Chapter 81 Who was he
Isabella POV
My eyes felt heavy as the exhaustion suddenly hit me hard. I’d been scared of every noise that echoed through the house, and now all the sounds died away because they didn’t matter. I didn’t feel alone or unprotected. I felt like nothing in the world could ever hurt me. This man was bulletproof and he would protect me with his life, whether someone was after me or
not. My eyes were closed, but I could feel his gaze on my face. I could feel his piercing stare with those pretty blue eyes. I could feel his strong pulse under my fingertips, feel his hard dick against my clit. I fell asleep almost instantly, feeling safe with a monster.
Dante took all my luggage to the car and arranged my paintings in the back seat so they would all fit. He did all of this without me asking him to, being a gentleman when he was nothing of the sort. He walked me to the car in the parking lot, dressed in the clothes he’d
been wearing the night before. He didn’t seem tired even though he’d spent most of his evening in a freezing cold truck. He was in his blue hoodie and black jeans, the dark color contrasting against his fair skin. He was a much lighter color than I was, skin the color of milk, his eyes the color of glaciers, and his hair dirty-red. We didn’t have sex last night or this morning. He didn’t try anything, and I didn’t initiate it either. We’d had the best sex we’d ever had after I killed those men. Dante didn’t bother cleaning up the bodies because he cared more about having me. We did it nonstop in his bedroom, and only when the sun came up did we finally go to sleep but that was the last time.
Now there was this distance between us. I was a free woman. How did I want to enjoy my freedom?
He leaned against the trunk of the car, his body making the car shift slightly under his weight. He stared at me with little expression, his emotions not readable in his eyes. He stared at me for a moment before he turned his gaze to the ground. “You can always call me. Doesn’t matter what time it is.”
“I know. What are you going to do?”
“Not sure yet. I might take a job.”
“Well, be safe if you do.”
The corner of his mouth rose in a smile, but it didn’t last long before it came down a second later. “Yeah…I will.”
“Well, goodbye.” I’d never said that word to him, but now I didn’t know if this would be the last time we spoke. I didn’t know what we were. I didn’t know what lay ahead for us. Even if he said he would spare my family, would
we still have a relationship? I’d like to think we wouldn’t, but I was the one who called him last night. He turned his gaze to me, the hurt in his eyes. He didn’t hide that expression from me this time. He either couldn’t control it, or he didn’t want to. He clenched his jaw for a moment before he straightened, removing his
weight from the car. Without saying a word, he walked away. His powerful body shifted and moved as he walked, and he carried himself like a man who hadn’t been shot and stabbed so many times. Nothing could defeat him, not even me.
“These are art work indeed” my mom unwrapped each one and hung them on the wall at the winery, placing them on the white background so the color could really stand out. The tables and chairs were in the center of the room, where customers gathered to enjoy their wine and cheese while they had a
breathtaking view of the winery. “I love them all.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I hooked one onto the wall, feeling the back of it catch the string. She bent down to open another and then carefully removed the brown paper that protected it against the elements. Instead of hanging it up, she held it in her hands for a long time and stared at it. She stared at it for a long time.
I had ten different pieces that I’d been working for the past month, so I wasn’t sure which one she was looking at or why she liked it so much. “Who is this?” Her smile was gone, and her bubbly attitude had disappeared. She was so happy just a moment ago, but now she was deathly serious.
“Who?” I asked. She moved toward me so I could see the image. “This man.”
I stared at the painting, sick to my stomach when I realized I’d packed it by mistake. I meant to leave that at home in the other room, but I must have gotten it mixed up with a different image. Mom kept staring at it, looking at the snowy background. The snow traveled all the way to the water and to the small dock that stretched across the flat lake. The trees surrounding the area were all dead, just twigs that reached up into the sky. Dante stood with his back to the viewer, his muscled frame and immense body obvious in the black sweater and jeans he wore. Vapor escaped his mouth as he stared at the lake. He’d just finished dumping the man into the water, and now he admired the scenery before him, the solitude he thrived on. He was mysterious at the time, a man who terrified me but aroused me simultaneously. It was the first time I’d kissed him, that night in the snow and it was a kiss I’d never forget.
I shot him in the shoulder, but that didn’t slow him down, nothing could slow him down, not when I was the target he was trying to reach.
I tried to find an explanation, to think of something to explain the odd image. All of my other paintings were just landscapes in Rome and some in Milan. Only people I knew well had appearances in my pieces, people I could paint because I knew their features like the back of my hand. It was the painting I hadn’t wanted Dante to see. I didn’t want him to
understand how I saw him. On that night, he was a murderer and a monster but instead of seeing the blood on his hands and the violence in his eyes, I saw him as misunderstood. He was a man in pain and a man who was lost. I finally found my voice. “No one. I’d never painted a lake before, and I wanted to give it a try, I was never planning on selling it. I must have put it in the car by accident.”
Mom kept holding it and refused to let go.
“Why wouldn’t you sell it? It’s your best work.”
She finally pulled her gaze away and looked at me. She didn’t ask the question that was burning in her eyes, but the look on her face told me what she was thinking.