They were oil paintings of vistas and abstract art – a familiar sunset over the Tenebrae hills, a river curving through the city, a leaf fallen on the grass, and disturbing shapes. His mother had been skilled, the shading and finish of her work incredible. She could see where Dante got his artistic bone.
Amara was about to continue when one painting caught her eye.
She stepped closer to it. It was plain except two shadows – one crouching to the floor, connected to the other looming over her. It was disturbing in its plainness, but that wasn’t why Amara had stopped in her tracks. Back at university, one of her optional subjects had been the psychology of art and visual medium. She had spent a year studying it, enjoying it, analyzing different works by creators from over the world. It was that understanding of the psyche of the creator that had her pausing, considering all the paintings in the corridor in a new light.
Heart pounding, she ran back to the bedroom, going to Dante’s side.
“Dante,” she shook him awake, her urgency to know the answers fueling her blood. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened, bleary, then took in her face. He shot up on the bed, alert, his hand going to the gun at the bedside table by instinct. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
Amara shook her head, taking a deep breath. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. Relax.”
She saw his hand come to her braid, wrapping it around his fist. “What has you waking me up at this hour then, my lady?” he asked, flirting.
Amara smiled, but her mind was still on the paintings outside. “I need to ask you something about your mother.”
He frowned but leaned back against the pillows. “Sure.”
“According to Alpha, she was an art student who was kidnapped by Lorenzo Maroni and brought here, right?”
Dante nodded in confirmation, his eyes narrowing at her question.
“And she used to paint with you and your brother?”
“Yes, but where is this going?” Dante asked, his voice thick from sleep.
Amara swallowed. “And you found her with Damien in the room with her wrists slit?”
His jaw clenched but he nodded.
“Does Damien remember anything from that time?”
The braid left his fist. “I don’t know. He was too young at the time. If he did remember anything, he never told me, and I asked.”
“Just answer one last question,” Amara beseeched him, taking a hold of his big, rough hand in both of hers, her eyes earnest on his. “Do you have more paintings by her?”
He shook his head. “My father pretty much threw most of them out in his rage. The ones outside are the only ones I could save. What’s all this, Amara?”
Amara bit her lip, not knowing how to tell him what she had learned. She inhaled, taking in the musky scent of his warm skin. “Your mother felt hunted, Dante,” she whispered quietly in the space between them.
“How can you say that?” his voice came out hoarse.
“The paintings,” Amara looked into his dark, chocolate eyes. “I studied them in school. Seeing them all together, it’s all wrong. Was her death odd? Especially that she would kill herself with her child in the room?”
Dante’s grip tightened on her hand.
“Could it be that she didn’t slit her own wrists, Dante?” Amara felt her lips tremble. “Or if she did, something drove her to it? Could it be that she was murdered?”
They had no answers, even as more questions were born.
He called Damien.
After the suspicion Amara had shared with him, Dante hadn’t been able to let it go. He tried to remember his mother, her sad eyes, her wide smile, her love for him and his brother. The more he remembered, the more he realized she never would have killed herself with one of them in the room. For years, he’d hated his mother slightly for abandoning them both, and now, standing with the phone to his ear, he was nothing but rage.
It wasn’t his father. Dante knew that. For one, if his father had to kill her, he never would have married her. Once she became the wife of Bloodhound Maroni, she became untouchable. Her death had been a blow to his pride, and there had been nothing his father loved more than his ego. He had been angry, very angry, that she had thrown that insult at him, her suicide like a slap to his face.
The call connected and his brother’s voice, one he hadn’t heard in weeks, came on. “Dante!”
He could tell his brother was smiling. “How are you, Damien?”
“Good, good,” Damien said, and Dante could imagine him nodding his head. He liked doing that. Nodding, shaking out his hands, tapping his feet. Dante had learned his brother’s habits as a child, loving him as he was.
“How is Alia?” Dante asked, referring to the woman in his brother’s life. They had met through a mutual friend. She was an interior designer, and from what Dante could tell, a sweet girl good for his brother.
“Good,” Damien’s masculine voice said over the phone. “We started a dance class together.”
Dante smiled, imagining his tall brother and the tiny woman dancing, both uncoordinated as fuck. “How’s that working out?”
“It’s not,” his brother chuckled. “But we have fun.”
Dante was glad. “I’m getting married soon, by the way.”
“To Green Eye Girl?” Damien asked. Even though he knew Amara by name, Damien had fallen in love with her eyes, so much so that he had spent a month obsessed with researching green eyes and that particular shade of green.
“Yes,” Dante confirmed. “Do you want to come for the wedding?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“I want to,” Damien sighed. “But it’s better nobody know about me. I like my life here.”
Dante hoped one day his brother would give another answer, but he respected his wishes. Given the chance, wouldn’t he have chosen to stay out of this shithole himself?
“No worries,” he said easily, knowing Damien got upset if he felt like he’d hurt Dante. “I actually called to talk to you about mom. Is it okay if I talk about her?”
He heard Damien’s breathing pick up, and he waited.
“Yes, okay,” his brother said. “I talked about her in therapy a lot back in Morning Star.”
“You remember her?” Dante asked, surprised.
“A bit.” The sound of something tapping came over the line – pencil on wood. His brother was tapping a pencil on wood. Not good.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dante reassured him. “We don’t have to talk about her.”
“No, I should tell you,” his brother said. “Dr. Sanders tells me I should tell you. It will help me. We were talking about these dreams I’ve been having forever but they’re the bad kind. The good are mostly sex dreams or dreams where I build things you know, but that’s not what the doctor told me to tell you.”
Dante felt his heart begin to pound. “What did he say to tell me?”
“Dreams about mom,” Damien spoke, the tapping of the pencil on wood constant in the background. “I don’t have any memory of her but I always see this dream of this man holding me and mom crying and cutting herself and so much blood, and I wake up feeling really scared. Dr. Sanders said it could be trauma from what happened to her and I should talk to you about it, because in the dream sometimes you pick me up and get me out. You’re my hero.”