Chapter 13 Dante
DANTE
An entire marching band is stomping its way through my skull by the time I step back into the main house, where dinner has been forgotten by now.
Crossing the front hall, I hear Mom’s voice carrying down the stairs.
Guilia’s voice rings out, too, like she’s trying to give a little comfort.
Emilia is probably down at Luca’s house, on the opposite end of the property.
Nothing could have prepared me for what was in that box, but it’s the yearning I can’t shake. It felt right to hold Sophia, comfort her, kiss her. I don’t deserve to indulge that way, but I couldn’t help it.
I wanted more than anything to stay with her, which is the most surprising thing of all. I should have been chomping at the bit to get back up here and plot that motherfucker’s death, but it was Sophia I wanted.
Correction. Still want.
“Took you long enough.” Luca is pacing the study when I reach it, sneering at me before he turns on his heel and crosses the room again. “Let me guess. Your wife is just as much in the dark as we are.”
“You’re dancing on my last nerve,” I warn.
“I’m not in the mood to listen to the bickering,” Papa mutters from behind his desk. When I look at the empty space where the box sat before I left, he explains, “I had somebody take it away. Disgustosa.” Disgusting isn’t half of it.
“Odds this is actually Alessandro?” I ask the room at large.
Cesco shrugs from where he’s lounging in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk. “I’d put good money on it. This is right in that psycho’s wheelhouse.”
“I called Giorgio,” Papa tells me, gesturing toward the bar in the corner when he gets up, eyebrows raised.
I shake my head against the impulse to drown my synapses in whiskey, to soften the sharp edges and dampen the volume of the screaming in my head when I imagine Alessandro plotting against us. Again.
“And?” I prompt.
“And he’s supposedly sending the word out for everybody he knows to track down his rabid dog,” Luca snarls before turning to cross the room again. “Like that’s going to help when it hasn’t up to this point.”
“I hope you told him we’ll match his manpower and double the number of eyes on the street?” I ask Papa.
“Is this the kind of hard-hitting insider knowledge you’ve been learning?” Luca asks. Usually, he’s hard enough to pretend to get along with, but tonight, he is determined to die.
“Enough!” Papa barks, silencing us the way he’s been able to do since we were kids. He sinks into his chair with a fresh drink in hand, adding, “The answer is yes, of course. We’ll work together on this.”
It’s not enough.
Nowhere close.
“Who delivered the box?”
“We have footage on the security feed,” Cesco explains. “But there were no plates on the van.”
He hands me his phone after pulling up the footage of an average, black van stopping at the front gate without turning off the road. A tall man in a ball cap climbs out with the box in hand and leaves it on the ground before driving away.
“Nobody talked to him?” I ask, going back to the beginning to watch again. There’s no hope of identifying who he is with the brim of his cap shading his face. Long sleeves hide any tattoos or scars.
“He was gone before anyone could make it out of the gatehouse.” Cesco is grim when he takes his phone back, standing and stretching. “I’m going to call a few friends who know their way around the traffic camera system. I’ll see if we can track the van through them.”
It’s a possibility. But where will it lead us?
I doubt Alessandro would leave himself vulnerable by being in contact with the delivery driver. He’s a fucking genius when it comes to keeping himself safe while sacrificing everybody around him.
“For what it’s worth,” Luca mutters once Cesco has left. “I want extra guards on my house for Emilia’s peace of mind.”
Yes, because at the end of the day, everything revolves around her and has since the second he set eyes on her. “I’m sorry, what does Emilia have to do with this?” I ask, ignoring Papa’s soft groan from his desk.
“I know that’s not a serious question.” My brother stares at me without blinking, coming to a stop in the center of the room after pacing this entire time.
His chest heaves with every ragged breath.
Am I supposed to be intimidated? “Not when you saw the way he left her. She still wakes up screaming sometimes.”
“She’ll be taken care of,” Papa assures him. He glances toward me before adding, “You should go to her now, Luca. I’m sure she’s shaken up.”
“I think we have everything handled here,” I tell Luca.
His jaw twitches with whatever cutting reply he wishes he could deliver, but knows better than to try. Without a word, he leaves, shoes slapping the floor in a quick rhythm. The sound gradually fades to nothing.
“This is not the time to antagonize each other.” The fatigue in Papa’s voice reminds me of why Luca and I have tried harder lately to get along at least in his presence.
The best I can say is, “It’s an old habit. Sometimes I forget I’m trying to break it.”
“You’re not trying very hard.” He waves a hand the way he always does when he’s finished with a subject. “It isn’t Emilia he’s interested in this time. The card was addressed to you and Sophia. What are you doing about it?”
He has a talent for stopping me in my tracks. “I’m not sure I understand,” I admit as I approach his desk, coming to a stop across from him and resting my palms on the surface.
He seems unsurprised by my response, smirking before he asks, “What are you doing for your family?”
“What have I always done for my family?” I snap. When his eyes widen a little, I can’t fight the impulse to backpedal. “My family is my life. Haven’t I proven that?”
“You’re misunderstanding me.” He lets out a soft groan as he pushes himself up out of his chair and slowly rounds the desk.
