Chapter 52 Dante Interferes
(Dante POV)
I notice Micah slipping away before he even realizes he’s doing it, drifting from one corner of the training center to another like he’s trying to outrun a shadow only he can see, and the longer I watch him, the clearer it becomes that something is grinding him down, something sharp, something recent, because he keeps checking his phone as if it’s a weapon pointed straight at his ribs. He startles whenever someone passes too close, and every time he glances up and accidentally meets my eyes, he jerks his gaze away like the contact physically burns. I don’t approach at first; I let him twist, let him think he’s fooling me, because I want to see just how deep this spiral goes before I grab him by the edges and pull him back.
When practice ends and the others scatter toward the showers or the exit, Micah lingers at the far wall, shoulders tight, hands trembling just enough that most people wouldn’t notice but I’m not most people, and I know his body like a language. He tries to slip into the hallway leading toward the back stairwell, the one no one uses except staff, and it’s almost laughably obvious how badly he wants to disappear. I follow him without saying a word, my footsteps soft and steady, each one a reminder that he’s not going anywhere I can’t reach.
He turns the corner and stops abruptly like he’s hit a wall of dread, and I take the opportunity to block the narrow hallway behind him, planting one hand against the wall beside his head and leaning just close enough that he stiffens. He doesn’t try to move past me; he knows better, even as he refuses to look up. “Micah,” I say, my voice calm but too quiet to be safe, “turn around.”
He flinches, then obeys slowly, eyes dropping first to my shirt, then my collar, before finally lifting to my face with an expression that’s equal parts guilt and fear. His breathing is shallow, almost shaky, and I take in the way he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth like he’s trying to keep himself from speaking. It’s maddening. “What’s going on?” I ask, not giving him space, not giving him air, because if I do he’ll slip through it like smoke.
“I’m fine,” he whispers, the lie pathetic in its softness, and he pushes a hand through his hair like he’s trying to physically wipe off whatever emotion is clinging to him. “I just, I didn’t sleep much. That’s all.”
“Try again,” I murmur, leaning a fraction closer, enough that my breath ghosts across his cheek, and the way he swallows tells me he feels every millimeter of the distance collapsing.
He presses himself back against the wall, eyes darting to the floor again. “Dante, I said I’m fine,” he repeats, louder this time but still brittle, like a branch about to crack. “Can you just give me a minute?”
A humorless laugh escapes me before I can stop it, low and sharp. “A minute for what? To hide whatever you’re running from? To check your phone again like it’s bleeding?” His gaze flickers in panic tiny, but there and it confirms more than any confession he could have spoken. “Don’t insult me,” I add softly. “I can see you unraveling. Tell me why.”
Micah squeezes his hands into fists like he’s trying to anchor himself, his knuckles whitening. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he mutters, voice cracking despite the defiance in his posture. “It’s just… it’s personal.”
Personal. The word hits me like a slap, cold and sudden and profoundly unacceptable. I lean even closer until he has to tilt his head up to keep looking at me, and the hallway seems to narrow around us, the air thickening. “Everything about you is my concern,” I say quietly, each syllable controlled, precise. “There is nothing personal when it comes to you.”
He shakes his head, breathing quickening. “Dante, please. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I don’t want to repeat myself,” I counter, voice dropping lower, silk wrapped around steel. “Tell me.”
But he just stands there, trembling slightly, eyes glossy with the distress he’s fighting to hide, and his silence spreads like frost between us. The frustration coils tight in my chest, not just because he’s refusing to answer, but because someone, somewhere, has put that look on his face—and he’s protecting them instead of coming to me. I search his expression, hunting for clues, some trace of who has their fingers in his mind, but he shuts down more the longer I press, shutting his eyes, turning his face away like he can escape by not seeing me.
“You’re lying to me,” I say softly, and he freezes. “And you’re terrible at it.”
“I’m not..” he tries, but the sentence dies halfway out, his voice cracking under the weight of everything he’s trying to hide.
I reach out and take his chin between my fingers, turning his face back toward mine with a slow, unhurried motions that makes him inhale sharply. “Look at me when you speak,” I command. “If you’re going to lie, at least have the courage to do it properly.”
His throat bobs as he swallows, lips parting slightly. “I can’t tell you,” he finally whispers, the words trembling like something pulled from him with pliers.
That single sentence detonates inside me.
Not the content no, it’s the choice, the implication that someone else has earned his silence, someone else has leverage or access or power that I haven’t already crushed into dust. I let go of his chin and step back half a foot, not because I want space but because otherwise I might cage him entirely, and that would break something between us I’m not ready to break. He watches the shift like it’s a trap snapping open, not relief fear.
“Can’t,” I echo, tasting the word. “Or won’t?”
He doesn’t answer. His silence is answer enough.
I study him slowly, methodically, every twitch of muscle, every flicker of fear. “Who,” I ask, voice barely above a whisper, “has their hands on you?”
“No one,” he says not too fast, not too slow, but with the exact caution of someone who knows the wrong answer will be fatal.
I take a step closer again. “Micah.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, shoulders tensing like he’s bracing for impact. “It’s not like that,” he insists, still refusing to open his eyes, which tells me everything he thinks he’s concealing. “It’s not about someone.”
My jaw tightens. “You’re protecting someone.”
His eyes snap open then, wide and defensive. “No! Dante, you’re twisting what I...”
“Tell me the truth,” I interrupt, stepping close enough that his breath hitches, my hand bracing the wall beside his head again. “Because right now, it feels like you’re standing between me and whoever’s hurting you.”
He stares at me, chest rising and falling too fast, his hands gripping the fabric of his own shirt like he’s holding himself together. “I’m not, no one is please just stop.”
“Tell me,” I repeat, softer, but infinitely more dangerous.
Micah’s breath shudders, his lips trembling. “If I tell you… everything will get worse.”
A soft, cold smile curves onto my mouth at that. “For who?”
He blinks, startled by the shift in my tone. “Dante..”
“Micah,” I say, leaning close enough that our foreheads nearly touch, “I don’t care who’s involved, or what they think they know, or what they think they can do. If something is coming after you, I will end it before it breathes your name again.”
His eyes shine with something halfway between fear and relief but fear wins.
“Stop,” he whispers, voice cracking. “You’re making it sound like I belong to you.”
I look at him, really look, at the tremor in his jaw and the way his breath catches when I reach up and brush my thumb just beneath his lip not touching, just close enough that he feels the heat. “You’re not ready for the answer to that,” I murmur.
He recoils then, just an inch, but enough to slice the moment in half, enough to split the connection between us and leave the edges bleeding. It’s not a rejection, it’s panic. The kind someone else put in him. The kind someone else benefits from. The kind that tells me I’m not wrong to feel the cold coil of anger tightening in my chest.
I step back slowly, deliberately, giving him space but not comfort. “You’re hiding something from me,” I say quietly. “And you’re choosing to hide it.”
He swallows hard, but he doesn’t deny it this time.
“And because of that,” I continue, “I need to know who else has your attention. Who else has your fear. Who else thinks they can touch what’s mine.”
Micah’s breath catches sharply, but I don’t wait for his protest. I turn and walk away down the hallway, each step measured, controlled, burning with cold calculation. His silence follows me like a confession.
And as I leave him trembling against the wall, one truth crystallizes in my mind with terrifying clarity: Someone is pulling him away from me.
Whoever it is, they won’t survive it.