Dangerous Melodies - Chapter 61: Chapter 61

DANTE
I lay sprawled across the bed, still in yesterday’s clothes, stiff and sour against my skin. The same ones I’d passed out in, clinging like the shame I hadn’t bothered to wash off. My shirt stuck to my chest, soaked with stale sweat and the sour stench of whiskey. Empty bottles circled the bed like forgotten landmines, sharp-edged reminders of how far I’d sunk. Last night was a blur. Just fragments of sound and firelight. Liquor. Regret. The silence was too loud to ignore.
The curtains stayed closed, sealing the room in thick, gray stillness. The kind that weighed on your shoulders. I drifted in and out of sleep, chasing nothing but the next blackout. Her memory lingered like smoke in my lungs, bitter and burning. Pressing against my ribs until every breath scraped. Marisol. Always her. Even now. Especially now.
The door slammed open without warning, tearing through the quiet like a gunshot. I groaned, flinching at the noise, my head heavy as stone as I lifted it a few inches. Felix stormed in, boots hitting the floor in punishing thuds. Each step sent shockwaves through my skull. He grabbed the curtains without a word and yanked them open. Light burst into the room. Harsh. Blinding. Unforgiving.
I winced and threw an arm over my face. “Fuck off,” I muttered, voice cracking under the weight of dehydration and regret. The whiskey still pulsed behind my eyes, each heartbeat a hammer wrapped in iron.
“Get up,” Felix snapped. No hesitation. No warmth. Just steel in his tone. “We’re going to Los Angeles. High-profile client. Urgent. They asked for you specifically.”
I groaned and rolled to my side, stuffing my face into the pillow. “You handle it,” I mumbled. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Flat. Hollow.
He didn’t move. Arms folded. That same immovable scowl stuck to his face like dried blood. “No. They want you. Get up, or I'll come back with a blow horn. And yeah, I’ll use it. Loud.”
I let out a long breath, the kind that rattled at the end. Grief pressed down like a lead blanket. Too heavy to throw off. I didn’t want to leave this wreckage. This familiar fog. Another job meant pretending to care. Another hollow task dressed up like purpose, scripted for someone else’s life. Let him handle it. Let the world spin without me. But this was Felix. He didn’t bluff.
I groaned again and swung my legs off the bed, muscles screaming in protest. The floor swayed. Or maybe that was just me. My head throbbed, deep and rhythmic, dragging the hangover closer to the surface with every breath. “Fine,” I muttered. “But you owe me.”
Felix smirked, already halfway to the door. “Collect later. One hour.” He didn’t look back as he slammed it shut. The crack of the door hit me like a slap. That smug bastard knew exactly what it would do to my head. Probably why he did it.
DANTE
As the jet leveled and the hum of altitude settled in, I exhaled hard and turned toward Felix. “So, who’s the client?” My tone snapped, clipped with old frustration. That same old weight coiled around my chest. Unwanted. Familiar. Like a habit I never really kicked.
Felix leaned back in his seat, calm as ever. “Some famous singer,” he said. “Manager’s tight-lipped. Wants it quiet until we’re out.”
I groaned, rubbing slow circles into my temples. “Great. Just what I need. Another uptight diva convinced the world turns for her.” Frustration prickled beneath my skin, hot and restless. “She’ll want it perfect. And God forbid someone breathes near her.”
Felix didn’t blink. He’d learned how to ride out my moods years ago. “This one’s different. A stalker broke into her house. Attacked her. She fought him off.”
That got my attention. I raised an eyebrow before I could stop myself. “She fought him off? Alone?”
Felix nodded. “No one else was there. Her manager’s got footage. Showed it to the staff. He’s proud of her. But it pissed her off. We’ve been told not to mention it.”
My frown deepened. I shoved my sunglasses to the top of my head and narrowed my eyes. “Weird. Why get pissed for surviving?”
Felix shrugged, unreadable as ever. “No idea. We’re there to do the job. No questions.”
I scoffed and dragged the sunglasses back down, slumping into the seat like gravity had doubled. “Sounds like a dream,” I muttered, voice flat and dry as sand.
Felix smirked. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
I grunted and looked away, trying to ignore the coil of unease tightening low in my gut. The clouds drifted past the window, soft and slow, but my thoughts wouldn’t settle. Just when the pressure in my chest began to ease, Felix’s voice cut through the quiet like a needle to the nerve.
