Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dante
Some stories need to be told from the very beginning.
I look at Marina standing there, arms at her sides, waiting for answers I've never given anyone. Not Lorenzo. Not Pietro. Not even Bruno, who took me in when I was nothing but a bleeding kid with nowhere else to go.
The truth is, I don't know if I'm going to survive this war with the Mendoza cartel.
Lorenzo thinks I'm going to stay put. Heal. Wait for extraction like a good soldier.
He's wrong.
I'm buying time. Letting my body knit itself back together just enough that I can move without collapsing. Just enough that I can hunt down the men who are hunting me.
But I don't tell Marina that.
Instead, I look at her face. The face I see every time I close my eyes.
If I end up dead in some warehouse with cartel bullets in my chest, I want her to know. I want the only woman I've ever loved to understand exactly who I am. Where I came from. Why I became the thing I became.
"I was twelve," I say.
Marina's brow furrows.
"Twelve?"
"When it started." I lean back against the couch cushions. The movement pulls at my wound, but I ignore it. "When everything changed."
She doesn't sit down. Doesn't move.
Just watches me with those blue-green eyes.
"My father was a soldato," I continue. "Low-level. Sicilian. He worked for a family in New York before we moved to Chicago. My mother was American. They met at a restaurant where she was waitressing. She didn't know what he was until after they were married."
The words come easier than I expected. Like they've been waiting to be spoken for twenty-four years.
"I had a little brother. Lucio. He was seven."
"Dante—"
"Let me finish."
She closes her mouth. Nods.
I take a breath.
"My father made enemies. That's what happens in this life. You do your job, you follow orders, and somewhere along the way, someone decides you're a problem that needs solving."
I can still see it. The front door splintering inward. The men in masks. The sound of my mother screaming.
"They came at night. Four of them. My father tried to fight, but he was outnumbered. They shot him first. Then my mother, when she tried to run with Lucio."
My voice is steady. Flat. Like I'm reading from a report instead of describing the worst night of my life.
"Lucio was hiding under the kitchen table. He was crying. Calling for me."
I stop.
The silence stretches.
Marina hasn't moved. Hasn't breathed, it seems.
"They found him," I say. "And they shot him too."
I hear her sharp intake of breath. See her hand come up to cover her mouth.
"I was in the closet. My father had shoved me in there when he heard them breaking down the door. Told me to stay quiet no matter what. So I did. I stayed quiet while they killed my family. I stayed quiet while they searched the house. I stayed quiet while Lucio called my name and I didn't answer."
The guilt is old now. Worn smooth like a river stone. But it's still there. It will always be there.
"They found me eventually. Dragged me out. One of them put a gun to my head."
I touch my temple. The scar is faint now, barely visible unless you know where to look.
"He pulled the trigger. The gun jammed."
Marina makes a sound. Small. Wounded.
"His partner told him to finish it with a knife, but they heard sirens. Neighbors had called the police. So they left me there. Bleeding from where the gun had cracked against my skull. Surrounded by my dead family."
I look at Marina.
Her hand is pressed against her chest, fingers curled into a fist.
"I was in the hospital for two weeks," I say. "Foster care after that. Bounced around for four years until I ended up on the streets. That's where Bruno Sartori found me."
Marina doesn't speak.
She turns and walks toward the kitchen.
For a moment, I think she's leaving. Walking away from me and my bloody history.
But she doesn't leave.
She opens a closet. Reaches inside. Pulls out a bottle of gin and a glass.
Then she grabs a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
She comes back to the living room. Sets the water on the coffee table in front of me. Pours herself three fingers of gin.
Takes a long drink.
Then she sits down in the chair across from me.
"Continue," she says.
Her voice is rough. Like she's been crying, even though her eyes are dry.
I pick up the water. Take a sip. My throat is dry from talking.
"Bruno was different back then," I say. "Younger. Happier. He was running errands for his father, building his reputation. He found me trying to steal from one of the Sartori warehouses."
I almost smile at the memory.
"I was sixteen. Starving. Stupid. I thought I could grab some merchandise and sell it for food money. Bruno caught me with my hands on a crate of electronics."
Marina takes another drink of gin.
"He should have killed me. That's what you do when you catch a thief in your territory. But he didn't."
I set the water down.
"He looked at me. And he asked me one question."
"What question?"
"He asked me if I had anywhere else to go."
The words hang in the air between us.
"I told him no. I told him I had nothing. No family. No home. No future. And he said—"
I stop. Swallow.
"He said, 'Then you have us.'"
Marina is quiet.
"Bruno brought me to his father. Don Sartori. The old man looked me over like I was a stray dog someone had dragged in from the rain. Which I was, basically."
I go still. Eyes on the floor.
"He asked me what I could do. What skills I had. I told him I could fight. I could take a beating and keep standing. I could be useful."
My hands are steady. They're always steady.
"Don Sartori asked me one more thing. He asked me if I was willing to do whatever it took to survive. Whatever it took to protect the family that took me in."
