Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
PRESENT
Something’s off this morning.
I feel it before I even step outside, a slow, creeping wrongness threading through my bones. It doesn’t shout—it breathes, whisper-soft and insidious, curling around my ribs, settling heavy in my chest. The kind of feeling I know better than to ignore.
Not the cold. Not exhaustion. Not last night’s news.
Something else.
Something unseen.
After watching the early morning runs on the track and having a meeting with Bran, I push open the barn door, the hinges groaning loudly in the silence. Too loud. Too sharp. The usual morning sounds should be here—the shuffle of horses in their stalls, the low huff of breath from Mila as she trails behind me—but the air is too still. Like the land itself is holding its breath.
Inside, the familiar scent of horses—that earthy, grain-laced musk wraps around me. For a moment it centers me. But the peace doesn’t last. There’s a tension in my muscles that won’t ease, an itch in my gut that tells me to listen. Not to the quiet, but to what’s missing.
Peace.
Monarch Hills was built for it, promised it. Enzo found his in steel gates and security cameras. Rio has his in boardrooms and rising stock prices. My dad has it in retirement, in the quiet predictability of days spent with the animals.
But me?
I’m standing in the middle of it, and I don’t feel a goddamn thing.
My mind churns with everything Gabriel and Anton revealed last night—those stolen documents, the burner phone, the cryptic initials M and D. It’s like Nic left behind a labyrinth of secrets, and each step we take only deepens the maze.
Then I hear my girl.
Her voice filters through the barn, a quiet but sure greeting to a passing ranch hand, and the sound of her tethers me back to the moment. When I spot her, she’s in the tack room, reaching for Fuego’s grooming kit, her cardigan slipping low on one shoulder. Sunlight catches on her skin, turning it gold.
And just like that, everything else fades—the Mafia, the ghosts of Nic’s past, the crush of it all bearing down on us. There’s only her. She roots me to the spot.
My chest tightens, but it’s not just desire—it’s the gnawing fear that we’re in over our heads.
“You’re up early,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.
She glances over her shoulder at me, a faint smile softening her features “You said I could ride anytime. After you headed over here, your dad came around with coffees from Café Luna and offered to dig for worms with Theo in one of the muck heaps.” She blows a wispy tendril off her forehead. “Luis is a great guy. You’re lucky.”
I do love my dad. He’s always the man who will step up in times like these. If there’s one thing I learned from him that proves valuable in any relationship, it’s to be proactive and not reactive. Anticipating needs, that’s a big deal.
I step closer, the creak of my boots on the wooden floor the only sound between us. “Theo is about to have his mind blown. Especially if Dad takes him to the old heap. There are positively ancient red worms in those mountains.”
She laughs lightly, but we gaze at each other with so much more to say. It would be nice to ride and just ignore everything. Rarely, shit, never have I wanted my brothers to swoop in and take care of my problems, but I do wish Enzo and Rio would come in here right now to tell us the case is closed. It’s not that I’m not willing to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty, I just want Kat’s suffering to end now.
I need it to end. Not only for her, but every moment this goes on I live with the anxiety of the social worker wanting to do a drop-in. I hardly told Owen to keep Kat and Theo a secret either. It’s not the right thing to do, ask a child to manage an adult’s business.
She sighs, moving on from our small talk. “I can’t stop thinking about all this new information.” She turns back to the tack. “It’s just… the initials, Angel Lake, the outbuilding—it all feels so much bigger than I imagined. And the people Nic worked with… were there a bunch of snakes at Dad’s company or just Nic and the Mafia?” She laughs at herself. “I can’t believe I used the word just in the sentence.”
Last night, we were both exhausted when we fell into bed. Neither of us wanted to talk any more than we had. We made love like two people who wanted to forget the world. But reality struck again with the sunrise.
“Do you know anyone at all from Pacific Dreams who could be M or D?” I ask carefully.
She hesitates, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe. There were hundreds, maybe a thousand employees at Pacific Dreams—executives, contractors. I used to see the same faces at Christmas parties and charity galas. Nic liked to keep things separate, though. He’d say I was there to look pretty, and to be honest, Santi, those were rare times I didn’t give a crap when he said it. I found all of that stuff excruciating and boring.”
Jealousy bites into me, sharp and mean. It’s not fair, I know that. But it’s there, tangled up with the rage I’ve carried since the day I learned what Nic did to her.
He had years—years with this woman, waking up beside her, watching her laugh at things I’ll never know. He had her in silk dresses; her arm looped through his as if she belonged there.
I hate him. Even in death, I hate him.
I force a casual tone. “Do you remember anyone who stood out? Anyone he was especially close to?”
She exhales slowly, taking a bridle off a hook. “Trust me, I’ve been racking my brain since yesterday, and there is something. Maybe. There was a woman… Melissa, I think. Sh e ran some of the finance departments. Nic always spoke highly of her. And then there was Derek—who I think he said was his lead lawyer. They were at almost every event, always hovering near Nic.”
Melissa and Derek. M and D. Maybe they were working with the ’Ndrangheta, too, possibly still trying to cover tracks from the sidelines. I cross my arms, leaning back against the wall. “Do you think they could’ve been involved?”
