Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
PRESENT
After the fire, Santi called in reinforcements and doubled the guards on duty. It did nothing to settle the unease coiling in my chest.
Before the rhythm of my heart settles again, I’m summoned to the ranch offices the next morning.
I know Theo is with Santi, but it doesn’t stop the itch under my skin. I want my son close—where I can see him, where I can protect him. But I also need to shield him from how big this is.
We lied to him and Owen about the fire, said it was a stable hand burning brush.
But this?
Right now, Theo doesn’t know he should be afraid. He’s still in that space where nothing has changed, where the world is exactly as it was yesterday.
If he hears what’s said in this office, that illusion will shatter. I can’t let his innocence be stolen like that.
Enzo, Ava, Rio, and Callum are seated around the table, their expressions grim. There’s no banter, no lightness—only a sharp focus that makes my stomach knot.
“Kat,” Enzo says, his tone clipped, professional.
But I think I catch some strain in his voice.
“We went through more of the flash drive data before handing the drives to the feds. There’s something you need to know.”
I brace myself.
Ava leans forward, her hands clasped on the table. “Nicholas wasn’t just embezzling money from Pacific Dreams. He was funneling millions through Castellanos Enterprises—your father’s company—into offshore accounts connected to the ’Ndrangheta.”
The room tilts. “My father’s company?”
She nods, her expression pained. “Yes. It looks like your father may not have known—most of the transactions were buried under shell companies—but Nicholas used not only Pacific Dreams but also Castellanos Enterprises as a front for laundering money for the Mafia. It’s why they’re after you. Those drives hold the evidence.”
A sliver of hope overcomes me. “But if I handed them over that makes me safe?”
I already know one of the answers—the Mafia probably doesn’t even know I’ve handed them over. But the other answer, I didn’t expect.
Rio folds his arms, and speaks bluntly, “Unfortunately, the type of people you’re dealing with don’t think about one potential piece of evidence, they think about every loose end possible. The fact that you’ve ever had those drives, ever been aware of their contents? That’s a loose end.”
The ’Ndrangheta thinks I know something, and that means I could be as damning as those drives.
I’m suffocating under the enormity of it all. Nicholas was a liar, a manipulator—but this? Dragging my father’s company into his mess, putting everyone in danger? I knew he was capable of cruelty, but this was a new level of betrayal.
If he wasn’t dead, I’d relish every chance to put him behind bars.
“The fire wasn’t random,” Enzo says, his tone sharp. “They’re here, Kat. In Echo Valley. Watching. Gabriel and Anton found the cameras at Julia’s, and there could be more. They won’t stop.”
I glance at Callum, hoping for a shred of reassurance, but the bright ocean-blue eyes that reminded me of vacation, the ones from Café Luna, are now joyless and somber.
His response is compassionate at least. “I wish I could have helped you, Kat, solved this in one go.”
The others nod, their faces solemn.
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat almost too big to get past.
Ava offers me a small, encouraging smile and speaks from a deeper place I don’t understand, but it tells me she knows what she’s saying is true from experience.
“Don’t let yourself feel like you’ve done something wrong. You’re innocent. None of this is your fault, and not a single person around this table blames you for any of this.”
I should believe this is the beginning of ending all this mess, but one thing consumes my mind.
My father.
Should I tell him what I now know?
The thought of him twists my insides. Castellanos Enterprises is his legacy. Now, not only is Pacific Dreams gone but my father’s life’s work. I should tell him, right?
The fists of a thousand memories hit me, one after the other, breaking me apart before I can brace for impact.
I see my father at the head of the dining room table, his voice cold as steel, slicing through my mother’s dignity like it was paper. Her tears never bought her mercy. Her silence never earned her peace. I see her fingers tremble when she poured his whiskey, her brittle smile shattering the moment he wasn’t looking.
I see the lace of some other woman’s panties in his car. The way my mother stared at them like she was so goddamn tired but not surprised. I was the one who confronted him. I was the one who threw them in his face. And I was the one who got punished.
I see him at my wedding, shaking hands with Nicholas, smug and satisfied like he’d just closed the most lucrative deal of his life. And maybe he had. He didn’t just give me away—he sold me. He handed me over to another man who would control me, shape me and diminish me until I wasn’t even sure what parts of myself were real anymore.
But the worst memory isn’t the wedding. It’s the day I lost Santi.
My father’s voice, soft, sympathetic in the cruelest way possible. “Are you okay? ”
Like he didn’t already know. Like he hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing.
My father wasn’t just a man who manipulated me—he was the architect of my heartbreak.
Being the product of abuse messes with your moral compass. It takes away your North Star. I’ve had to work harder than most not to become vengeful and hateful.
The idea of bringing him into this, of resurrecting communication with him, to tell him I now know what Nicholas did to his company, feels unbearable. But isn’t it his right to know? Isn’t that the moral thing to do?
My hand trembles as I press it to my forehead, trying to ease the tension. I think about Theo, about the life we’re trying to build here. My father is a hurricane, a force of destruction that tears through everything in his path. Letting him back in feels like inviting chaos into the fragile peace we’re barely holding on to.
But keeping this from him is wrong, too, isn’t it? Castellanos Enterprises is his life’s work. If it collapses under the weight of this scandal, it will destroy him.
The guilt settles over me like a second skin.
Ava’s voice pulls me back to the present. “Kat? Are you okay?”
I force a nod. “I’m fine. Just… processing.”
The silence in the room is oppressive. My thoughts churn, endlessly circling the same question:
Do I tell him before the FBI does? Do I want him to find out that the reason he’s under investigation is because I handed over the evidence? It will only confirm what he thought the day I left… he called me a whistleblower. He’ll think I knew about this all along.
The answer eludes me, tangled in years of pain and resentment. But for once, the choice is mine. I decide who to let in. I decide who to shut out. The past can’t touch me unless I let it.
Just as I stand to leave, the intercom crackles to life, sharp and abrupt.
“Enzo, Rio… there’s a Mr. Castellanos here.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. Like the whole goddamn world just tipped sideways, and I wasn’t holding on to anything.
My father. Here?
The conference room blurs. My heart hammers against my ribs, panic and rage twisting together so tight I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Enzo’s head snaps toward me, his brows furrowed. “Your father?”
Rio is already moving, already stepping toward the door, a warrior heading to battle. “I’ll handle it.”
“No.” The word rips from me.
I have to handle this.
There’s no other choice.
As I walk to meet him, I’m light-headed from anxiety and dread, not only because I have to face him again but because it sends wild questions through me. If he’s here, could he have been lying to me about being involved in the break-in? Maybe he knew Nic was partaking in fraudulent activity? After all, how could he have suggested I was a whistleblower unless he knew there was something to report?
I quicken my footsteps to get to him before anyone else does.
But I’m too late.
My dad is inside the gate, and he’s not alone.
My boyfriend is already right there with him, and he looks like he’s about to unleash hell.