Chapter 29: The Story Called Him the Protagonist Because He Won, Not Because He Was Right

"If you won’t tell me, then I have no business here." Freya snorted and turned around. "Felix, let’s go."

"Isn’t your business protecting me? Where are you running off to?" Dante asked with an amused look.

"We’ll do that in secret, like we’re supposed to." She replied without so much as glancing back.

Felix stood between the two of them, his head turning from one to the other, clearly unsure whose side he was meant to be on.

"Do you really think I jumped off a bridge just to mess with you?" Dante said, a chuckle slipping out.

Those words made Freya stop dead in her tracks.

She didn’t want to admit it, but he had a point. No one with a working brain would throw themselves off a bridge over a sick joke. Whatever this was, he had gone to a ridiculous length to make it happen.

"...So what’s the real reason?" Freya turned back around, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Felix looked to Dante as well, waiting for the answer.

Dante held their gazes for a moment, and the easy grin on his face slowly faded into something serious.

"Get in the car." He said, walking past them toward the door. "This isn’t the kind of thing you talk about standing in the open."

***

The three of them sat inside the car. Dante behind the wheel, Felix in the passenger seat, and Freya in the back.

Dante started the engine and pulled off the bridge without saying a word.

’Before I get into the matter, I should sort out my own thoughts first.’ He kept his eyes on the road while his mind went somewhere else entirely.

In the original plot, the first person Ryan wanted revenge on after coming back was a guy named Marcus.

Marcus Devereux.

He was the one who pushed Ryan off a cliff.

And honestly, he had a pretty damn valid reason for doing it.

Ryan, Dante, and Marcus all met in college and became close friends, but Ryan ruined that friendship by stealing Marcus’s girlfriend.

The two of them played him like an idiot for more than a year before he found out.

’Classic protagonist behaviour,’ Dante thought, his grip tightening on the wheel.

’Steal your friend’s girl, act like nothing happened, and somehow still end up as the hero of the story.’

When Marcus finally found out, he lost his mind.

First, his girlfriend mysteriously disappeared.

Then Ryan conveniently "fell" off a cliff during the college tour.

Dante shook his head internally. ’At least I’m honest about being a villain.’

"Are you going to tell us what this is about, or are we just going for a drive?" Freya’s voice cut in from the back seat.

"Patience." Dante replied without looking back.

Freya clicked her tongue but didn’t push it.

Naturally, Marcus wasn’t some random psycho who got lucky covering his tracks.

He was the sole heir of the Devereux family, the richest and most influential family in Tempest Bay and one of the most powerful in the world.

After getting rid of Ryan, Marcus heard that Ryan had a crush on Emma and immediately set his sights on her.

’Fucking bastard. If he still wanted more revenge, why didn’t he jump off the cliff with him and have a fight down there?’

’Both of them treated Dante like he was invisible. They knew he had feelings for Emma. One was parading her around the entire college like she belonged to him, and the other went after her just to return the favour. Nobody gave a shit about what Dante thought.’

After Ryan died and his body mysteriously vanished, the Devereux family and Raven Group were at each other’s throats.

Raven Group was Natasha’s organisation and the second most powerful in Tempest Bay.

At least in the eyes of the public.

As for why she didn’t take revenge? She knew firsthand how ridiculous her son’s luck was and believed he would return someday.

With her son gone, Natasha kept a much tighter watch on her students and assigned secret guards to all of them.

So when Marcus couldn’t get so much as a glance from Emma and couldn’t lay a finger on her either, he turned into... a simp.

’Did he use up all of his braincells getting rid of Ryan?’ Dante was speechless.

He couldn’t figure out how someone went from a cold-blooded killer to a braindead simp.

And when Ryan finally came back three years later, Marcus lost his marbles again and speedran the collapse of the entire Devereux family.

Dante didn’t feel a single bit of pity for Marcus.

Instead, he couldn’t wait to kill him.

Because he was the one who handed Emma to Ryan on a silver platter. He kidnapped her and fed her aphrodisiacs so he could have his way with her. Ryan knew about the whole thing and kept it from Dante.

Ryan waited for the drug to take effect before stepping in, pretended he was "forced" by Emma, and then blamed everything on her.

The original Dante used that as an excuse to bury what was left of his feelings for her.

But even after everything, Emma never once loved Ryan. He didn’t care because she was just another trophy to be collected, broken or not.

Thinking about all of it made Dante’s blood boil. His grip on the wheel tightened until his knuckles turned white.

’Marcus and Ryan, I will kill you both with my own hands!’ He vowed in his heart.

Felix and Freya flinched at the same time.

A wave of killing intent had leaked out of him without him realizing.

Their bodies tensed on instinct, but when they realized the killing intent came from Dante, shock replaced caution.

At the same time, whatever doubts they still had about this whole thing disappeared.

Dante noticed his slip, but he didn’t bother hiding it.

After collecting his thoughts, he looked at them with a cold expression.

"You know about Crimson Hollow, right?"

___________

MG’s note: bear with these slow updates for this month. I plan to go premium by this month’s end and... you can expect a better release rate and a mass release :D