Chapter 12
Dante
Valentina’s dark locks look frazzled from wrestling a mini tornado when she answers my FaceTime request. Knowing Camille, she probably has been.
“She’s brushing her teeth.” Valentina rolls her eyes. “Again. She wants them extra shiny… like that silver pole she’s hoping you’ll install in her new bedroom.”
A groan rumbles in my chest. Camille wasn’t solely obsessed with glitter and fake diamonds in Fenicottero Rosa’s dressing room. She also noticed the pole that gives Lucia a brief escape from her life.
I wasn’t lying when I said Lucia loses herself to the pole. Negativities fall away, and the woman she could become if she were free to live her life as she wishes shines brightly.
I scratch my brow. “Or perhaps she’s excited about her new bed?”
Not the bed I see behind Valentina. Camille picked one from a catalogue for the apartment I bought and renovated in under an hour. The apartment next to Lucia’s lacks a child’s bed because it was purchased by the very men I’m trying to keep Lucia and Camille away from.
Daniele Romano couldn’t keep his paid mistress in the same building as his wife and kids, so he chose a discreet spot half a block from the brothel his wife also doesn’t know about.
For a glorified pimp, he has good taste.
The apartment is upscale and would sell for top dollar in the right part of Carlisle, but the furniture was bought with money from the prostitution ring.
The reminder immediately makes the high-end finishes appear cheap.
Although I could have let Camille pick any bed from the oversized rooms, I couldn’t stand the thought of her sleeping on a mattress once used by a man who saved a woman from trafficking only to enslave her in a poorly disguised BDSM arrangement.
The model Camille chose from a glossy catalogue arrives tomorrow. It shipped immediately per my agreement with the manufacturer, but the barge portion of the route means it won’t arrive until well after Camille’s bedtime.
I shouldn’t have promised her any bed she wanted, but that was the only way I could pull her attention from the glittery costumes at the strip club. She was instantly enamored, as was I when Lucia twirled around the pole last week.
I massage the guilt-induced headache forming behind my eyes.
I could have taken Camille home myself, but there was too much desperation in Lucia’s eyes when she scrounged for every tip during my hour-long commute to Fenicottero Rosa to push aside.
I won’t mention the shame that burned through her retinas when I covered her up after our hard and fast fuck or guilt will eat me alive.
I didn’t cover her up because I was ashamed of her.
It was to hide the hickeys I’d left on her neck.
Besides, Camille is safe at the compound. No one will touch her there, not if they want to remain breathing, and the knowledge frees me to spend the night working on Lucia’s objections.
It’s clear she cares for Camille. The hope in her eyes when I called her name would have tugged even the evilest man’s heartstrings. She’s as smitten with Camille as Camille is with her, so why is she pretending that becoming a permanent part of her life is a disservice?
I’m stolen the chance to contemplate further when a shadow appears behind Valentina. When Camille realizes who Valentina is talking to, she climbs onto her lap. Her dark hair is damp and her pajamas are crinkled, but her eyes are bright and questioning.
Since I’m too overwhelmed to sort through the mess for a suitable explanation for a four-year-old, I remember that I’m her protector and her father. “It’s time for bed, young lady. You’re already thirty minutes past schedule.”
Her bottom lip drops into a pout, but her slow crawl up the bed exposes her exhaustion.
She woke up at four, excited for her soccer tournament, and played hard.
We were on our way home after celebrating her team’s hat trick of wins with ice cream when I got a call that one of the traps I’d set to catch Lucia had paid off.
The surveillance image of “Lulu” was grainy but unmistakable. My cock hardened in an instant, and Camille almost squealed with excitement.
Hope to hear her speak again made me go in a little hard. I shouldn’t have started with a job offer, but since I didn’t know why she fled last week, it seemed the better choice.
I could never be accused of being shy, but after wasting almost five years chasing a ghost, I’m also not the most confident prick in the room.
Only Matteo is cocky enough to pull that off.
As Valentina pulls down Camille’s pink floral bedspread, my daughter’s eyes lock with mine through Valentina’s phone. She doesn’t speak—regretfully—but I hear her demands loud and clear.
Story?
Leaning back in my chair, I loosen my tie. The renovation crew left ten minutes ago, so all I hear now are my whistling breaths and the occasional hungry rumble from the apartment next to mine.