“I don’t doubt your loyalty to the Santoro name.
I have to admit, I had my moments in your younger days when I wondered if you had what it takes to lead us.
Then, late one night, I got a frantic phone call from you. ”
I remember it too well. The lowest moment of my life. The one person who came to mind when I realized what I did. Fists and clothes covered in the blood of the man who killed the woman I loved. Pulling out my phone with a shaking hand, I begged once the call was picked up. “Papa. I need help.”
“When I found you,” he murmurs, voice going soft like he’s losing himself to the memory, “I told you I would take care of it, and make sure you weren’t tied to anything that happened. And what did you pledge?”
I was so frantic, convinced someone would link me to the crash and its aftermath since dozens of people saw the fight that went down between Monica and me.
Knowing someone must have seen me take off after the car, she had climbed into.
I had already put together a story in my head where I’d be accused of running them off the road. Tried. Imprisoned.
“I pledged my life to the family,” I reply. I would have promised anything. “You didn’t have to save me from the aftermath of that night.”
“Didn’t have to?” He scoffs. “You are my son. Of course, I had to. Was I supposed to abandon you after you made a mistake?”
Some mistake. Beating a man to death, even if the man was a piece of shit who didn’t deserve to live after crashing his car and killing the most precious thing in the world.
I dragged him from behind the wheel and systematically beat him until there was nothing left but pulp where his face used to be.
I wanted to keep going and might have, too, if it hadn’t been for Papa showing up and pulling me away from the wreck before I could go back and take out more of my rage and fury on the corpse.
Papa doesn’t wait for me to come up with an answer before he takes me by the shoulders, sighing heavily.
“You have lived up to that promise every day since you made it, not that I’m surprised.
You’ve always kept your word. You’ve done everything you were told and have been by my side for anything I’ve needed.
But now, you have another family to consider.
Someone else to protect. What are you going to do for her? ”
“I don’t know,” I have to admit with a sinking heart.
“You need to think about it,” he says, squeezing my shoulders before letting his hands drop. “Not only to keep Giorgio happy. She’s your responsibility now too.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
“Don’t I?” he asks. I hate when he looks at me the way he is now, like he can see through me.
He thinks he knows me so well. “Then you had better get back to her. This will have shaken her up. Your mama is, and she didn’t see what was inside that box.
” His lip curls in disgust at the thought.
I open my mouth, ready to argue, but he cuts me off with a slashing motion of his hand.
“Enough. There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Go to your wife.”
He’s finished listening, and I’ve been dismissed. All I can do is say, “Good night,” and head out with a drum beat still pounding in my skull and the taste of Sophia’s tearful kisses lingering on my lips.
I don’t see the now quiet, peaceful grounds around me as I walk the familiar path with the chirping of crickets filling the air.
I wish I did. I wish the memories of that night would leave me alone instead of playing in my head like a movie I have no control over.
Instead of my darkened, peaceful house, I see a smoking wreck.
Twisted metal, glass littering the side of the road and sparkling in the light thrown off by my headlights, and the flames that start to lick their way along the sports car’s crumpled hood.
“Monica!” I don’t know how many times I shouted her name as I sprinted to the wreck from where I skidded to a stop.
It was impossible, it couldn’t be true, it had to be a nightmare.
We had only left the bar minutes ago. I could still hear her voice, the disgust dripping from it after I asked for one more chance.
I only wanted her to listen. To hear how sorry I was for what I did the night she saw me for who I really was.
All I wanted was the chance to win her back.
Instead, I found her in the passenger seat, unrecognizable thanks to the blood coating her beautiful face.
She was already gone, lifeless. I reached out, but couldn’t bring myself to touch her.
Not the way she was. I was afraid of what my fingertips would find under all that blood.
It was painful enough to stare down at my dead future.
My world broken, bloodied, and gone, snuffed out like the glowing tip of a match.
That was when I heard a strangled groan from the driver’s seat.
Enough for now.
I have to consciously force myself to leave those memories locked away. They don’t do me any good, and they won’t help Sophia. Whether I like it or not, she is my responsibility.
My responsibility is asleep on the couch by the time I ease the front door open.
She changed into a satin pajama shirt and matching shorts and curled up to watch a movie, but fell asleep waiting.
I was going to suggest digging up something to eat, but not if it means ruining the peaceful atmosphere she seems to be in.
Instead, I turn off the television, then stand over her and watch her slow, even breathing.
Sooty lashes rest against skin so creamy and soft, I’m aching to reach out and stroke her cheek.
I have to settle for sliding my arms under her and lifting her off the sofa.
She’s light, easy to tuck against my body before I start up the stairs.
“Dante?” Instead of freaking out or at least being startled, she rests her head against my shoulder with her face turned toward my neck. “Are you home now?”
I have to smile to myself at her sleepy question and the sensation of her breath against my skin.
“I’m home now,” I whisper, pausing at the top of the stairs before making a left and taking her to my bed.
I need to have her near me tonight. I need a reminder that what is mine is safe.
“I’m with you. You have nothing to worry about. ”
Because she is mine.
And never again will I let another man destroy what’s mine.