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Dante's Fire Chapter Thirty Eight: Dante
DANTEThe saccharine sweet taste of winning filled his mouth. Dante savored it along with the rosé wine his uncle popped at the after party. Perhaps, it was the wine itself. He was not sure. All he was certain of was the sweetness that was left in the walls of his mouth after he won the polls. The shock on Amir's face was palpable, adding even more sugar to his tongue. He had met the man only a few days before. There was the instant he set eyes on him, and the instant he recognized him as the Amir Bageria. In between those moments, seconds before the man opened his mouth and spewed words that solidified their rivalry, there was pure distaste.Now as he watched the guests amble across the sprawling space of Natasha's home, clinking drinks, making small talk, he thought about change. Change was a force to be feared, doing as it willed, taking and giving as it wanted. Mere weeks ago, he was at a funeral, saying last words and shoveling dirt into his father's grave. Dust to dust, they ca
Dante's Fire Chapter Thirty Nine: Dante
DANTE Pam wore a scarlet dress that hugged her figure at the upper parts of her body, cinching at her waist, and cupping the fullness of her breasts, but splaying outwards at her lower body in a mild manner, like an overturned tulip. It was a fiery dress on a fiery woman and it made Dante think of the finest red wine he had ever had: syrah, with a lasting aftertaste that did not allow you forget it easily. She was beautiful. Every time, she was beautiful. He was sure she would leave one hell of an aftertaste; it made him cautious.'Where is Natasha?'She shrugged. 'Making toasts in honour of a certain someone. Do you know where I can find this someone?' 'I have no idea. I am just trying to savor this wine.' He raised the bottle to show her and it brought a smirk to her lips.'Rose wine? Hampton Waters? I never took you for a light drinker.'He cocked his head at her. 'Oh,' he said, 'And why is that?''Because,' She intoned, as she made her descent down the stairs. The word was stretc
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty: Andre
ANDREAfter having survived an attempt on his life, especially an attempt that was almost successful, another man might have returned to his apartment the same day he got out of the hospital. Another man would probably have had a family waiting for him at the door of his home with Welcome signs and balloons and confetti, and warm hugs to assuage his surprise—whether his surprise was genuine or not. Another man might have taken a detour to the church before getting home, some alone time with his God. Call it gratitude, call it reconciliation with the almighty, call it whatever.'Another man' would have been better man than Andre.But Andre Diaz, he had no family to welcome him home. Just a frigid, half empty apartment in dire need of heating. He for sodding sure had no gods, just a staunch belief in heavily loaded guns and healthy wads of crisp money. And since he was not any of those things another man would have been—a father, or sibling or an uncle: a man who knew fear, who had some
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty One: Andre
ANDRE After Molly, he had tried to lose himself a little bit. Sex helped. The randomness of the sex helped even more. He had sworn off drugs after he saw what they did to some crack heads in the city, so there was no help from there at all. Not coke, not heroin. Only the occasional weed to mellow his rioting emotions now and again, to help him forget. Alcohol had been his biggest fall back on, the most reliable too. It was cheap, easy to reach for, easy to get accustomed to, easy to slip into like a forgotten layer of skin. But he made sure to never got too accustomed to the blessed forgetfulness of it, and he never got too used to the new skin it lent him. He saw what it did to his father. Andre was no saint, but he would not become what the man became. A man that could not distinguish between friend and foe, lashing out at everyone and everything, even his own child.'Yes,' Andre said to her. 'Me too.''I figured.' She shrugged as she began to clear away the bottles. She returned th
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Two: Andre
ANDREHe had just nicked himself over the sink with a razor, while shaving, when his phone began to ring. Blood was rushing down the side of his face, dripping down into the white bowl of the sink beneath him. He made to grab at the towel on his side and his phone nearly slipped into the pool of suds and bubbles that filled the ceramic.'Sodding hell,' Andre cursed with all his might and will power. He had slept badly the night before, his dreams filled with one-eyed girls with hair the colour of dirty straw and curious smiles. He had woken up even worse, teetering at the edge of his bed, flailing, embittered, almost falling over. Now he had nicked himself with a blade he used with precision every other day. It could not get any worse.Andre pressed the towel to his face to staunch the brisk flow and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He spat into the soapy water and watched as the red of his blood dripping down his jaw stood out sharp against the backdrop of white, whirling
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Three: Andre
ANDRE At the surprise on Andre's face, Nick laughed. 'Yes, I know. I know you brought your henchman to every meeting we have had on this rooftop. If I make a wrong move, you drop me—that was the logic, was it not? Tell me, was that why you always wanted to talk here, in this godforsaken place?'Andre had not the words. It had been Trent on the roof all those nights, all those times. The reminder was an every moment, unrelenting agony. He was finally beginning to understands why Big Jack had refused to run even after he had lost everything so fast and so violently. The man just could not. He could only fight. That was the only option this raw feeling in his chest made available.He could only fight. He would find a way to climb back to the top, not for Nick or his sodding self interest, not even for Trent. For himself. He would make quick work of Dante. It was the bosses—Natasha, Sean, Amir, Blythe —it was them who were his biggest problem. Dante was not streetborn or bred, like he w
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Four: Big Jack
BIG JACKAs a child, Jackie was a small bundle of soft. Dimpled fists and fat legs were her lot, and she had a nest of hair that remained untamed despite her mother's best efforts. You picked her in your arms and she formed a knot from her hands which she wound around your neck, her grip vice-like. She held on to things like a child who had been greatly deprived of good things in her early life, like a castaway. That was how her mother described it. She would have known better than anyone else. They both did. They were castaway children, you see. She had lived at an orphanage for a long time, perhaps most of her childhood, or at best, as long as she could remember, and if anyone could tell you the truth of it, she could: orphanages were no place for a child without any parents. It had been frightfully easy for him to connect with her and more so for them to become an item, a steady thing. Big Jack— who back then was just Jack—knew what yearning was and knew how to sustain it without
Dante's Fire Chapter Forty Five: Jackie
JACKIEIn the summer, the cemetery where her mother was buried was a place of stone and manicured grass—although there were small thickets of undergrowth here and there—a place of beloved and, sometimes, forgotten people. Now, a layer of weighty, white blankness that befitted the place's purpose and mood had covered the field.Jackie ambled through the flaky snow. Headstones made of hard, indestructible concrete grew from the soft ground, jutting from the floor like hands of stone. Hands, reaching for something, perhaps the sky. Always reaching but never touching it. A forlornness pervaded the atmosphere here even though the place was obviously tended to almost as well as some museums were, even though there were always people around, weaving between the reaching stone hands, wiping dust off them affectionately, whispering to long dead parents and nieces, weeping softly too, sometimes.The groundskeeper asked Jackie if she needed help finding someone, but she told the woman that she di
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