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“But... a check-up would be nice,” she muttered, a bit ashamed.
“Okay.”
He didn’t add anything after that and Eden felt a bit relieved. Her legs were an annoying topic to her. She finished checking them but she wasn’t sure she wanted to take them off.
Sleeping with her legs on was extremely uncomfortable but Eden was worried something would happen while she was sleeping and that she wouldn’t be able to put them back on in time. Would she? This was probably a very secure place but nothing could guarantee an assassin wouldn’t come for the Tiger. Maybe a fight would break out.
“...What is it?” asked Dante, having noticed she was too still.
“I... How secure is this place?”
She heard him chuckle.
“Secure enough that no one uninvited has ever made it past the first floor alive. Each floor has its own security, including this one. This apartment has been secured, so no one under the level of lieutenant can walk in. No one but you and I can walk in without the password.”
“What’s the password?” frowned Eden, remembering she hadn’t noticed any panel.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
Eden glared at him over her shoulder. Seriously? He kept ignoring her, although he was smiling as he read. Eden rolled her eyes and went back to her legs; she could probably walk out without it anyway since she had managed to do it before. Maybe he was just making that password thing up to mess with her.
Still, there was another thing bugging her about taking her legs off. If she experienced phantom pains again, there would be nothing to calm her. She had left her pills at her place. She certainly didn’t want to ask Dante but she was scared of what could happen without them.
“...What is it?”
Dante was probably wondering why she was still so hesitant. Eden shook her head and unlocked her legs, slowly taking them off. She was making a bet right now, but her phantom pains only came once in a while. Maybe she’d be lucky for tonight.
“Nothing,” she replied, putting them down alongside the bed.
The feeling of relief that came with taking her prosthetics off was incredible. It was like taking off a helmet after she’d had it on for hours. The skin on her legs could finally breathe a little, although Eden was glad to have that silk covering them. For some reason, she didn’t like people looking at her cut ends. She laid herself in bed, grabbing the cover to pull over herself, hiding them more. The temperature didn’t really call for it but that blanket was thin anyway and she couldn’t sleep without something on top. Beer and Bullet felt movement on the bed and moved closer to curl up against her. Eden wrapped one of her arms around the closest pup, glad those two were there. At least she wasn’t alone with just Dante in bed; moreover, that bed was large enough that she wasn’t stuck right next to him.
“...Good night.”
The way he said it, Eden knew he was smiling. She frowned and didn’t answer, ignoring him. She just needed to fall asleep quickly... She forced herself to not move and simply listen but there wasn’t anything to listen to. Unlike her place, this apartment didn’t have any sounds but her breathing, the pups snoring softly next to her and Dante De Luca reading somewhere on the other side of the bed. He was immobile and Eden wondered if he was simply fine reading while she fell asleep. She hadn’t expected anything else but she was surprised he kept his word in the first place...
Suddenly, the lights went dim and Eden wondered if he had used some remote or if this was scheduled. She could now see the city lights shimmering through the large windows. This view somehow helped her calm down a bit, along with Beer’s cute snoring sounds.
Eden fell asleep after a long while.
Dante heard her breathing slow down and her shoulder was now moving very slowly. He put down the report he was reading, staring at her silhouette perfectly cut by the lighting. She was skinny with barely any curves. Her sun-kissed skin had little scars here and there, faint memories of her life in the streets.
He had read all the reports his men had gathered on her, yet something still bothered him every time he looked at her. He just couldn’t pinpoint what and that was even more annoying. Rolf too had been questioning his strange obsession with her. It was going beyond the fact that he believed her to be Ghost. Dante was never so nice as to let someone talk back to him like that. Some of his men had taken a bullet for a lot less than that; it didn’t matter that she was a woman. Eden didn’t even belong to his clan. She was a stranger, a rogue pawn that couldn’t be controlled so simply. Yet, his desire for control was getting extremely hard to hold back. She was just pushing each limit she could, constantly answering back, smart and quick-witted. Why was he letting her set her own limits like that? Dante hated what he couldn’t control, but he didn’t hate Eden. Instead, he felt like he was playing a new game, too focused and amused to be annoyed by it.
There was no game going on, though.
His fingers gently grabbed a strand of her blonde hair lying on the mattress. He played with it between his fingers, wondering if that’d wake her up. It looked like it wouldn’t; Eden didn’t even react. What was that whole thing about her not being able to sleep with someone in the room? Another lie to try and keep him at bay?
He kept stroking her hair and staring at her sleeping figure. He didn’t like being in the dark about anything and he was almost blind when it came to Eden. Still, for some reason, there was something about her that kept him strangely calm. Even his headaches were nothing but a quiet buzz whenever she was around. He had wondered if that would even happen when he couldn’t look at those hazel eyes of hers and it did. Something was happening, not in his head but in his chest…Why? How? What was it with this woman? Could he keep her by his side indefinitely? It would be hard, considering his plan. Eden was a Dive Hacker, perhaps an even more dangerous position than his. If only...
“Adam...”
He frowned.
She was mumbling in her sleep, almost crying. Adam? Was she dreaming about her brother? She began breathing louder and more erratically. A nightmare? Next to her, one of the pups opened his eyes and raised his head, half-asleep, but curious about his mistress’ disturbed sleep.
Dante hesitated but Eden was still mumbling that name over and over. It sounded almost as if she was crying. Her body started getting agitated until her hair slipped through his fingers. He frowned, unhappy and unsure.
“Adam... no... no...”
