Chapter 84 Love Isn't Weak
Dante POV
Seven days has come and gone, and I didn’t hear from Isabella. I watched her tracker almost constantly, but she never deviated from two spots which was her childhood house and the her family wine house. The last time we spoke, there was a hint of finality to the conversation. She said goodbye to me, like she wanted it to be the last time she ever saw me but I brushed it off and walked away.
She’d call I told myself again and again she felt comfortable with her parents but the second she returned back to her house, I would be the first person she called. She wanted to push me
away, but we were both too invested in this and our relationship was clearly different now, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen yet. I wasn’t even sure what we were anymore because she was a free woman now and I had absolutely no power over her but I’d put the war on hold for her but where did that leave us?
I was a man with needs, and if she wasn’t fulfilling those needs, I would have to go elsewhere. She wasn’t calling me either. If she was going to drop me like that, I would do the same thing to her. I went out that night, hitting up a bar with Rex. He sat beside me at the bar in a long sleeved black t shirt. His second
bottle of beer sat in front of him, right next to the coaster but never on it. “Any trouble from the fucker men again?”
I hadn’t even thought about it. “Haven’t heard a peep.”
“From what I can tell, they’re restructuring the organization. Doesn’t seem like too many men care that he’s gone.”
I was sure no one cared that he was gone. “Good thing you were quick on your feet and killed all those guys. Looks.like you got exactly what you wanted even though they came to kill you.” He watched the TV as he drank his beer.
I’d never told him what really happened. “Actually, I didn’t kill them.”
“Then who did?” He turned back to me, his eyebrow raised. “isabella did.”
“isabella did what?” he blurted, the name not sounding right as it rolled off his tongue.“Yeah. I was on my knees and cuffed, and she came into the room with.my shotgun and killed the four men. She let me have him.”
Rex was dumbfounded, he just stared at me. “So, let me get this straight. You’re keeping that woman as a prisoner, threatening her family, and she kills the men who are about to kill you? If she’d just done nothing, you’d disappear.”
“I know.” I would never forget what she did for me. Not only did she save my life, but she gave me my revenge. The last thing I wanted to do was let her go, but I thought that was a fair way to repay her. Now she would never have
to look over her shoulder and be afraid of me. Instead of plotting to kill her, I would always protect her. That was my way of repaying the debt.
“Am I the only one who thinks that’s crazy?”
“It is crazy. I’m surprised she did it.”
He drank his beer then wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. “Looks like that woman doesn’t hate you, after all”
“She hates me now.”
“what have you done this time?”
“I told her I wouldn’t kill her or hurt her, out of respect for what she did to me but I wouldn’t drop the blood war”
“Moretti, she saved your fucking life.”
“And I promised I would never take hers. That’s fair.”
“But if she’d let you die, her family would be safe, won't they. I think you really been mean”
I drank my beer, regretting the fact that I didn’t order something stronger. “Her mistake, not mine.”
He chuckled then faced forward again. “You’re really an asshole.”
“I’ve never deceived her. It was her decision to save me. She didn’t have to.”
“Man that woman has it bad for you.”
“Bad for me?” I asked. “She saved you because she’s hung up on you. No other explanation.”
The sex was hot and the chemistry was explosive, but that’s all it was. She.knew she wouldn’t find a better man than me. If she killed me, every man who came after me wouldn’t compare. She would always be unsatisfied and she’d have to finish the job herself. “I don’t know about that.”
“Yes, you do.”
“We haven’t spoken in almost a week. Once I granted her freedom, she’s wanted nothing to do with me. She’s with her family right now with her family.”
“The family you’re going to kill?”
I nodded. “Then why are they still alive right now? You just finished one vendetta. What about the other?”
I stared at the TV without really paying much attention to it. “I told her I would reconsider my decision, and I wouldn’t do anything in the meantime.”
“Decision?” he asked. “To kill her family?”
I was ashamed to say the answer out loud. “Yes.”
Rex grinned like a boy who’d just started summer break..“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. You fucking pussy.”
“Excuse me?” I demanded. “You’re really into her as she is into you. It’s so obvious. She doesn’t kill you even when she should, and now you’ve let her go and won’t hurt her
family. It’s so obvious that I don’t understand how it’s not obvious to you.”
“I like fucking her but that’s it.”
“Sure. Whatever you say, he said mockingly .”
“I’m serious. She's is just”
“is not a shame to love a beautiful lady or is it? Come on, it’s a great feeling that you can find a woman you can’t live without, and you enjoy her. That’s not pussy shit but pussy shit is not admitting to it man .”
I held his gaze, my heart thudding in my chest. “I don’t love her.”
“Then what is this?”
“I don’t know but I know I don’t love her. I don’t give a shit how beautiful she is or how much I enjoy plowing between her legs. I’ll never love
the daughter of the man who ruined my life. I’ll never stop despising her for having everything I should have had. I respect her, but that’s the extent of my feelings. So shut the fuck up and drop it.”
He raised both hands in surrender. “Alright, man.”
I drank my beer again, my blood boiling at the ridiculous insinuation. A man like me didn’t know love and the closest I’d ever come to it was the way I felt about my mother. I was too young to remember her vividly, but I knew how it felt to be loved by someone even if it didn’t last long. I loved her in return, which was why I murdered the man who threw her in a dumpster but I’d never come close to feeling anything in the stratosphere of romantic love.
My life was about money, killing, and fucking that’s it and it remains so.