Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Dante
The rental car sits in Alejandro's driveway. A black sedan. Nothing memorable. The kind of car that disappears into traffic and leaves no impression on anyone who sees it.
I sit in the car for a moment, hands on the steering wheel, staring at the house.
It's a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Denver.
High walls. Security cameras. Armed guards at the gate who waved me through after checking my ID against a list. Alejandro's list. The list of people welcome in his home.
My name is on that list.
He's so sure of my loyalty.
I would be too.
If someone did exactly what I asked, followed every instruction, delivered every result—I would trust them completely. That's how it works in this world. Actions speak. Words mean nothing. And my actions have been perfect.
I step out of the car.
The air is cold. My breath fogs in front of my face as I walk toward the front door. Two guards flank the entrance, both armed, both watching me with the careful attention of men who've been told I'm important but not why.
"Mr. Castellani." One of them nods. "He's expecting you."
They search me.
Thorough.
Professional.
They find nothing.
I won't need guns.
The door opens into a marble foyer.
A maid appears. Young. Dark hair pulled back in a neat bun. She doesn't meet my eyes.
"This way, please."
We climb a staircase. Turn down a hallway lined with photographs. Alejandro's family. His mother. His children. A wife who died three years ago, according to the intelligence Vittoria gathered. He remarried last year. The new wife is twenty-six. Pregnant.
The maid stops at a heavy wooden door.
Knocks twice.
"Enter."
She opens the door and steps aside.
I walk in.
Alejandro's office is exactly what I expected. Dark wood. Leather furniture. A massive desk that dominates the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the estate. He's standing by those windows when I enter, backlit by the pale winter sun, his silhouette sharp against the glass.
He turns.
And his face breaks into a smile.
"Brother."
He crosses the room and pulls me into an embrace. His arms wrap around me. His hand claps my back. He holds me like family.
I force myself to return it.
My arms come up. My hands press against his shoulders. I make my body relax, make my muscles soften, make myself feel like a man who's glad to be here instead of a man who wants to wrap his hands around this throat and squeeze until the light leaves his eyes.
"Alejandro." I step back. Meet his gaze. "Good to see you."
He grips my shoulders. Studies my face.
"You look tired."
"Long night."
"Sit." He gestures to the leather chairs by the fireplace. "Drink?"
"Whatever you're having."
He moves to a bar cart in the corner. Pours two glasses of something amber. Whiskey, probably. Expensive, definitely. He hands me one and settles into the chair across from me, crossing his ankle over his knee, the picture of relaxation.
I take the glass. Don't drink.
"So." He swirls his whiskey. "How did it feel?"
I know what he's asking.
I've practiced this answer.
The good thing about Alejandro is that he doesn't know me. Doesn't know how I speak. Doesn't know my tells, my patterns, the way my voice changes when I'm lying versus when I'm telling the truth. To him, I'm a stranger who shares his blood. A weapon he's recruited. A tool he thinks he controls.
That makes this easy.
"Satisfying," I say.
He raises an eyebrow. "Just satisfying?"
"What do you want me to say?" I lean back in my chair, forcing my body into a casual sprawl that feels nothing like how I actually feel. "Lorenzo Sartori is dead. The family thinks I'm grieving with them. Everything went exactly as planned."
"It did." He nods slowly. "It did."
He watches me over the rim of his glass.
I watch him back.
"I wondered," he says, "if you would hesitate. At the end."
"I didn't."
"No." A smile curves his lips. "You didn't."
He takes a long sip of whiskey.
I still don't touch mine.
"Twenty years you served them," Alejandro continues. "Twenty years you killed for them. Protected them. Called them family." He sets his glass down on the side table. "And in one night, you helped me take the first step toward destroying everything they built."
I nod.
"That takes strength, brother. Conviction." He leans forward. "Giuseppe would be proud."
The name hits like a fist to the chest.
I don't let it show.
"Giuseppe is dead," I say flatly. "His pride means nothing."
"True." Alejandro tilts his head. "But his legacy lives on. In both of us."
I want to kill him.
The urge is physical. A pressure in my chest. A tightness in my hands. Every instinct I have screams at me to move, to act, to end this conversation with violence instead of words.
But not yet.
Not here.
I need to wait.
The first shot shatters the window behind Alejandro's desk.
