Chapter 6 The Refusal

Sienna knocked once on the glass door before entering, though she knew he wouldn’t answer.

“Morning,” she said quietly, setting her clipboard down. “It’s time for therapy.”

Dante didn’t move. He sat by the window, motionless, the curtains drawn so tight that the room looked more like a cave than a bedroom. Only a thin blade of light cut across the floor, glinting off the rim of his wheelchair.

“Mr. Varon?” she tried again.

He didn't respond.

She crossed the room and pulled the curtains open halfway. Sunlight spilled across the carpet, soft and warm. He turned his head away instantly, like the light itself offended him.

“Close them,” he said flatly.

“It’s morning,” she replied.

“I said close them.”

His voice had that sharp edge again, the one that told her not to push. But she was tired of being careful.

“No,” she said simply, folding her arms.

His jaw tensed. “You’re really testing your contract today.”

“Good,” she said. “Because you’ve spent an entire week testing mine.”

For a long, thick moment, there was only silence except for the faint sound of the sea beyond the windows, and the faint creak of the wheelchair as he shifted his weight.

“Fine,” he said at last, turning his chair to face the wall. “You can stand there all day if you want. I’m not doing therapy.”

“Suit yourself.”

Sienna sat down on the edge of the couch, pulled out her tablet, and began typing notes. She didn’t look at him again.

An hour passed. Then two.

The air in the room grew heavy with unspoken things like frustration, stubbornness, maybe even exhaustion. Dante didn’t speak, he didn’t eat the breakfast tray she had left earlier. He just sat there, staring at nothing, and trapped somewhere deep behind his own anger.

Sienna’s fingers itched to move and to force him to break through somehow. But she didn’t. It wasn't the right time.

You can’t help someone who’s made peace with the pain, she thought. You can only wait for the peace to crack.

So she waited.

She listened to the clock tick. She watched a thin thread of light creep across the floor and up the leg of his chair. She didn’t say another word.

By afternoon, her back ached, her patience was thinning. The silence had become its own kind of war.

Finally, Dante shifted just slightly, but enough to break the silence.

“You’re still here,” he said. His tone was quieter now. Not cruel, but out of curiosity.

“I don’t give up on patients,” she answered.

He turned his head, eyes catching the light for the first time. “That’s a dangerous habit.”

“Not as dangerous as giving up on yourself.”

His gaze sharpened a flicker of something almost human, appeared on his face and disappeared again. “You think I’ve done that?”

“I think,” she said carefully, “you’ve mistaken control for recovery.”

The silence that followed wasn’t out of anger this time. Just a thoughtful silence.

For a second, she thought he might actually respond. But instead, he wheeled himself closer to the wall and pulled the curtains shut again.

Conversation is over. She stood up quietly and left the room without glancing at him.

It was almost midnight when Sienna heard the sound.

She had been reviewing case notes at the small table near her bed when a sharp clatter echoed from down the hall. Something metal hitting the floor.

Her first thought was an accident, maybe he’d fallen again. She grabbed her robe and hurried toward his wing, her footsteps quick and quiet against the marble floor.

When she reached his door, it was half-open. Light spilled through the crack.

She hesitated for half a second, then stepped inside.

Dante was by the desk, phone pressed to his ear. His voice was low, and tight with fury.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” he hissed. “You don’t get to vanish for six months and then” He broke off, listening.

Sienna stayed by the door, unseen.

His fingers clenched around the phone. “You left me there,” he said, voice breaking for the first time. “You left me to die, and now you..”

The voice on the other end cut him off. She couldn’t hear what was said, but she saw it in the way his face changed. The way the anger drained, leaving something hollow behind.

Then the line went dead.

He stared at the screen for a heartbeat. Then he threw the phone against the wall. It shattered, pieces scattering across the floor.

Sienna stepped forward. “Dante.”

He spun, his eyes dark, chest heaving. “Don’t,” he said sharply.

“Don’t what? Pretend I didn’t just hear that?”

“Exactly,” he said.

She hesitated, then took another step. “Who was it?”

He laughed out loud. “No one who matters anymore.”

The way he said it made her stomach twist. No one who matters as if he didn’t believe anyone did.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she said quietly. “Shutting out the world, shutting me out”

“You think this is about you?”

His voice cut through the room like glass breaking.

Sienna flinched, but didn’t back away. “No,” she said. “But you hired me to help, and I can’t help you if you won’t even..”

“Help?” He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “You think that’s what this is? You think this is something that can be fixed with your charts and exercises and quiet little notes?”

“Then tell me what it is.”

He stared at her. His jaw worked like he was trying to swallow words that refused to stay down.

“It’s not your concern.”

“Then why are you so angry at me for being here?”

“Because you don’t understand!”

The shout hit her harder than she expected. The quiet villa seemed to echo with it.

Dante closed his eyes, breathing hard. His hands were shaking on the armrests of his chair. He wasn’t just angry, he was unraveling.

Sienna softened her tone. “Then help me understand.”

For a long time, he said nothing. The only sound was the distant roll of the sea outside.

Then, slowly, his hands dropped. His head bowed forward, voice barely more than a whisper.

“You don’t understand,” he said again, quieter this time. “I wasn’t supposed to survive that crash.”

Sienna froze.

The words didn’t sound like self-pity. They sounded like a confession.

She took one step closer. “What do you mean?”

He looked up at her and for the first time since she’d met him, she saw real fear in his eyes.

“It wasn’t an accident,” he said.

Before she could respond, he turned the wheelchair sharply, rolling toward the balcony door. The curtains swayed, the night wind pressing faintly against the glass.

Sienna’s pulse thudded. It wasn't an accident. How? What's he talking about?

“Dante,” she said carefully. “Who tried to”

He raised a hand not to strike, but to stop her. “Don’t,” he said again, voice trembling. “Don’t ask me that.”

She stared at him, every instinct screaming to keep pressing, to demand answers. But something in his face, the absolute, naked dread there made her stop.

He exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the dark horizon beyond the glass.

“When I woke up,” he said softly, “they told me it was a miracle. But they never asked why I was on that road. Or who else was supposed to be in the car.”

Sienna’s breath caught. “Who else..”

He turned to her sharply, eyes burning. “I said don’t.”

The finality in his tone silenced her.

They stared at each other across the dim room, the wreckage of the phone between them. For a heartbeat, neither moved.

Then Dante wheeled past her without another word, brushing her sleeve as he passed. The touch was brief but electric, full of everything he wouldn’t say.

He stopped at the doorway, half in shadow. “Get some rest, Doctor,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow, we’ll pretend this never happened.”

Sienna watched him go, her pulse still racing. She wanted to call after him, to demand he finish what he’d started. But the words stuck.

When the door closed, she sank onto the couch, staring at the broken pieces of the phone glittering on the floor.

It wasn't an accident. He wasn’t supposed to survive.

The implications twisted through her mind like a storm.

If he wasn’t supposed to live. Then someone had wanted him dead.

And if that someone was still out there.

She looked toward the balcony, where the faint sound of the sea broke against the rocks below. The night suddenly felt heavier.

She wasn’t sure who was trapped anymore, Dante in his bitterness, or her in his secrets. But who wanted him gone and why keep her close to him now?