Her shoulders lift in a small shrug, but her eyes are distant. “I don’t know. Maybe. Nic kept so much hidden from me, Santi. It’s like the more I think about it, the more I realize how little I knew about him.”
The sadness in her voice slices through me. I want to tell her it’s not her fault, that she couldn’t have known what Nic was capable of. But what would that change? The truth is, Nic isn’t just a shadow from her past—he’s her trauma.
And that’s what eats at me. I’ve built my life on being capable, being strong, being the man who steps in when others fail. But no amount of success or strength can guarantee I’m enough to rewrite the weight of her history with him.
He’s her mistake, her lesson, her pain. What am I? A promise she might not believe in yet.
Seeing her so determined to confront the mess Nic left behind churns up something raw in me. The youngest of the boys, I’ve always been clawing, striving to prove I belonged, that I was enough—not just for the family but for myself. I built an empire alongside my brothers, carved out my place, and still, there’s that voice buried deep inside me that whispers I’ll never measure up.
It’s the same voice her father’s cold, patronizing stare once echoed, cutting deeper than I ever let on. It creeps in like an old wound, barely healed and always ready to split open. The doubt. The fear. The question that’s haunted me since the moment her father looked me in the eye and made it clear I’d never be good enough.
What do I have to offer her? A woman who’s survived worse than I can fathom, who’s rebuilt herself from the wreckage of a life someone else burned down.
What if all I can give her is another fire?
No matter how far we’ve come, some scars are slow to fade. Growth is a sunrise, not a light switch. And as much as I’ve tried to leave those insecurities behind, sometimes they still reach for me in the dark.
She turns to face me fully now, her arms crossed over her chest. There’s a spark of defiance in her gaze. “I can’t just sit back and let everyone else solve this for me. I need to take control of my life, Santi. For Theo, for me.”
This strength of hers? It’s why I fell. But seeing it now, seeing her stand her ground while I battle the instinct to carry her through this, it guts me in ways I never saw coming.
She doesn’t need saving. Not by me. That terrifies me more than any enemy I could put in the ground. Because if I can’t save her—if I can’t fix this, if I can’t shield her—then what am I to her? What do I become?
This fear is a whole new kind of helplessness. This is a stark contrast to the way I usually handle a crisis—headfirst, reckless, the effortless charge of a rebel with nothing to lose.
But with her? I’ve got everything to lose.
“Taking control doesn’t mean shutting people out,” I say, pushing off the wall and closing the space between us. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Kat. You’re already more than enough.”
She looks up at me, her lips parting as if to argue, but the words don’t come. Instead, she sighs, her shoulders relaxing just slightly. “It’s not about proving something to you. It’s about proving it to myself.”
I reach out, brushing a strand of hair from her face. I tilt her chin gently, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “You already know who you are, Kat. A Greek goddess.”
That earns me a small smile, but it doesn’t erase the tension hanging between us—her struggles, my doubts, everything we’re still figuring out.
I don’t hesitate. I lean in, claiming her mouth with mine. It’s not soft, not careful. It’s a kiss full of everything we don’t have words for—need, frustration, devotion that won’t let go.
Her lips part, and I take her deeper, pouring every damn piece of myself into her. She tastes like the dreams I thought were long gone, like every second chance I never believed I’d get.
Her hands grip my shoulders, steadying herself, but I’m the one who feels anchored.
When we finally break apart, she rests her forehead against mine, breath shaky, fingers still clutching me like she’s afraid to let go.
“I love you,” I murmur, sliding a hand around her waist, keeping her right where I want her. Here. With me. Always. “Whatever you need, you will get it from me. I promise.”
She nods slowly, her resolve solidifying before my eyes. This kiss, this moment—it doesn’t solve everything, but it’s a reminder of what we’re fighting for.
“I love you, too.” Her hand comes up to my cheek, there’s an ache in her tone. “But I feel us racing forward when I still have so much to figure out. A lot of healing to do.”
It’s not the answer I want, but it’s hers. Loving Kat means letting go of the need to fix, to prove. It means standing steady in the face of her storms, even when every instinct screams to shield her from them. And maybe that’s the hardest part—accepting that my love can’t heal every wound, even if it feels like my soul depends on it.
The sound of Gabriel calling Kat’s name reaches us from outside the stables, yanking us back to reality.
Kat steps back, her warmth leaving me, the moment slipping away like sand through my fingers. Her gaze still holds mine with a quiet promise—she’s got her battles to fight, but we’re in this together.
“Let’s see what they’ve found,” she says, shoulders squared against whatever’s coming.
I follow, watching her, all fire and fight. She doesn’t need a savior—she’s her own warrior, forged by everything she’s faced, so much stronger for it. What she needs is a partner, someone who sees her for who she is. Scars and all.
Loving her isn’t about fixing her. It’s about standing beside her in it, holding steady when the winds howl and reminding her of the power she already carries.
That’s what we have—a bond that doesn’t demand perfection but embraces the truth of who we are. That’s the kind of love I’d fight for. The kind of love worth risking everything.
And I get the feeling this is the moment we’re about to realize just how much risk we will take.