Glass explodes inward. Shards rain down like ice.
I'm on my feet before the second shot hits.
"Fuck!" I curse, diving behind the leather chair.
Alejandro scrambles backward. His hand goes to his waist. Pulls a gun.
He points it at me.
"You betrayed me."
His voice is cold. Flat. The warmth from moments ago gone.
"No." I raise my hands. Let fear bleed into my voice. "No, I didn't. I swear."
Another shot. This one punches through the wall. Plaster dust fills the air.
"Then who?" Alejandro demands.
"I don't know!" I make my eyes wide. Desperate. "Someone followed me. Someone—"
A burst of gunfire from downstairs. Screaming. Then silence.
Alejandro's jaw tightens.
"We need to move," I say. "Now. Give me a gun. Something."
He hesitates.
More shots. Closer this time.
"Alejandro." I let my voice crack. "Please. They're coming."
He stares at me. Calculating.
The door to the office shudders. Someone's trying to break through.
Alejandro makes his decision.
He keeps the gun trained on me but jerks his head toward the door.
"Move. Stay in front of me."
I nod. Rise slowly. Hands still up.
We cross the office. Alejandro reaches past me. Opens the door.
The hallway is empty.
Bodies at the bottom of the stairs. His guards. The ones who searched me.
They're not moving.
"Go," Alejandro hisses.
I move down the hallway. He follows. Gun pressed against my spine.
We reach the top of the stairs.
The front door crashes open.
A man steps through.
Tall. Broad. Blond hair cropped short. Ice-blue eyes that scan the room with predatory calm.
Russian.
One of Dmitri's men.
He sees Alejandro.
Raises his weapon.
Fires.
The bullet catches Alejandro in the leg.
He screams. Drops.
His gun clatters across the floor.
I move.
My foot connects with the weapon. Sends it spinning out of reach.
Alejandro tries to stand. His leg buckles. Blood pools beneath him.
"You—" He looks up at me. Understanding dawns in his eyes. "You fucking—"
I put my foot on his throat.
Press down.
He chokes. Claws at my ankle. His fingers scrape uselessly against my shoe.
I lean forward.
Let him see my face.
Let him see the truth.
"Lorenzo sends his regards," I say.
His eyes go wide.
"He's—"
"Alive." I press harder. Watch his face turn red. "Very much alive. And very eager to meet you."
Alejandro's mouth opens. Closes. No sound comes out.
I ease the pressure. Just enough to let him breathe.
"You thought you were so clever," I continue. "Thought you had me figured out. The broken orphan. The loyal dog. So desperate for family he'd betray the only one he's ever known."
I crouch down. Keep my foot on his throat.
"You were half right."
His chest heaves. Blood soaks through his pants. Spreads across the marble floor.
"I am desperate for family," I say. "But you're not my family. You're the man who murdered them."
"Giuseppe—"
"Giuseppe is dead." I cut him off. "Has been for years. And whatever sins he committed, whatever blood is on his hands—that's between him and Devil."
I lean closer.
"But you?" I smile. "You're between me and my family. And that's a very dangerous place to be."
The Russian approaches. Stands beside me. Waits.
"We're going to spend some wonderful time together," I tell Alejandro. "You, me. And all our brothers."
Marina
I've worn a path in the carpet.
Back and forth. Window to door. Door to window.
My feet know the route by now, have memorized every creak in the floorboard, every slight dip where the wood has settled over decades.
I should sit down. I know I should sit down.
But sitting means stillness, and stillness means thinking, and thinking means imagining all the ways this morning could go wrong.
The living room feels too small. Too quiet. Sophia sits on the couch with her hand pressed against her stomach, not showing yet of course but already protective.
Lorenzo stands behind her, alive and breathing and here, his fingers absently stroking her hair. They don't speak. None of us speak. What is there to say when we don't know what's happening?
Bruno leans against the fireplace mantel with his arms crossed. His jaw hasn't unclenched since breakfast. Since before breakfast. Since Dante left in the early hours of the morning with nothing but a kiss pressed to my forehead and a whispered promise that he'd come back to me.
I believed him. I have to believe him. The alternative is a darkness I refuse to let myself touch.
Nico sits in the corner chair, his tablet dark on his lap. Even he isn't working.
Kristen left an hour ago to take Lily to school, maintaining the illusion of normalcy that none of us feel.
