Chapter 4

Dante got out of the shower and wrapped a wide towel around his waist. He shook his head and his short hair spiked everywhere. He placed his hands on the washstand and ducked his head to a side, staring distractedly at his own reflection in the mirror.

The rhythmical plick plick plick in the shower was the only sound he heard.

He nodded his head in approval, frowning thoughtfully. The two masters of his universe seemed to be still sound asleep.

Dante let go a deep sigh and blinked his eyelids, focusing on his own image reflected. He frowned again noticing the scars, and for a short moment – a very, very short moment, nothing but the ghost of a moment, nothing but – his ears, his mind, filled up with the deafening noise of shots in the dark and explosions. His nose could almost smell the gun powder and the desert sand. His eyes – for a second, just for a second – saw John Sanders Junior’s distraught face. He clenched his jaw preparing himself for the next image – Marshall DeNardo, dead, assassinated an laying on blood-stained tiles – but it didn’t come.

Dante felt grateful and let go a sigh he didn’t know he was holding.

His fingers traced carefully the tangled path of the scars covering his left side. They started from the portion of skin right above his hip, and proceeded to his burly shoulder. Both of his arms were heavily tattooed in black – circles, flames, celtic signs, angelic signs – and so was a huge part of his back, but the scars could still be seen.

Dante rarely took his shirt off in front of his friends. Cassandra, his wife, seemed to be the only one allowed to see him naked.

He knew he wasn’t disfigured. He knew that, but he would always feel ashamed to show the traces that his previous job had left on his body. Permanently.

Dante remembered how sorry Shane was for shooting him. He remembered how many times she had apologized to him, and how many tears she had cried despite his vain, almost goofy attempt to soothe her pain. Shane had kept on repeating that she had left a sign on his body, that she had hurt him badly, that what she had done couldn’t be forgiven or forgotten.