4. Dante
DANTE
T he scar on my lip throbs as I drive past the old high school. Three years. My finger traces the thin line—courtesy of dear old dad’s class ring.
Too soft, he’d said. Too fucking human.
A horn blares. I’m drifting lanes again.
Focus.
Cedar Falls looks smaller than I remember. Or maybe I just got bigger. Meaner. Built out of Moscow winters and blood that wasn’t mine.
The radio crackles to life—some morning show host talking about summer festivals and family fun. I twist the dial until static fills the car. Better than the cheerful bullshit. Better than memories of when I used to believe in things like family fun.
Before I learned what family really means.
Before I learned what I’m capable of.
The Audi’s engine purrs, but I hear ghosts in the exhaust. Cassie’s laugh. Her gasp when I pressed her against her car. The way she said my name like a prayer.
Stop.
My phone buzzes. Unknown Chicago number. I let it ring, but my gut tightens. Unknown numbers from Chicago never mean good news. They mean cleanup. They mean problems. They mean someone needs to disappear.
Not today. Today, I’m just a man driving through his old town.
Liar.
The steering wheel creaks under my grip. I force my hands to relax, but the tension crawls up my shoulders, anyway. Old habits. In Russia, tension keeps you alive. Here, it makes people nervous.
Here, I need to blend in.
The scent hits me first. Vanilla and honey through the open window. Her scent. The same one that clung to my sheets for weeks after that night. The same one I’ve been chasing in strangers’ perfume for three fucking years.
That night.
Her skin was so soft I thought I’d dreamed it. The way she responded to every touch was like she’d been waiting for me her whole life.
The way she looked at me afterward, like I was something worth keeping.
I ease off the gas. Honey & Hearth Bakery. New sign, same corner building where Murphy’s Hardware used to be. My chest tightens like a fist.
Through fogged windows, I catch movement. Honey-blonde hair catching the morning light. A flash of her smile—the real one, not the careful mask she wore around her husband.
Cassie.
My heart stumbles over itself.
She’s laughing at something, flour dusting her cheek like snow. Looks... lighter. Free. Different from the broken bird who trembled beneath me three years ago. Different from the woman who begged me not to leave marks where her husband would see them.
Gino. That piece of shit.
My jaw clenches at the memory of the careful way she moved, like someone used to making herself small. The desperation in her kiss—like she was drowning, and I was air.
Should’ve killed him then.
Should’ve made it look like an accident.
Something tugs at her apron. She looks down, still smiling.
A little girl.
Time stops.
Small. Maybe three. Wild blonde curls that catch the light just like her mother’s.
The world tilts sideways. My vision tunnels until all I can see is that tiny figure reaching up, demanding attention with the confidence of a child who knows she’s loved.
Cassie lifts the child onto a stool by the counter. The movement is practiced, automatic. Like they’ve done this dance a thousand times.
A daughter. Cassie has a daughter.
The girl turns—just for a second—and the air punches out of my lungs.
That nose. That stubborn chin. The way she tilts her head when she’s curious.
Those eyes.
Stormy blue. Gray around the edges like storm clouds. I’ve seen that exact combination every morning.
In the mirror.
In my father’s face, the sharp Romano features softened by my mother’s Slavic cheekbones.
In every Romano who ever lived, mixed with Zhukov ice-blue that runs in Bratva bloodlines.
My knuckles go white against the steering wheel. The leather squeaks under the pressure.
The math. Do the fucking math.
Three years ago. That night in the parking lot. The timing...
No. Can’t be.
But even as I tell myself that, my chest fills with something between terror and desperate hope. The kind of hope that gets men killed. The kind that makes them stupid.
She belongs to someone else. That bastard she was married to. Had to be him.
Or maybe not?
The thought hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest. My hands shake—actually shake—as I reach for my cigarettes. I haven’t smoked in two years, but I keep a pack in the glove compartment. Old habits.
Russian habits.
The flame from my lighter wavers. Three tries before I get the cigarette lit.
Get it together, Romano. You’ve killed men with your bare hands. You don’t shake over some kid in a bakery window.
Even if she has your eyes.
Even if she’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
Even if she might be yours.
I take a long drag, letting the nicotine steady my nerves. Through the smoke, I watch Cassie hand the little girl something—a miniature rolling pin. The child’s face lights up like Christmas morning.
Aria— That’s what Tina called her. Beautiful name. Italian. Like she knew.
Like she was waiting for me to come home.
My phone rings. Tina’s contact photo fills the screen—all sunshine and innocence, taken last summer at some charity gala. Before she knew what her big brother really does for a living.
I answer before the third ring. “What?”
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine.” Her voice crackles through the speaker, too bright for this early in the morning. “You didn’t forget about tomorrow, did you?”
“Tomorrow?” I can’t look away from the bakery window. Can’t stop watching the easy way Cassie moves around her kitchen, how naturally she includes the little girl in everything.
Like she was born to be a mother.
Like she was born to be mine.
“The barbecue, dipshit. Mom’s annual summer thing. You’re coming.”
Mom’s in Russia, probably planning someone’s funeral. “Since when do you keep traditions without the matriarch?”
