The Reaper (Dark Verse 2)

It was the sound of low voices that penetrated her consciousness.

Blinking her eyes open, Morana looked up at the familiar ceiling of the cottage living room, and tried to sit up, her head hurting. A glass of water appeared in front of her and she took it, gulping down the cool liquid down her parched throat, looking up to see Tristan staring at her solemnly. Her eyes moved to the other occupant in the room, Dante, who watched her just as solemnly.

Suddenly, everything came rushing back to her. Taking in a big lungful of air, her chest suddenly tight, Morana looked at the both of them, blinking her tears away.

“Are they all dead?” she croaked out, putting the glass on the table in front of her.

Both men, to her relief, nodded their heads. Dante elaborated, “There’s going to be a shitstorm.”

Morana focused on her breathing, so much colliding and collapsing inside her she didn’t know how to think about any of it. Things were freezing. Her blood was cooling. Ice was slowly slithering into her veins. Nodding once, she stood up, needing space, needing distance, to bury it all.

“I need a shower.”

Without waiting for their response, she calmly walked out of the room and up the stairs, going to the bathroom and locking the door. She gripped the granite counter with her paling knuckles, leaning on her arms, looking up into the mirror to see her reflection staring back at her.

Who was she?

Who the fuck was she?

She didn’t have a mother. Her real mother had brutally died with her sister in her womb. Her father hadn’t told her her name in the few minutes they’d spent together. Her father, who had been on a quest for revenge for two decades, had watched her for years and felt proud of her. And the man she had loved all her life as her father, the man whose approval she had longed for, had been an evil monster who had destroyed so many lives. She had killed him.

Her biceps started to shake, her reflection blurring as her breaths became harder to take.

A knock sounded on the door behind her.

Morana opened her mouth to reply but no sound came out. She stared, wide-eyed, at her own reflection, trying to call out but her throat closed up, a ball lodging itself there, suffocating her.

“Morana, open the door,” whiskey-and-sin came from the other side. How could she face him? How could she when her father had destroyed his life and taken his sister away, sending him spiraling into the dark? What if she looked into his eyes and saw real hatred for herself? She couldn’t take it. Fuck, she couldn’t see him. But she wanted to turn around and twist the knob open. She needed to. She couldn’t move.

The knocks became more insistent. “Morana, open the fucking door!”

She really, really wanted to. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and have him tell her that he didn’t hate her. But how could she face him?

“I swear to god if you don’t open this damn door right now…”

Ungluing her fingers from the counter, she managed to turn around and found her knees locking together. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, her lips parting to take in much-needed air. She couldn’t breathe.

She heard a loud thump, then another before the door crashed open and his furious form stood there.

“Jesus-” he took one look at her and swooped in, picking her up in his arms and carrying her to the shower, turning all the faucets on and sitting down on the bench with her in his embrace.

The cold water jarred her system, jerking her body. Morana buried her face in his neck, finding that spot right at the juncture of his shoulder, and tried to gulp in some air.

His arms tightened around her and he kept her close. “It’s okay. It’s just a panic attack. It’ll pass. Just focus on my voice and breathe with me, Morana.”

She did. She focused on his voice, on the whiskey that got her drunk and the sin that made her feel alive. She breathed with him, feeling the slow expansion and deflation of his chest and matched hers to him.

Her mouth trembled. “It should’ve been me.”

“What do you mean?” he asked softly, getting entirely wet with her.

“Your sister was with me. She should have been here. The real Morana was supposed to be here. I wasn’t. I don’t even know who I am.”

A hand fisted in her wet hair and pulled her head back firmly, another wrapping around her throat, demanding her attention.

Morana closed her eyes.

“Look at me,” he ordered, squeezing her neck once.

She didn’t want to. She was scared of looking at him, didn’t he know that.

The grip on her neck tightened, and she opened her eyes, staring at his throat.

“Eyes,” the demand found its way through the fog.

