Page 77 of Ruthless

My stomach flutters. While nowhere near a declaration of love, his words make me wonder what a real life with Dante might look like. How would I fit into this world? Just wanting it isn’t enough.

And how can I protect my heart when he says things like that?

As I pull him down for another kiss and his tongue teases mine in an erotic dance, I can’t help but wonder where we’d be if I’d known about his mafia ties since the beginning.

The dreamer in me believes we could have avoided so much pain. My more logical side insists I wasn’t ready for this brutal reality.

Ultimately, my musings about the past are just that…musings.

Only the present matters now. And though I feel like we’re headed to a better place, I still can’t predict if our relationship will survive.

Chapter 30

Dante

The next week passes in a blur. I train with Sara once a day before dinner. Those late sessions are the only times I can relax after fruitless days spent hunting down the traitor among my ranks and trying to unravel Enzo’s cryptic clue. We achieve no progress onanyfront, so by Friday morning, I decide to switch up the pace.

I leave SilverTech early and find Sara in the clinic organizing stock. She’s clad in the standard-issue baby blue scrubs while stacking a row of gauze in the supply closet when I rap on the open office door. “Let’s go.”

Her initial bewilderment at my unexpected appearance melts into raw, unfiltered happiness, and a knot loosens in my chest. Is this how it would be? To come home to her every day, to that bright white smile and those sparkling eyes? To know that, when everything else in my life is in shambles, Sara is my rock, my constant?

I’m so swept up in the vision that I miss her question. “We’re going to work on a different kind of lesson today.” I hold out my hand, which she doesn’t hesitate to take.

After she changes into some jeans and a flowery blouse, we head to the car, and for the next forty-five minutes, I field question after question.

“Where are we going? Are you kidnapping me again, because I’m not even sure what that would be called? How many more lessons do you plan on teaching me, anyway?”

“As many as it takes.” At my solemn reply to her teasing, Sara falls quiet. I hate bursting her bubble, but I need her to remember why we’re training in the first place.

I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to her because I failed to properly prepare her for what’s coming.

We park in front of a crowded plaza on the far side of Staten Island, a part of town she wouldn’t normally have reason to visit. It’s nowhere near her subway stop, and as a bonus, ongoing construction scrim effectively obliterates any recognizable landmarks.

Not exactlySurvivor, but it’ll do for today. “We’re going to play hide-and-seek.”

Sara frowns. “Hide-and-seek? You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” I pull my pair of Persol 649s out of the center console and settle them over my eyes. “If someone is targeting you, you need to learn how to lose them.”

Ever since the siege, I stopped treating Sara like a prisoner. Funny how a near death or abduction can completely alter one’s perspective. In this case, Sara could have died or been stolen from me, and that reality finally knocked sense into my hard skull. The idea of never seeing Sara again almost ripped me in two.

At some point soon, we need to discuss the events that transpired five years ago, but even if Sara did betray me, my craving for retribution is gone. Regardless of her previous actions, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her alive and in my life.

A few days ago, I surprised her by returning her cell phone, so I text her an address and time. Her excitement over the gesture made me feel like both the best man in the world and the worst for depriving her of it in the first place. Dread and guilt constantly balloon in my chest as I continue questioning Sara’s involvement in my captivity. It seems like every passing hour leads me closer to the conclusion that I may have made a terrible mistake. I’d hoped that giving her the phone might ease some of the pressure, but unfortunately, the token gesture barely had an impact.

The ache in my chest grows as I wonder not for the first time what my life would be like now if I’d been allowed to date Sara openly. If the Council hadn’t found out about my Code-breaking and made my life a living hell. What went through Sara’s head when she thought I’d died? How did my supposed death—and the way I treated her when I found her again—affect her?

I shove those thoughts aside for now. “We’re heading there today. No matter the discipline, two core elements necessary to become a successful fighter are body awareness and the ability to think on your feet. You need to be able to improvise and leverage your strengths whenever possible. Evading detection is just as much about planning and adaptability as sparring.”

I set a timer on my phone and angle it so she can see the screen for herself. “I’ll give you a five-minute head start. Make it to our destination without being caught, and we’ll see what you’ve learned so far.”

“Okay.” Sara grabs the door handle before pausing to playfully trail her eyes over my body. “By the way, what do I get if I win?”

I answer with a flat stare. “Time starts now.”

She practically launches herself out of the car. I know she’s eager to prove herself, to please me. What she probably doesn’t realize is how her efforts fill me with a sense of pride. Watchingher adapt and transform into someone who could survive this world instills hope for that future I envisioned in the gym.

Through the rearview mirror, she disappears into a crowd waiting on a street corner for the light to change. During our lessons this week, I also instructed her on how to avoid cameras and how to become invisible. She doesn’t have enough experience to take down anyone right now, but she can outsmart them.