𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

13|| Cut It Off

Dante / January 25
•••

She'd grown up in the same small village as the people who'd invented the poison that killed my father and Vittoria lived in.

I didn't believe in coincidences, not after all the clear indications of fate fucking with my lifeline, so this wasn't a coincident either.

She'd left France seven years ago, around the same time when the mansion of that family caught fire which killed the two adults present in the house. After which she'd ran to the nearest city, Bordeaux, where Lester had found her.

There were still some missing pieces and since Celeste isn't much of a talker it might take a while before everything falls together.

I didn't know that Tobias Dupont's father was the director of some small orphanage since the guy had wiped all traces of his past from the face of the earth.

He'd arrived in my city with his wife in a private jet a few weeks ago. They're staying in one of Chicago's most expensive hotels and it certainly shouldn't be affordable for the son of an ordinary orphanage director.

Something was up with Tobias Dupont, and not just because he was working for Lester or getting money out of thin air or trying to recreate a deadly poison recipe.

And I think a certain girl in my cellar might have the answers I need.

•••

"Morning, Costelle."

She slowly lifts her head, grey eyes glazed over with hatred.

I eye the chains that had kept her arms up all night and day. "Your arms doing okay?"

"Fuck. You."

"Manners, bambina." I walk towards her with a bowl of oatmeal in hand. "Or you won't get to eat."

She looks me up and down, almost in disgust. "Then I guess I'll fucking starve."

She's trying to provoke me by cursing again, but I really hadn't expected any less from her. So instead of commenting on it, I send her a slight smirk, a gesture that seems to surprise her.

"What about this then?" I take the cigarette box and lighter out of my pocket and her gaze instantly zeros in on the objects in my hand.

I set the oatmeal aside and without another word, I place a cigarette between her lips and light the end of it.

I stand there watching how she eagerly breathes in the smoke like it's her life support. Her eyes are fixed on the ground, her head slightly tipped forward because of how tired she is from hanging straight for hours.

She finishes the cigarette, but the butt stays between her lips even after nothing of it is left. It takes her exactly one minute before her eyes slowly move to mine, a pleading look in the irises that once managed to send a rare chill down my spine.

I take another cigarette out of the box and she eyes me intently as I close our distance.

"Just like that?" she asks warily.

The question caused the burned out cigarette to fall to her feet and I replace it with a new one before lighting it, the flame's light warms up her cold face. "Just like that," I say. "We're all friends here, right?"

That statement causes the confused look on her face to change into a guarded one. But she doesn't say anything until the second cigarette is all smoked up.

"I don't do friends," she says, breathing out the last bit of smoke. "And even if I did, you would be nowhere near the list of partakers."

"No?" I close our distance until I'm directly in front of her, staring down at her bruised face. "What about Lester, hm? Would he be on the list of partakers?"