Vittoria and Dmitri are somewhere else entirely, part of whatever plan Dante constructed in the shadows, the plan none of us were allowed to know.
I hate not knowing. I hate the silence and the waiting and the way my imagination fills every quiet moment with worst-case scenarios.
Dante bleeding out on a warehouse floor.
Dante captured and tortured. Dante dead before anyone can reach him, before I can tell him that I love him, that I choose him, that I'm not going anywhere.
My hand cramps. I shake it out without breaking stride, without acknowledging the pain that shoots up my wrist. The nerve damage flares when I'm stressed. Always has.
Window. Door. Window again.
"Marina." Nico's voice is gentle. "Sit down. Please."
"I can't."
"You're making me dizzy."
"Then close your eyes."
He laughs softly. The sound is wrong in this room, too light for the weight pressing down on all of us. But it's Nico, and Nico has always found humor in impossible moments. It's how he survives. How they all survive.
I reach the window and stop. The grounds stretch out before me, manicured and peaceful, betraying nothing of the violence that has touched this family.
Somewhere out there, beyond the gates and the guards, Dante is facing whatever he couldn't tell us about.
Whatever made him leave in the dark with nothing but a whispered promise to come back.
Whoever is waiting for him doesn't know Dante at all.
Doesn't understand that loyalty, for Dante, isn't a weakness to be exploited.
It's the core of who he is. The foundation everything else is built on.
I turn back to the room. Resume pacing.
Bruno's phone rings.
Everyone freezes.
He pulls it from his pocket. Checks the screen. His expression doesn't change, but something in his shoulders shifts, some tension releasing by the smallest degree.
"Vittoria," he says, then answers. "Talk to me."
We can't hear her side of the conversation. Can only watch Bruno's face, searching for any sign, any indication of what's happening. His jaw works. His eyes close briefly. Then he nods once.
"Good. Keep me updated."
He hangs up.
The silence stretches.
"Well?" Nico demands.
Bruno looks at us. At each of us in turn. His gaze lingers on me for a moment longer than the others, and I don't know what he sees there. Fear, probably. Desperation. The wild hope of a woman who has bet everything on a man the world would call a monster.
"Everything is proceeding according to plan," Bruno says.
Relief floods through me. My knees go weak. I grab the back of the nearest chair to steady myself.
"The plan," Nico says flatly, "that none of us know anything about."
Bruno's mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. "The very same."
"Fantastic."
"We should be relieved," Nico continues, his voice tight with the control he's barely maintaining. "We should just feel grateful that we're not losing someone right now. That's what we should focus on."
No one argues with him. Because he's right. Because the alternative might be worse than the uncertainty. At least this way, I can imagine him safe. Can pretend, for these stretching minutes, that the danger has already passed.
My phone rings.
I nearly drop it.
"Hello?"
"Cara."
Dante's voice. Rough. Tired. Alive.
I sink into the chair I've been gripping. My legs won't hold me anymore.
"You're okay," I breathe.
"I'm okay."
Tears blur my vision. I blink them back. The room has gone silent again, everyone watching me, but I don't care. I don't care about anything except the sound of his breathing on the other end of the line.
"Two days from now," Dante says, "we're taking a trip. Just the two of us."
I laugh. It comes out wet, choked with the tears I'm trying to hold back. "A trip?"
"Somewhere warm. Somewhere with no phones, no family emergencies, no cartel leaders trying to kill us."
"That sounds..." I shake my head. "That sounds perfect."
"You should check your schedule," he says. "Make sure you can clear it."
"My schedule?" I'm smiling now. I can't help it. "Dante, my schedule has been nothing but chaos since you showed up bleeding on my doorstep."
He laughs. The sound wraps around me like a blanket, warm and safe and everything I didn't know I needed.
"Clear it anyway," he says. "I have plans for you."
"Plans?"
"Many plans. Detailed plans. Plans that involve very little clothing and very few interruptions."
My face heats. I'm aware of the others watching, of Bruno's raised eyebrow and Lorenzo's knowing smirk. I don't care.
"I'll check my schedule," I tell him.
Dante laughs again, lighter this time, freer.
Then he hangs up.
I lower the phone slowly. Stare at the screen until it goes dark.
He's okay.
He's coming back to me.