Chapter 3 Chapter 3 – Packing for Purgatory

Mya

Dante doesn’t follow me out of the office right away. He lets me open the door and walk back into the warehouse like I have a choice, and then comes behind me, the heat of him brushing my back without touching.

My father is still on his knees, shoulders shaking. Nico has a hand clamped on his arm, not rough, just immovable.

“Get up,” Dante says, sounding bored, and Nico hauls Dad to his feet like he weighs nothing.

“Your daughter will take you home,” Dante tells him. Then his eyes slide to me, and for a second the room shrinks down to the glacier blue of his stare. “Pack your things tonight. You won’t need much . I’ll take you shopping for a proper wardrobe soon.”

I don’t dignify that with a reaction. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

Dante grins like he can read the scream I’m swallowing anyway.

“My driver will pick you up at nine tomorrow morning. Don’t eat. We’ll have breakfast together once you’re home.”

My stomach turns at his choice of words. “Send me the address, I’ll drive myself. And I’ll see you at eleven.”

His smile doesn’t change, but his eyes cut to my father. One slow pass, up and down, before returning to me. Nothing in the world could be more obvious and my throat closes.

“Fine,” I say flatly. “Nine.”

He nods once, like a teacher dismissing a student who’s finally learned her lesson, then turns to his men. “Let them go.”

We’re outside before I manage to take a deep, proper breath. The night air smells like wet asphalt and garbage, and Dad’s sobbing again before we even make it to the car.

He keeps it up the whole drive. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I never wanted you to be dragged into this.”

“Stop,” I snap. My hands choke the steering wheel.

The silence that follows is worse. He gulps air like a man drowning, then folds in on himself in the passenger seat.

I regret my outburst instantly, the sharpness of my voice cutting deeper than I meant, but I can’t apologize. Not with the clock ticking toward tomorrow morning and my brain fraying at the edges. There isn’t time for hysterics.

“How long?” I ask instead, staring through the windshield. “How long have you been working for them?”

Dad presses his sleeve to his eyes. “Fourteen years.”

I almost swerve into the guardrail. “Fourteen years?”

He nods, staring at his knees. “They approached the firm after your mother died. I… it was good money and I wasn’t directly involved in their operation. I thought it would be easy to leave, but once you’re in, you’re in.”

Fourteen years. Almost my entire childhood. School plays, birthdays, graduation dinners. He was smiling at me across the table with blood money in his pocket.

“Why?” My voice is paper-thin. “Why steal on top of it? You said they paid you well.”

He fidgets, picking at his cuticles like he can peel the guilt away. “I didn’t take all of it.”

The brakes shriek as I slam us to a stop on the side of the road. My seatbelt locks across my chest. “What do you mean you didn’t take all of it?”

“I only skimmed enough to cover your tuition. Just enough so you could focus on your studies in comfort and not be burdened with student loans after. The shell companies were already in place. I just piggybacked on them.”

I stare at him. “Why didn’t you tell him that?”

Dad shakes his head, looking broken. “Because it wouldn’t matter. He’d just kill whoever else touched the money too. Another man’s blood doesn’t get me off the hook. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.”

My pulse bangs in my ears. Part of me wants to cling to that tiny loophole, to shove it under Dante’s nose and scream that my father isn’t the only thief. But the thought collapses as quickly as it forms.

Dante doesn’t care if it was six dollars or sixteen million. Theft is theft. Disrespect is disrespect. I’ve known him for all of an hour and I know my father’s right. He’d simply kill everyone involved.

Knowing my father did it to make my life easier burns and comforts at once. It wasn’t greed, but I feel sick with guilt, furious at him for putting us in this position, furious with myself for benefiting, even without knowing.

The rest of the drive is a graveyard.

At home, the house feels wrong, like I already don’t belong here anymore.

I drag a suitcase out of the closet and toss clothes into it without thinking. Jeans. T-shirts. A dress I’ll never wear again. The zipper on my toiletry bag sticks, and I almost cry at that stupid little thing, but I don’t. I can’t.

Dad hovers in the doorway, hands twitching, muttering apologies like beads on a rosary.

Inside my skull, chaos screams. What will it be like? Will I sleep in some cavernous bed waiting for him to come and take what he wants? Will I have a place at his table, or will I be hidden away like a pet no one is allowed to see?

Maybe he’ll dress me in diamonds and silk and parade me on his arm while reminding me I’m his property. Maybe he’ll keep me locked in a room and I’ll only see his face when he’s bored or hard. Every picture my imagination paints is worse than the last.

The thought of pregnancy twists my stomach into knots. Carrying his child, becoming bound to him in blood and biology, is the darkest trap of all. I don’t even know if I want children. And the way he spoke of it, like it was a quota, a deadline… God. I sit on the floor for a minute, head between my knees, trying not to vomit.

I get up, grab the packet of tampons from the bathroom, and slip my birth control into the middle of it. Hopefully, if they search my things, they won’t think to look there. It’s a pathetic shield, but it’s all I have.

I don’t bother going to bed, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep. My mind keeps looping through Dante’s words. Whenever, wherever. I picture his hand on my throat, his body pinning mine down, his eyes cold and certain while I break beneath him.

Then I picture him pouring me a glass of wine at a long table and asking about my day like we’re some normal couple. The second image frightens me more. Violence I expect. Pretend intimacy feels like poison in honey.

I sit at the dining room table and watch the hours bleed away. By dawn, my eyes burn with sleeplessness. My small suitcase sits by the door, looking pathetic.

At nine on the dot, a black car pulls up in front of the house. The driver gets out and jogs to the front door, greeting me with a tip of his cap as he picks up my suitcase, eyes scanning the hall behind me for the rest of my luggage. “That’s it,” I inform him.

Dad pulls me into a hug, his shoulders shaking. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he says again, and this time I let him.

“Stop fretting,” I whisper against his shoulder. “I forgive you and I love you.”

Then I pull away before I break in front of him, and walk out to the car.

The door shuts behind me with a soft, final click before we pull away smoothly and drive toward the unknown.