“Oh, and one more thing. The manager requested you be her personal bodyguard.”
My head snapped toward him. Jaw clenched. Heat flared behind my eyes, fast and fierce. “You told him no, right?”
“Of course,” he said smoothly, but the pause that followed was too quiet to miss.
“Told him you don’t do that anymore.”
I breathed out slowly. My shoulders dropped an inch, maybe two. “Good,” I muttered. But his tone stuck in my head like grit under a bandage. The idea of babysitting a high-maintenance celebrity dragged up memories I’d buried deep on purpose. I’d walked away from that part of my life for a reason. No way I’m getting roped into that again.
Felix nodded, his smirk gone, replaced by something more sober. “Still, the fact they asked means they’re worried. Might be worth keeping an eye on her.”
I scoffed, but curiosity was already clawing through the walls I’d built. “Worried or not, I’m nobody’s bodyguard.”
Felix didn’t press. He knew the line had been drawn. The steady hum of the jet filled the space between us, stretching long as we cut through the sky toward Los Angeles and whatever waited for us on the other end.
Another client. Another job. Someone always needed something. There was a time I thrived on the chaos. Found purpose in the job. Hell, I even looked forward to it once. But after Marisol died, the world dimmed. Everything I touched turned hollow. I moved through it like a shadow, ghosts clinging to my heels. Guilt, memory, and the ache of what never was.
DANTE
The studio throbbed with life, music blaring through overhead speakers while lights danced to the bass line. Camera operators hovered around, adjusting lenses and capturing every frame. Production crew rushed between set pieces, eyes sharp, movements sharper. Wardrobe assistants swarmed the talent, tweaking hems and smoothing collars as urgency hummed through the air.
Felix and I stepped inside. The sound hit like a hammer to the skull, the bass tunneling straight through my hangover. I winced, jaw tight, each beat driving deeper into my brain. Lucas spotted us and swaggered over, a cocky grin already in place as he stuck out his hand.
“You must be Dante Kincade,” he said.
I gritted my teeth and took his hand, irritation scraping under my skin. “That’s right.”
The music cut. Silence dropped heavy.
I seized the opening. “So, who’s the client?”
Lucas’s grin widened. “Marisol.” One name. One bomb dropped.
My blood iced. No. It couldn’t be. That name punched clean through my ribs. Not many people were named Marisol. Not like her. I looked at Felix. He was frozen too.
Before I could move, Lucas waved us toward the chaos. “We’re about to start filming again.”
I followed, feet moving without permission. Legs heavy. Thoughts heavier. Hope twisted with dread, sharp and nauseating. Could it really be her?
The name echoed, pounding at every wall I’d built. I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. But something in me stirred, pulled forward by the impossible.
“Playback!” the director shouted.
The music returned, louder, deeper. I barely registered the sound.
Then I saw her. And everything else vanished.
Dead center stood Marisol. Commanding. Effortless. Light shimmered across her skin, movements were fluid and unshakable. She didn’t perform. She owned.
She was alive. Radiant. Not the girl I married. This woman was forged. And she burned.
Backup dancers flanked her, every step tight and flawless, but I couldn’t look away from her. Her presence swallowed the room.
My heart slammed into my ribs. Disbelief. Rage. Something dark and buried clawed its way up.
Did she know I’d be here? Did she plan this? Just to gut me?
A memory hit like a crash: the night I shattered her. Told her she was just revenge—for a stupid karaoke humiliation. Asked for the divorce. Threw her out. Not because I stopped loving her. Because loving her back would’ve broken me.
My fists curled.
I didn’t know the truth. But she stood there. Real. Devastating.
Could she really want revenge? Had I hurt her that badly?
I searched her face, hunting for pieces of the woman I used to know. But the more I looked, the more she blurred. Her beauty wasn’t a shield. It was who she’d become. Sharper. Stronger.
She turned.
The lights caught her just right, and my breath caught.
Those eyes. Amber. Wild.
It’s her. No doubt. No escape.
I wanted to storm the set. Demand answers. Tear open everything we’d buried. But that doubt stayed rooted. Would she really do all this just to destroy me?
The truth stood inches from me. Breathing. Radiant. And still, I couldn’t trust it.
Felix’s hand touched my shoulder. Solid. Grounding. I barely felt it.
My world had narrowed to her.
The woman I’d loved. The woman I might have broken. Or the stranger who’d outgrown me.