diff --git a/bento/__init__.py b/bento/__init__.py
index e3baf20..7e27caa 100644
--- a/bento/__init__.py
+++ b/bento/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from ._version import __version__
+__version__ = "2.1.4.post2"
 
 from . import _utils as ut
 from . import geometry as geo
@@ -7,4 +7,4 @@
 from . import datasets as ds
 from . import io
 from .plotting import _colors as colors
-from ._constants import CosMx, Merscope, Xenium
\ No newline at end of file
+from ._constants import CosMx, Merscope, Xenium
diff --git a/bento/_version.py b/bento/_version.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 980735c..0000000
--- a/bento/_version.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,15 +0,0 @@
-import tomli
-
-def get_version():
-    import os
-    import pathlib
-    
-    package_dir = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent
-    pyproject_path = os.path.join(package_dir, "pyproject.toml")
-    
-    with open(pyproject_path, "rb") as f:
-        pyproject = tomli.load(f)
-    return pyproject["project"]["version"]
-
-__version__ = get_version()
-
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 1bf2fef..ac1a3d0 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 name = "bento-tools"
 description = "A toolkit for subcellular analysis of spatial transcriptomics data"
 authors = [{ name = "ckmah", email = "clarence.k.mah@gmail.com" }]
+dynamic = ["version"]
 dependencies = [
     "adjusttext>=1.1.1",
     "astropy>=6.0.1",
@@ -30,7 +31,6 @@ dependencies = [
 license = "BSD-2-Clause"
 readme = "README.md"
 requires-python = ">= 3.10"
-version = "2.1.4.post1"
 
 
 [project.optional-dependencies]
@@ -76,4 +76,4 @@ include = ["bento"]
 packages = ["bento"]
 
 [tool.hatch.version]
-path = "bento/_version.py"
+path = "bento/__init__.py"