Chapter 16
Dante
Lucia’s defiance as she walks off rushes blood to my cock.
The swelling worsens when she kneels in front of a homeless woman to hand over the clothes I bought her.
She doesn’t care who sees her or what anyone thinks about her giving away clothing worth almost five figures.
She gives them away without hesitation or guilt.
Just the stubborn determination I’ve seen in her since day one.
A tight sensation spreads across my chest. It isn’t in anger. It’s in awe.
Lucia isn’t doing this to hurt me. She’s standing by a truth she refuses to compromise on. You can’t buy her loyalty, and kindness shouldn’t come with conditions. If she accepts something, it’s by choice, not expectation.
And Christ, I like that about her as much as I love her spitfire stubbornness.
I stand at the side of the boutique, uselessly still. I only move when Camille’s tiny fingers curl around my thumb. I sense her gaze before I look down. She’s peering up at me with dark lashes over twinkling eyes, her stare a mix of admiration and uncertainty.
She’s worried that Lucia is in trouble, but also wowed by her strength.
When I crouch so we’re eye level, the city noise in the background fades to static.
“I bought those clothes for Lucia.” I choose each word carefully, forever hopeful of teaching my daughter lessons on equality she’s never had before. “But once you give someone a gift, it no longer belongs to you. You don’t get to decide what happens to it after you hand it over.”
Camille’s mouth thins into a thoughtful line. She still worries there are hidden catches to my generosity. Not long ago, even offering her extra syrup led to a heap of silent questions about how much it would cost her.
“Lucia didn’t do anything wrong,” I clarify again.
“They were her clothes, and she did what she wanted with them.” I shift my focus to the boutique bags resting at her feet, too heavy for her to carry on her own.
“Just like if you want to give them away, I won’t be mad at you either.
They’re yours, and what happens to them is your choice to make. ”
My last sentence lands somewhere deep within her. I see her working through my offer as she always does. She silently struggles to see the difference between the coercive control her mother used and my wish for her to learn she has as many rights as I do.
With a Caruso guard hot on her heels, Lucia disappears around the corner. Her absence is louder than Camille’s rifling through boutique bags to divide them into two piles: necessities and luxuries.
I’m not surprised when only one item gets added to the necessities pile after she goes through three bags. It’s the winter coat that will carry her through her first Sicilian winter unscathed.
Greed isn’t a commodity Camille hoards. She’s either too afraid of the consequences or knows nothing good ever comes from it.
With Camille’s focus on a lesson I didn’t expect her to learn today, I use her distraction to my advantage.
As I remove my phone from my pocket, I move to an area of the boutique where I can still see Camille but am not being eyeballed by the salesclerks.
Multitasking was the first thing I mastered as a father.
It’s a skill that allows me to be fitted for a suit while watching my four-year-old star in her first runway show.
Giovanni answers on the second ring. “If she wanted to piss you off, she would have refunded her purchases and sent the money to Edoardo,” he says without preamble, chuckling.
“The fact she didn’t shows she’s not angry at you, more the circumstances behind the reason she needs to continually reject you. ”
I float my eyes across the boutique, then turn to face the security camera dome I notice halfway across.
“I need the search expanded,” I say, leaving Vanni’s bait untouched. We wired Carlisle with top-of-the-line surveillance for a reason. If no one in the family is watching out for us when we’re in town, I’d be concerned. Discretion isn’t in our vocabulary.
There’s a brief alert pause, then: “Expanded how?”
“We’re only looking for connections between female relatives and Edoardo. We need to expand it to include males, too.”
Quiet stretches. It would usually silence me too, but the niggle in my gut won’t quit.
“Brothers. Cousins. Stepsiblings.” I glance at the shop window, which shows the reflection of a toy plane, still boxed, behind the counter. “The box says thirteen and up, but if the person who keeps pulling her toward boyish things is anything like us at that age, I’d guess he’s younger than ten.”
Giovanni exhales slowly. “Dante—”
“It could even be a son.”
My words come out before I can stop them.
They hit hard and real.
I’m not angry. Not even close. Lucia having a child doesn’t faze me.
The knife only twists when I wonder why she isn’t with him.
If she’s paying thirty thousand a month in child support, he should be at her side, not on the outskirts.
But I guess that isn’t the way men like Edoardo Cordoza operate.
They scheme for every dollar, and their expectations are always outrageous.
If my assumptions are true, this kind of power trip will leave a scar.
I could afford an unamicable custody dispute, but Lucia may not be as lucky.
She may be licking her wounds for far longer than the month it took me to negotiate terms with Anna.
Even then, everything was left in limbo when Anna left town before signing the custody papers.
She refused to notarize them until I paid the agreed amount. Like a chump with no brains, I handed over the requested amount without thought. I would have thought more if Camille hadn’t been beside me while I transferred my hard-earned money to an offshore account.
My thoughts shift back to the present when Giovanni says, “I’ll loop in Elio and Nico.” His voice shifts from the don of the Cosa Nostra to a concerned sibling. “They’re still working.”
I don’t bother hiding my surprise.
The Carusos don’t stop until we get answers.
“But, Dante, you need to be careful. If this is about more than Lucia rejecting Edoardo, there may be rules in play we can’t ignore.”
“I understand,” I say, and I mean it.
“We’ll gather as much intel as we can before you arrive back at the compound.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose to ease the pain my next confession will cause. “I’m not coming back to the compound.”
Giovanni’s scoff is disapproving and all too familiar. “Did you hear a word I fucking spoke? This could go above us. Way above us.”
“I heard,” I counter. “But I want to be close enough that if she needs me, I’m not a ten-minute drive away.”
Nothing but silence sounds out of my phone speaker.
I fucking hate it.
“I’ll give her space. All the space she needs.
There’ll be an entire fucking wall between us if that’s what she wants.
” My last five words are whispers, but Giovanni hears them.
His back molars ring down the line, followed by the ripple of his clenched fist. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same if Valentina had chosen to stay at her aunt’s. ”
That settles it.
His exhale is a soft surrender, as are the words he speaks next. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
When he ends our call, I store my phone and turn back to face Camille. She hasn’t moved. She’s still exactly where I left her. The only difference is that her gaze is fixed on the street where Lucia vanished. She’s struggling to piece together a puzzle more complex than a child should take on.
“What are you thinking, stellina?”
She peers up at me with intense, searching eyes. Without her saying a word, I know what Lucia is trying to teach her matters, because the most valuable lessons aren’t taught; they’re experienced.