Page 107 of The Wrong Man

“I don’t know anything!”

“You know about me, your family. And the world now knows about you.” Declan’s voice is cold. “You know about the tiara. You know the Italians want me dead. So no, brother, I am not just letting you walk away.”

We are outside now, heading toward a battered van with the words ‘Croydon Plumbing’ painted on the side. The industrial estate is silent. No neighbors poking their heads out, no witnesses to what is happening. Of course not. This is why Dante chose this location.

“What about Dante?” I ask, because I can’t help it. Because even now, even being dragged away against my will, he is all I can think about.

Declan snorts. “What about him?”

“He will come looking for me,” I say, even though I don’t know if it’s true.

“Let him.” There is something dark in Declan’s voice, something almost eager. “Maybe I will finally get a chance to deal with the Ajello assholes who have been making my life hell for weeks.”

We reach the van.

“Get in,” Declan orders.

The men shove me into the back. One of them climbs in beside me while the other two take the front. Declan slides in on my other side, trapping me between them.

The van pulls away, and I watch Dante’s building disappear through the rear window. My chest aches with something that might be loss.

The last time I was near him, he was walking out the door to go do whatever it is he does when he’s not babysitting me or murdering someone in his torture chamber. He didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t check on me first. And now I am being taken away, and he will come back to an empty flat, and he will probably think I ran.

Maybe he won’t care at all. Maybe he will be relieved to have the problem solved for him. No more complicated feelings. No more broken captive having panic attacks in his bathroom. No more loose ends. No more Dylan.

The thought hurts more than I ever would have imagined. A sharp, visceral pain tearing at my insides.

“Stop sniveling,” Declan says beside me. “It’s pathetic.”

I wasn’t aware I was making any sound, but I touch my face and my fingers come away wet. I’m crying. Of course I am. Because I am weak and broken and everything Declan has always said I am.

The van winds through streets I don’t recognize. London blurs past the windows, gray and indifferent, millions of people going about their lives while I am being taken to God knows where by my own brother.

Declan is on his phone now, speaking in low tones to someone about security and arrangements and making sure “the package” is secure. The package. That is what I am to him. Not his brother, not family, just a problem to be managed.

I think about Dante. About this morning, before everything went wrong. Waking up in his arms after the most incredible night of my life. The way he looked at me, soft and unguarded in a way I had never seen before. The breakfast we shared, awkward yet somehow still strangely tender.

The way I told him I didn’t regret sleeping with him, but it wasn’t going to happen again. The quiet devastation in his eyes that he tried to hide.

And then the shower. The cold water. The way my mind shattered into a thousand pieces and sent me back to that torture chamber, back to the worst moments of my life.

Dante didn’t know what to do. I saw it in his face. The helplessness, the guilt.

He left towels and a blanket and walked away because he thought his presence would make things worse.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I needed space. But right now, all I can think about is that the last time I saw him, he was walking out the door without a word, knowing he had broken me, and that I had stated our one night together was nothing more than sex.

And now I might never get the chance to tell him what he means to me.

I love him. The thought crystallizes in my mind with perfect, devastating clarity. I love Dante, torturer, monster, the man who bought me cookbooks and watched me bake and kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the whole wide world.

And now I might never see him again.

The car turns down a narrow street and pulls up in front of a house that looks expensive and tasteless in equal measure. New money trying too hard to look like old money. Exactly Declan’s style.

“Home sweet home,” my brother says with a smirk. “Don’t worry, brother. I’m sure you will be very comfortable here.”

The men drag me out of the van and up the front steps. The door opens before we reach it, revealing more hired muscle waiting inside.