I look at Marina.
"I said yes."
She nods slowly. Processing.
"That's how I became what I am," I say. "That's why I do what I do. The Sartoris gave me a life when I had nothing. They gave me a purpose. A family."
I pause.
"And I've spent twenty years repaying that debt. Protecting them. Killing for them. Dying for them, if it comes to that."
Marina sets down her glass.
Marina
My heart cracks.
I feel it happen. A physical sensation in my chest, like something breaking apart along fault lines I didn't know existed.
Twelve years old. Hiding in a closet. Listening to his family die.
I can't imagine it. I try, and my mind recoils from the horror. My worst childhood memory is my grandmother's funeral when I was nine. I cried for a week and my parents held me every night until I could sleep again.
Dante watched his mother, his father, his seven-year-old brother get murdered. And then he spent four years in foster care before ending up homeless at sixteen.
I take another drink of gin. It burns going down.
"How?" I ask.
Dante tilts his head. "How what?"
"Why did Bruno take you in?" I set the glass down harder than I intended. "You were stealing from them. You said yourself that's what happens when you catch a thief in your territory. They kill you. So why didn't he?"
Dante studies me for a long moment.
"Do you really believe that's how it works?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you believe we just kill without processing who's in front of us? Without seeing the person? Without making a choice?"
I open my mouth to answer.
Close it.
Open it again.
"Actually, yes," I say. "That's exactly what I believe."
The words come out harder than I intended. But I don't take them back.
Dante doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"Then let me ask you something," he says. "Why did you love Sophia?"
The question catches me off guard.
"What?"
"Sophia. Your best friend. The woman you've known since you were children." He leans forward slightly. "Why did you love her? How did you end up best friends?"
I don't understand what he's asking. What this has to do with anything.
"We met in kindergarten," I say slowly. "We just... clicked. She was funny and kind and she always had my back. When other kids were mean, she stood up for me. When I was sad, she made me laugh."
"And when you found out what her family was? What her uncle did? What world she came from?"
My throat tightens.
"That was different."
"Was it?"
I think about Sophia. About the girl I grew up with. The woman who married into the Sartori family. The friend who called me every week for two years even when I didn't answer.
"She was born into it," I say. "She didn't choose—"
I stop.
The realization hits me like cold water.
Dante was born into it too. His father was a soldato. He grew up in this world before it destroyed his family and left him with nothing.
"Sophia didn't choose her family," Dante says quietly. "Neither did I. Neither did Bruno or Lorenzo or any of us. We were born into this life. The only choice we get is what we do with it."
I'm shaking.
I don't want to be shaking.
"But you kill people," I say. "You've killed people. You told me yourself."
"Yes."
"How can you say that so calmly? How can you just—"
"Because it's the truth." His voice is steady. "I've killed people who threatened my family. People who would have killed us first if I hadn't stopped them. That's the world I live in. The world I was born into."
I think about Sophia again.
About what I would do if someone threatened her. If someone tried to hurt her.
I remember the hospital. Waking up with my hand bandaged and my best friend crying at my bedside. I remember the fear in her eyes. The guilt.
I remember thinking that I would have done anything to protect her. That I would have traded myself if it meant keeping her safe.
Because that's how people love.
"I would have died for her," I whisper.
Dante nods.
"I know."
"If Daniil had given me a choice. If he'd said he would let her go if I took her place. I would have stayed."
"I know that too."
The tears come before I can stop them.
I hate this. Hate that I'm crying in front of him. Hate that he's seeing me fall apart.
But I can't stop.
"They're still killers," I say. My voice breaks on the words. "You're still a killer. And I can't just overlook that. I can't pretend it doesn't matter."
I wipe my face with the back of my hand. The tears keep coming.
"I faced Daniil," I say. "I looked into his eyes while he hurt me. While he—"
I can't finish the sentence.
The memory rises up. His hands on me. The gun against my temple. The way he smiled like he was enjoying every second of my terror.
"I know what killers look like," I say. "I know what they're capable of. And I can't just forget that because you had a tragic childhood."
Dante doesn't argue.
Doesn't defend himself.
He just watches me cry.
I hate him for that too. For not fighting back. For not giving me something to push against.
I wipe my face again. Take a shaky breath.
"How did you end up closer to Lorenzo?" I ask. "You said Bruno found you. Bruno brought you to his father. But you work for Lorenzo now. You're his... whatever you are."
"Consigliere," Dante says. "Advisor. Enforcer."
"What does that mean?"
"A consigliere is more than just muscle. It's not about being the biggest or the most dangerous. It's about strategy. About seeing three moves ahead. About knowing when to use violence and when to use words."
I watch his face as he speaks.
Dante shifts on the couch. His hand moves to his wounded side, pressing lightly against the bandage.
"Anyway. Bruno saved my life," he says. "He gave me a place in the family. But he was always focused on his own path. His own ambitions. I was just another soldier in training."
He pauses.
"Lorenzo was different."