Chapter 144: Let Them Burn!

The restroom door clicked shut behind them.

Dim light flickered overhead. Peeling wallpaper. A cracked mirror. The stench of disinfectant didn’t quite mask the mildew in the corners, but none of that mattered to her.

For the girl, it felt like the spotlight was solely on her. Her gaze locked on Dante like a woman already drunk on fantasy.

To her, this was spontaneous. Risky. Electric.

To him?

This was war.

He pressed her back against the sink, caging her in with one arm while the other slipped her duffel from her shoulder and tossed it aside. She gasped. Not from fear—no, from excitement. The girl was trembling with anticipation. Her cheeks flushed, lips parted in that naive, breathless expression he’d seen a thousand times before.

Dante leaned in close, letting his breath fan against her neck.

"You matter, you know that?" he whispered silkily, tracing a finger down her throat. "You're not like the others."

A lie. He’d used it before.

His eyes, dark and intense, held hers, making her feel as though she was the only woman in the world. He leaned in once more, his breath warm against her ear, and whispered promises of escape, of pleasure she’d only dreamed of.

She whimpered, lips quivering with some emotion he didn’t care to name. Her arms snaked around his neck.

Pathetic.

He could already hear her voice later, asking herself what this meant. Where it was going. Whether she’d just had a moment with a man who truly saw her.

But Dante?

Dante only saw a door.

A way in.

A weapon.

As he leaned in, his lips brushed her jaw—not tenderly, but like a predator memorizing a vein. Her body yielded, soft and willing, and he bit back the bile rising in his throat.

She moaned—a drawn-out, too-loud, embarrassingly eager sound.

It made his jaw tighten.

He moved with a practiced ease, unzipping, unbuttoning, his touch both tender and urgent.

Every second, every touch, every move he made, he whispered the same curse beneath his breath.

“I’ll kill her.”

Not the girl beneath him. No—her. The one who stole Lila’s name. The one whose very existence meant his Lila might be lost.

“I’ll kill Ivy.”

Every second he spent in this charade, he burned inside. His loathing for what he was doing twisted with the fire of revenge until it became one blistering, pulsing thing in his chest.

He was close.

He could feel it in his blood.

This girl would be his ticket to the Blackwood gates.

She would get him to Ivy.

And Ivy would bring him back Lila.

One way or another.

The fury clawed its way up his throat—a savage combination of rage, disgust, and loathing—until it exploded through his body like a pitbull unleashed. He spun her around with brutal force, slamming her against the wall. Without pause, he drove into her from behind, each thrust fueled not by lust but by a raw, seething hatred that burned through every inch of him.

His movements were ruthless—fast, deep, and punishing—chasing nothing but the exorcism of everything she reminded him of. When he felt her body tense and crumble into release, he tore himself away, breath heaving. There was no pleasure in it. No satisfaction. Just emptiness.

Only Lila had ever made him feel like a man. And without her, all he was… was rage in human form

By the time they stepped out of the restroom, the girl’s lipstick was smeared and her eyes sparkled like she’d just been rewritten. She clung to him as they left the café, fingers brushing against his knuckles like she couldn’t quite believe what had happened.

“Two more days,” she whispered breathlessly. “Then I’m back on duty. Same subway. Same route. Maybe we’ll run into each other again?”

Dante smiled lazily, tilting his head like a man with all the time in the world. Then he leaned in close, letting his voice curl against her ear like a promise.

“You ever been fucked silly in the Blackwood estate?” he asked. “Don’t you want to know how that feels?”

She shivered, visibly, her breath hitching.

He slipped a small card into her coat pocket. A number. Untraceable. One of his many throwaways.

“Call me,” he said. “When the big dogs are out. I’ll give you a taste of what you’ve been missing.”

She was already nodding. Too fast. Too eager.

As if possessed.

Like a lamb offered to the wrong altar.

She boarded the train minutes later, stealing glances at him through the glass until the doors shut.

Dante stood on the platform, unmoving.

Then he turned and spat on the ground.

The taste of her still clung to him, and it disgusted him. Crawled up his spine like rot. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, fury simmering beneath the surface.

His boots hit the sidewalk hard as he walked away, jaw clenched.

That sound.

That disgusting moan that escaped her lips still echoed in his mind like a brand. Like insult.

He ground his teeth.

He wanted to kill something.

He wanted to kill her. And he will. After he's done using her.

Then there's Ivy.

The imposter. The shadow. The thing that wore Lila’s face and soul but wasn’t her.

He had sworn with every thrust, with every fake smile, that he would make Ivy pay.

He would find Lila.

He would burn the Blackwood legacy to ash.

And now he had a way in.

“She’s resuming in two days,” he muttered, walking into the sun. “Two more days, and I’m walking through that estate like I belong.”

His hand curled into a fist.

“I’m coming for you, Ivy,” he whispered. “And when I find you... it won’t be mercy that you meet.”

LILA – THE KENNEL

She had stopped counting the days. The light never changed. Morning bled into night without distinction, and time became a slow, suffocating crawl in the shadows of the cell.

Then it hit.

A searing, deep pain like wildfire ripping through her spine. Lila choked on her breath, her body curling instinctively into itself as if trying to escape a blade that had already pierced her soul. Her limbs trembled violently. Her vision blurred.

She gasped.

The agony wasn’t physical—not entirely.

It was worse.

It came from him.

From Dante.

From the unbreakable thread that bound her soul to his. A thread that now sizzled and snapped with betrayal.

“No,” she whispered, clutching her chest as though she could dig the bond out with her fingers. “No—no, no, no.”

Her stomach twisted, a sickening wave of nausea crashing over her as the pain deepened—rhythmic. Violent. Familiar. Every savage thrust he gave whoever he's having sex with echoed through her body like a curse.

She felt it all.

Not the act.

But the absence of her in it.

Lila screamed.

Her voice cracked against the kennel walls, but no one came. No one ever came.

Her knees slammed against the concrete as she fell, her breath ragged, fingers clawing at her scalp as if she could silence the bond. She felt his fury. His disgust. The weight of his hatred buried in another woman’s body while she—his mate—rotted alone in a cage like a discarded secret.

Her heart didn’t just ache.

It shattered.

Over and over and over.

Until it burned.

She lifted her head, hair clinging to her tear-streaked face, her eyes wild and red-rimmed.

“He’s… he’s not even looking for me,” she rasped aloud, voice breaking. “He’s out there—fucking someone else—and I’m in here!”

The silence that answered her was deafening.

There was no one to scream at. No one to accuse. No one to save her.

Her fists clenched slowly, fingernails digging into her palms until blood kissed her skin.

So that’s how it is.

He’d turned his back.

They all had.

Every single person she once thought loved her.

Every soul that claimed to care.

She was alone now.

Truly.

Utterly.

And if the world wanted to forget her—if they wanted to watch her drown in silence—then she would rise in vengeance.

Let them all burn.

Let him burn.

Her voice came out low, unrecognizable, a promise whispered into the cold.

Her lips curled, broken and bloodstained.

“They want a villain?” she whispered, staring at the mangled stump that used to be her hand.

“Fine. They’ll get a one-handed one.”