Slowly, heart thundering in her chest, Morana looked at him.

And found those beautiful, magnificent blue eyes looking at her with anything but hate.

“You are exactly where you were supposed to be,” he told her, his voice leaving no room for doubts. “I know exactly who you are.”

“Who am I?”

“Mine.”

Morana felt her chin quiver, her eyes burning.

“You might have been born with another name but you are Morana. My Morana. You’re the girl I killed for and you’re the woman I’d die for. You are mine and you are exactly where you’re supposed to be. Don’t ever question that again, do you understand?”

Morana did, she understood his words, but her foundations had crumbled, her entire life shaken, her future a blank. In that moment, sitting in the cold shower with him fully-dressed, looking into his blue eyes, there was only one thing that mattered.

“Don’t hate me again.”

His hand flexed on her throat. “Do you know why I enjoy holding you like this?”

She shook her head.

“I can feel your life under my hand,” he stated, his eyes burning on hers, his fingers locking her life to him. “Your body, your life, your heart – they’re all mine now. Trust me to keep all of them safe.”

And Morana collapsed into his chest and broke down for everything they had lost, both of them holding on to the one thing they had found.

“I want things to be clear going forward,” Dante elucidated, looking around at each of the men and few women in the room, his gaze dark. “I will be taking over all businesses starting next week and I want you to come forward and report directly to me about everything you were keeping under the rugs for my father. That’s not how things are going to work now and if you have a problem with that, there’s the door. Get the fuck out.”

Dante had changed. She didn’t know what had happened or what he’d seen in the envelope, but the man with the easy smiles was heading towards an explosion she didn’t think he was aware of.

Morana watched him across the table in the mansion, sitting there not in the capacity of his friend but as the surviving Vitalio heir in the West. The rest of the Outfit men gathered around the room, both in shock of Lorenzo’s death and Dante’s return from the afterlife.

Tristan sat just as gravely beside him, his sharp eyes not missing a reaction from anyone’s faces. Nobody moved out. Dante nodded. “Good. Let’s mourn my father this week. Thank you for coming.”

People slowly shuffled out of the room, not muttering, not discussing anything. Morana watched as Leo Mancini, Maroni’s younger brother, gave a bitter look to Dante before walking out.

“He’s going to be a problem,” Morana commented once everyone had left.

Dante got up from the chair and walked to stand at the window, looking at the people outside. While Dante was back to being dressed perfectly, he hadn’t shaved completely since he’d come back, and the scruff suited him. His profile looked severe, harsh, and a little intimidating, if Morana was being honest.

“I know,” he said, his eyes outside. “Leo has always been hungry for power and wanted to step out of my father’s shadow. I’ll take care of him.”

She didn’t doubt that.

Morana looked at Tristan, to see him watching Dante with a slight frown.

“So, what’s the plan?” Morana asked with extra enthusiasm, trying to lift the energy in the room a bit.

“Do you want to run a mafia family?”

Morana blinked at the question. “Um, no. Not particularly.”

Dante finally smirked, turning to look at her, leaning against the window. “Are you two getting married?”

Wait what?

Morana looked at Tristan with wide-eyes, not knowing how to answer that question. Tristan shook his head. “Not until we find Luna.”

Dante nodded, his gaze pensive. “You know, there’s a reason why the Alliance flourished so long under those three. My father and Gabriel handled the business, and your father handled the information.”

“I can handle the business in Shadow Port,” Tristan’s voice came from where he was seated. Dante chimed in. “And I can handle the business in Tenebrae.”

Morana nodded, catching on. “And I can handle the information.”

Dante walked to his father’s, now his, desk and brought out a crystal-cut bottle of vintage scotch, pouring it into three glasses, handing them both one.

“To the Alliance,” he raised the toast.

“To finding the missing girls,” Tristan matched.

“To the future,” Morana clinked glasses, looking both men in the eyes.

They were her family now.

And they had a long road ahead of them.