was all a theater, and even though the tickets were never on sale, I watched and believed that mediocre performance for the last four years.

They lived in secret with Dante. They were still his lackeys. They still honored the pact they had made. They still had the same love for destruction they acquired that day of the kidnapping.

They still killed. Tortured. Destroyed lives, just as they made sure to record mine.

I had protected them, and now it was turning against me.