Chapter 8 The Man Even Dante Won't Name

• I hid the photograph under the pillow. Not because I thought it would protect me, but because I didn’t know what else to do with it. I slept badly. I dreamed of footsteps. Of invisible eyes. Of wolves staring at me from the edge of the bed, with a predator’s patience. In the dream, my name echoed in whispers, as if someone were memorizing it to use it against me.
• The next morning, Dante returned.
• He didn’t say hello. Didn’t ask how I was. He just walked into the mansion with that measured step, his dark suit, and that scent of contained storm that seemed to follow him everywhere. His silence was the same as always: dense, calculated, premeditated. But that morning, there was something else. A trace of concern beneath the mask.