Chapter 7 #7
Chapter 7
~ Shailyn ~
Dante's expression was so serious, so intense, that for one heart-stopping moment I was certain he knew.
I was certain he could smell Dwayne on my skin, see the guilt written across my face like a confession. But I forced myself to stay calm, to deliver the lie I'd been rehearsing in my head since the taxi ride home.
“What are you doing here, Dante?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt. “How did you know where I am?”
“I have my ways and I’m here to pick up my wife, who spent the night outside, dressed like a …” he looked at me from head to toe and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and exposed.
"I went to a party with Max," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I got a bit drunk and made a friend there. We were both wasted, and when we took a taxi, I was too out of it to remember where I was going. She offered to let me crash at her place for the night."
It was lame. Flimsy. The kind of excuse a teenager would give their parents. But maybe that's exactly why it would work — because I had never done anything like this before. I'd never stayed out all night. Never went to parties. Never had friends Dante didn't know about. I'd been the perfect, obedient, pathetic wife for five years.
Dante studied me, his eyes narrowing with skepticism. I held my breath, waiting for him to call me out, to tear apart my story piece by piece. But after what felt like an eternity, something shifted in his expression. He believed me.
Relief flooded through me for exactly two seconds before his face twisted with rage.
"How dare you ignore my calls and texts?" he shouted, stepping closer. "I'm still your husband, Shailyn! You think you can just disappear and not answer to me?"
I flinched, shrinking back instinctively.
"Why would a Belmar go out drinking like some common nobody?" he continued, his voice rising. "What if someone took photos of you? What if you were recognized? Do you have any idea how that would make me look?"
Of course. It was always about him. About his image, his reputation, his precious standing in society. Never about me. Never about whether I was safe or happy or drowning in misery.
He kept shouting, and I kept shrinking, making myself smaller and smaller until I felt like I might disappear entirely. This was always how it went. If I told him he was shouting, he'd take it as disrespect. He'd grab me by the throat, choke me until I saw stars, then have angry, brutal sex with me before leaving me alone to deal with whatever infection he'd picked up from his latest conquest. I just needed to stay calm. Stay quiet. Let this pass.
But then his words shifted, became more pointed.
"So this is where you've been hiding?" He looked around Aunt Patricia's modest living room with undisguised disdain, his lip curling in disgust. "Shame on you, Shailyn. This place isn't even a quarter of our home."
"Home?" The word burst out of me before I could stop it, sharp and bitter. I snorted, the sound ugly and unladylike, everything a Belmar wife wasn't supposed to be. "That place is a prison, not a home. And I only got trapped there because of you."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. I'd shocked him. Good.
"I'm divorcing you, Dante," I said, the words coming easier this time, stronger. "I don't care what it takes. I don't care what you try to do to stop me. I'm done."
For a moment, he just stared at me. Then he threw his head back and laughed — a cruel, mocking sound that made my skin crawl.
"You?" He wiped fake tears from his eyes. "You're going to divorce me? Oh, Shailyn, that's precious. Really, truly precious. I'd love to see you try."
He stepped closer again, and this time I didn't shrink back. I held my ground even as my legs trembled.
"Come home with me now," he said, his voice turning sickeningly sweet. "Come home and remember everything I give you. The money, the shoes, the bags, the lifestyle you could never afford on your own. You think you can survive without me? You think anyone else would ever want you?"
I was mentally exhausted. Physically drained. Every cell in my body screamed at me to just give in, to go with him, to stop fighting a battle I'd never win. But something inside me refused to break.
"Fuck off, Dante."
The words hung in the air between us like a grenade.
His face darkened, and before I could react, he grabbed my face roughly, forcing me to look at him. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into my cheeks. He leaned in close, so close I could smell the coffee on his breath — and licked his lips slowly, deliberately.
"You think you're a cat now, huh?" he murmured, his voice dropping to something dangerous and dark. "Think you've got claws? That's cute, Shailyn. Really cute. But we both know you're not capable of lifting a finger against me. You never have been, and you never will be."
He released me with a shove that sent me stumbling backward. Then he turned and stormed toward the door, yanking it open so hard I thought it might come off its hinges.
"See you at home, wife," he called over his shoulder before slamming the door so violently the windows rattled.
The silence that followed was deafening.
My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath, my heart racing so fast I thought it might explode. I was terrified of what he might do next, terrified of his threats, terrified of myself and this new person I was becoming. The person who talked back. The person who said no.
But underneath the fear was something else. Something that felt almost like... relief?
Thank God he hadn't discovered where I'd really been last night. Thank God he didn't know about Dwayne, about the mask club, about the way I'd let another man touch me in ways Dante never had. If he'd known, if he'd even suspected — I'd probably be dead right now.
I sank onto the couch, my legs finally giving out. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.
I forced myself to breathe. In and out. Slow and steady. I needed to think clearly, needed to process everything that had just happened, everything I'd done.
Dwayne didn't recognize me. He had no idea the woman he'd spent the night with was his brother's wife. It would be my secret—my one shameful, beautiful secret that no one else would ever know about.
I sat there in silence, replaying the past twenty-four hours in my mind like a film reel I couldn't stop. The confidence I'd felt confronting that man in the ginseng store. Walking into the Belmar manor and watching Dwayne take his rightful place at the table. The girls fighting in the hospital bathroom. Dante's hands around my throat. Dwayne's hands on my body.
The fear. The pleasure. The guilt. The shame. The defiance.
Everything was tangled together now, impossible to separate. I couldn't tell where one emotion ended and another began.
But one question lingered in my mind, persistent and impossible to ignore, growing louder with each passing second:
Do I really want to divorce Dante?
I'd said it so confidently, so boldly. I'd thrown the words at him like weapons, watched them hit their mark. But now, sitting alone in the oppressive silence of Aunt Patricia's house, I wasn't sure anymore.
I'd loved him once. God, I'd loved him so much it physically hurt. He'd been my first everything—first boyfriend, first kiss, first lover, first husband.
He'd made me feel special when no one else ever had. For one beautiful year, he'd made me believe I was worthy of love.
Was that enough to stay? Was that enough to forgive five years of cheating, abuse, and infections?
Or was I just afraid of being alone? Afraid of losing the Belmar name, the financial security, the only identity I'd had for the past five years?
I didn't know. God help me, I didn't know.
All I knew was that my body still ached from Dwayne's touch, my throat still hurt from Dante's grip, and my heart was so tired of breaking over and over again.
But, how do I even come into terms that I still actually love Dante?
Do I really want to divorce Dante?
The question echoed in the silence, unanswered.