Chapter 27 SHADOWS DON'T LET GO
JASMINE:
I didn’t want to believe it. Italy was supposed to be a closed chapter. A sealed one even.
And yet, when I opened my eyes, my past was standing in front of me.
Dante, my best friend, back when I had a life in Italy. Before I had enough and came to New York to start a new one. A life where no one knew who I really used to be.
“Hi, Cocca.” Dante said. He didn’t smile the way he used to.
“What am I doing here?” I asked, steadier this time.
His jaw flexed slightly. “I am a soldato now.” He said instead.
“Good for you.” I replied, sacarstically. “Now answer my question.” I demanded, swinging my legs over the edge of the narrow cot in order to stand up, only for me to hear metal clinking. I looked down and saw a cuff around my ankle, cuffed to something heavy bolted into the concrete floor.
My head snapped up. “You cuffed me up?”
“It’s temporary.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “You weren’t exactly going to come quietly.”
“Come quietly?” I repeated. “Dante, I live here.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. I studied him properly then. His posture, his restraint. The subtle awareness of every exit in the room.
“Why are you here, Dante?” I asked softly.
“Your family.”
I scoffed. “My family, and that’s why you’re in New York?” I asked.
He hesitated. “That’s part of it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I can give.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is this about your omertà?”
He went silent. Then his jaw tightened.
“Dante.”
He exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
That single word confirmed everything and nothing at the same time.
“So there is something you’re not saying.”
“Yes.”
“Is it about me?”
There was another pause.
“Yes.”
Cold slid down my spine.
“What is it?”
“I can’t say.”
I laughed bitterly. “You break into my life after years, drag me into some warehouse, chain me to the floor, and you can’t tell me why?”
“It’s for your safety.”
“Well I don’t care,” I snapped. “I left that life. I chose something different.”
“And you think it’s that simple?” His voice sharpened for the first time. “You think walking away means they stop watching?”
They?
“Dante,” I said carefully, “if you’re not going to tell me exactly what’s happening, then I’m leaving.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the cuff around my ankle.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “But I can’t let you.”
The first day was anger. The second was negotiation, and by the third, we were exhausted.
He brought food, water, and a blanket when the nights grew cold.
We talked in fragments. He softened up slowly, about life over there in Italy. And I warmed up slowly to him as well. But every time I tried to steer the conversation back to why he was really here, he’d shut it down.
“Come back with me,” he said for the hundredth time.
“No.”
“It’s safer.”
“For who?” I demanded.
“For you.”
“I am not going back there,” I said firmly. “Not to the estate, to the rules, not to the suffocation of being a Vorn.”
“You don’t know what’s coming.”
“Then tell me. Screw your Omertà and tell me!”
I stood, or tried to, but the cuff stopped me short.
“Either you trust me enough to explain,” I said, “or you let me go.”
He looked at me for a long time. And for a moment, I saw the boy I once knew.
On the third night, he unlocked the cuff. The metal fell away with a heavy click. I stared at my ankle in disbelief.
“You’re letting me go?”
His mouth curved faintly. “You’ve always been impossible to cage.”
“That didn’t stop you from trying.”
“So why did you let him?” He diverted, filled with concern and a hint of confusion.
I quieted. Even without him saying the name, I knew he was talking about Nikolai. But I wasn’t going to give him an answer, cause I wasn’t sure I was going to like it.
So he huffed softly, respecting my silence. “I don’t have a choice. I’ll stay in the shadows. Make sure nothing reaches you.”
“You should go back to Italy,” I said. “Whatever this is, it’s not my war anymore.”
He looked at me in a way that made my chest tighten.
“Not from what’s coming,” he said quietly.
Something about the way he said it made my stomach drop. But I refused to show it.
“If you’re going to release me,” I said carefully, “you have to make it believable.”
He frowned slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t need to understand. Just do it.” I said softly.
Understanding dawned in his eyes.
“You’re asking me to—”
“Yes.”
He stepped back immediately. “No.”
“Dante.”
“I won’t.”
“You hit me once already.”
“That was different.”
“It wasn’t,” I said softly. “It hurt.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Jasmine…”
“Do it.”
The hesitation lasted seconds. Then, he hit me along my cheekbone. I masked the pain with a slight wince as I tasted blood.
When I looked up at him, his expression was wrecked.
“Now it looks real,” I muttered.
He pulled me into his arms without warning. For a moment, I let myself lean into it.
“You’re stubborn,” he whispered.
“You always liked that.”
A sad smile spread across his face.
“Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” I replied. “And Dante?”
He paused.
“Don’t lose yourself over rules that wouldn’t save you.”
He didn’t answer. He just opened the doors of the warehouse, and let me wander off.
I wasn’t sure where I was headed to, but I let my feet lead the way. By the time I reached my destination, the night was as dark as black.
His mansion loomed ahead, the lights glowing warm against stone. I hesitated only briefly before pressing the buzzer. Then the camera lens shifted. I lifted my bruised face toward it for identification.
As the system scanned it quietly, I began to think.
I should have gone somewhere else. I should have taken this as my chance to disappear. To return to my normal life.
But then again, maybe I came back because it was already too late for that. Maybe my life had shifted too far off course.
But as I stood there, waiting for the gates to open, I knew the truth was more complicated, more dangerous even. Because deep down, I hadn’t returned because I had nowhere else to go.
I had returned because something in me wanted to. And I wasn’t ready to admit what that meant just yet.