“Since someone has to keep this family human.” A pause, and I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “You are coming, right? Because if you bail on me again, I will absolutely lose my shit.”
Human. As if any of us qualify.
“I’ll be there.”
The little girl— Aria —presses tiny hands against the window. Leaves perfect prints on the glass like she’s marking territory.
Smart kid. Territorial instincts. Definitely a Romano.
For one moment, she looks right at me. Those storm-blue eyes meet mine through the car window, and I swear to God, she tilts her head like she recognizes something.
Those Romano eyes. Fuck me sideways.
“Is Cassie coming?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Silence on the other end. Then: “Why do you ask?”
Because I think I just found my daughter.
Because I’ve been dreaming about her mother for three years.
Because I’m about to do something really stupid.
“Just curious. Haven’t seen her since...” Since I fucked her on the hood of her car and disappeared like a coward.
“Since you left town without a word, you mean?” Tina’s voice sharpens, and there’s an edge there I don’t like. My sister doesn’t get angry often, but when she does, she holds grudges. “We were all pretty torn up and confused, you know.”
My jaw clenches at her use of we . Good. Cassie. She should’ve been.
No. Not good. Nothing about that was good.
“I had business.”
“There’s always business, Dante. Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it.”
If only you knew what kind of business, little sister.
Blood on snow. Moscow. The woman’s scream cutting through the Russian winter. Dad’s voice over the phone: Loose end.
The way her body went still when I put the gun to her head.
The way she begged.
The way I pulled the trigger, anyway.
I couldn’t bring that home. Not to Cassie. Not to this.
“I’ll be there,” I repeat, stubbing out the cigarette against the dashboard.
“And Dante?” Tina’s voice softens. “Whatever shit you got involved in back then... It’s time you made it right.”
The line goes dead before I can respond.
Make it right. As if there’s a right way to explain why I abandoned the woman I love and the daughter I didn’t know existed.
I sit there, engine idling, watching Cassie wipe down counters while my daughter — maybe my daughter — God, please let her be my daughter —traces patterns in spilled flour with one tiny finger.
Three years of telling myself she was better off without me.
Three years of waking up hard from dreams of her skin against mine.
Three years of wondering, what if?
Three years of being wrong about everything.
A tap on my passenger window makes me jump. Hand goes straight to the gun tucked against my ribs before I register the face.
Old Pete from the hardware store, grinning through tobacco-stained teeth like he just won the lottery.
I roll down the window. “Pete.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Dante Romano.” His eyes narrow, studying me like a bug under glass. “Heard you were back in town. Stirring up trouble already?”
Not yet. “Just visiting family.”
“Uh-huh.” Pete spits into the gutter, the brown stream hitting the pavement with a wet splat. “Your daddy knows you’re here?”
My father knows everything. “He’s in Russia.”
“Good place for him.” Pete’s grin turns ugly, revealing gaps where teeth used to be. “Some folks ‘round here got long memories, boy. Just saying.”
Is that a threat?
My hand finds the knife in my jacket pocket. Five inches of steel, honed to a razor edge. Old habits from a new world.
“Appreciate the warning, Pete.”
He steps back, something in my voice making him cautious. Smart man. Stupid men don’t live to be seventy in towns like this.
“You have a good day now, Dante.”
I’m planning on it.
Pete shuffles away, but not before shooting one last look at the bakery. His expression shifts—from hostile to something almost protective.
He knows. Somehow, the old bastard knows about Cassie and the kid.
About my kid.
The possessive thought hits me like lightning. No maybe about it anymore. I know it in my bones, in the way my chest tightens when I look at her, in the primitive part of my brain that’s already cataloging threats and calculating protection strategies.
Mine. She’s mine.
I need to move. I need to get out of here before I do something stupid like march into that bakery and demand answers I have no right to ask for.
Not yet. Too many variables. Too many unknowns.
Too much at stake to fuck this up.
But I take one last look in the rearview mirror as I pull away.
Aria’s still at the window, tiny face pressed against the glass. Her breath fogs the surface, and she draws a heart in the condensation with one finger.
Even her hands look like mine.
Small versions of the hands that have killed. The hands that have destroyed.
The hands that made her.
For just a moment, those Romano eyes meet mine through the reflection, and I make her a promise she can’t hear.
Daddy’s home, baby girl. And I’m not going anywhere ever again.
The image burns behind my eyelids as I drive away.
Cassie. My Cassie. Still beautiful. Still perfect. Still mine.
And my daughter. My fucking daughter.
Both of them right here. Both of them within reach.
Both of them about to learn that Dante Romano doesn’t stay away from what’s his.
My phone buzzes. Chicago number again. This time I answer.
“What?”
“Boss.” Viktor’s voice, thick with his Russian accent. “We have a problem.”
There’s always a problem. “What kind of problem?”
“The kind that needs your attention. When are you coming back?”
I glance in the rearview mirror. The bakery’s just a speck now, but I can still smell vanilla and honey on the wind.
Never. I’m never going back.
“Give me a week.”
“Boss—”
“A week, Viktor. Handle it.”
I hang up and toss the phone onto the passenger seat.
Let Chicago burn. Let the whole fucking world burn.
I’ve got more important things to worry about now.
I’ve got a family to claim.