Alina’s POV

The silence between us wasn’t ordinary silence. It was the kind of silence that hummed with something unspoken, something fragile and burning all at once. Dante’s eyes lingered on me across the dimly lit room, unblinking, heavy with a storm I couldn’t decipher. I could still hear my own words echoing inside my skull—“forgive Barry, unite with him”—and I wasn’t sure which was louder: the courage it took to say them, or the fear of what Dante would do next.

But instead of anger, instead of the violence I had braced for, Dante just stood there, jaw tense, breath shallow. And then he moved—slow, deliberate—until he was right...