“It’s late.” Never one to disappoint, I add, “So we better keep it short.”
Camille settles against Valentina, watching me with wide, expressive eyes. Her silence doesn’t hide her feelings. She wears her heart on her sleeve, as does my new neighbor.
“Once, a long time ago, in a land far, far, far away from here,” I begin, “there was a dancer who protected a princess from a scary fire-breathing dragon.”
Camille’s mouth parts. She is fully invested in my story.
“The dancer was brave… and a little stubborn.” My eyes drift to the new entryway when a muffled groan sounds from my neighbor’s apartment.
“And even though she didn’t know it at the time, she was exactly what the little girl needed, because although the dragon was only trying to protect the princess, he’d only ever lived with other dragons, so he didn’t know what to do. ”
Camille rubs her palms together as a soft sigh of happiness vibrates her lips. She’s so easy to love. Too easy.
“He could have gotten mad, but his daddy dragon taught him that there’s no smoke without fire, so instead of using his big fiery breath to scare everyone into doing what he wanted, he drank so much water that his tummy ached for days.
” I keep my focus on my daughter but project my voice toward the new, unpainted arch separating my apartment from Lucia’s.
“Do you know what he did with all that water, Camille?”
Laughter barrels out of me when Camille’s big dragon exhale covers Valentina’s phone screen with spit. Her release of imaginary water whistles through my phone speaker, almost drowning out Lucia’s soft sigh.
“That’s right. He used his big protective belly for good instead of bad… which of course means both the princess and the dancer climbed onto his back and rode to Happily Ever After. The end.”
Camille yawns during my last two words before she slowly blinks.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” I murmur when Valentina carefully slips out of Camille’s bed and tucks her in as I have every night for the past six months.
After tiptoeing out of her room, Valentina adjusts the camera so it faces her. “She’s fine,” she says, glancing at me. “More than fine. She’s excited. And honestly? I am too. It’s been a while since I’ve had a sleepover.”
I huff out a laugh. “There’s no way Vanni will let you stay all night.”
“Oh, please. He’s too busy running your errands to care where I sleep tonight.” Her lie lasts two seconds. “She sleeps through, right? My room is down the hall, but if your somewhat overbearing brother makes me leave, I want to make sure I’ll still hear her if she wakes.”
I nod. “She sleeps through. Has since…” I stop because I don’t know the answer. I have no clue when she stopped asking for a glass of water. I don’t even know when she first slept through the night. I’m lost to half the things a father should know.
Valentina’s expression softens. “Don’t feel guilty, Dante.
What happened was out of your hands, and you’re doing everything you can now to make it right.
And sometimes, bettering ourselves benefits our children more than it benefits us.
Even if you can’t see how much Lucia’s presence has changed you in the previous two weeks, you can’t deny how much she’s helped Camille.
” Tears glisten in her eyes as they stray back to Camille’s partly closed door.
“She hugged me tonight.” A small, disbelieving laugh slips out of her O-formed mouth.
“First time in six months, so if you can’t find a way to keep Lucia in her life, call me. I’m not above kidnapping.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
After saying goodnight, I end the call. My jaw spasms as I stare at the alcove that cost almost as much as this apartment. Lucia’s shadow is gone, taking with it any hope that she’ll go easy on me since I’m a single father.
As I head to the built-in bar in the den, I pull out my phone and call Giovanni.
He answers immediately. “Already finished or not yet started?”
I scoff, and it reveals everything to him.
“Ouch.”
Not wanting to steal more of his time from his pregnant wife, I ask, “Any updates?”
Valentina is six months pregnant with the first Caruso boy in this generation. Although they got the desired gender for the Cosa Nostra, they’re already planning a world where future children can grow up without bias based on their gender.
“Yeah.” Papers shuffle. “Elio is tracking the locations of the businesses Lucia believes she called tonight.”
I freeze with a bottle of whiskey suspended in midair. “And?”
“It isn’t good,” he says. “Most of them were established after the Popovs pulled away from the sex trafficking conglomerate. The ones that weren’t aren’t any better. They’re still exploiting women. You know how I feel about that.”
I do. Just as much as I know if his unborn child had been a girl, he’d be twice as ruthless.
“Is there any paperwork that will lead us to the distributors? If we can nip this in the bud at the source, we’ll have a better chance of running them out of Sicily.”