Dante DeCervo's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The napkin with the address still sat on the table when Dante's phone lit up. A text from Ozzy. "She's coming to me first. Meet me. Now." Dante closed the sleek black computer, its fiery accents fading dark. The safe haven was two weeks and one angry mother away. Nightmare Parade rose behind them, taller than the room, red pentagrams burning in its skull. Ozzy waited in the storefront. Bare walls. Dust on the floor. He gripped a strange walking stick, dark wood with a gold-jeweled handle. A landlord's junk, left behind. He turned it over in his hands like something to hold onto. "She called my captain," Ozzy said. He didn't look up. "Said I've been using my badge to hide you. If she pushes, I lose the job. I lose the favor that holds this place." Dante's ears flattened. "So we lie. Tell her you cut me off." "That's the plan." Ozzy finally met their eyes. "I tell her I was wrong. I beg. She forgives me because I'm the good son." His grip tightened on the cane. "You disappear. I keep the job. The storefront stays yours." "You keep the mask," Nightmare Parade said. Its voice landed flat. "Forever." Ozzy couldn't hear the Stand. But Dante did. And Dante saw the truth in his brother's face. He would spend his whole life pretending, so Dante could stop pretending. "No," Dante said. "There's another way." They took out their phone. They pulled up the recording of last night's stream, the donation feed, the counter climbing to eleven hundred dollars. Proof the money was theirs. Earned. Not stolen with a badge. "Send Mom this," Dante said. "Tell your captain the same. You didn't fund my escape. Strangers did. You only pointed at an empty building nobody wanted. That's not a crime." Ozzy stared at the screen. His shoulders dropped. "She'll still hate you." "She already does." Dante almost smiled. "But she can't touch your job. And she can't touch this place." Ozzy made the calls right there. Dante heard their mother's voice bark through the phone, sharp and cold. Ozzy stood straight. He gave her the facts and nothing else. No begging. No apology. When he hung up, his hand was shaking, but he set the cane down gently against the wall. "Captain's satisfied," he said. "No misuse. No case." He let out a slow breath. "She's done screaming. For now." The threat was gone. The storefront was safe. Ozzy's job was safe. But Ozzy looked at Dante differently now. Like a door had cracked open. "You made me stop lying to her," he said quietly. "Just once. It felt like breathing." Dante's chest tightened. Two weeks to build the haven. And now a brother who had tasted the truth and might want more of it.