16. Dante
DANTE
I ’ve never been the sit-around-and-savor-shit type, especially in the morning.
The way my life’s wired? Mornings usually mean your phone rings with bad news, your body’s sore from something that shouldn’t have happened, and the only thing crawling under your skin is the itch to run before the next problem finds you.
But right now?
The sun’s bleeding slow through the curtains, warm across the blankets, and I’ve got a woman tangled at my side and a kid curled so tight into my chest, I don’t want to fucking move.
Cassie’s breathing softly, her hair a mess on the pillow, her leg half-thrown over mine like some subconscious reminder that I belong here now—even if her head’s still fighting it.
And Aria?
She’s a furnace. Little arms locked tight around my torso, cheek squished against my chest, messy curls tickling my chin. She’s drooling on me a little, but hell… I’ve had worse things on my chest.
I try to remember the last time I let myself have something this normal and soft. The answer’s a blank space.
But this?
This feels like a fucking anchor. Dangerous in its own way.
I brush my hand down her cheek because she’s so darn cute, slow, steady, careful not to wake the little munchkin—but of course, the kid’s already stirring.
Her tiny fingers flex against my side, and then that sleepy little voice cracks through the quiet like a bullet to the ribs.
“I’m hungry…”
Cassie glances at Aria, then her eyes lock with mine, and whatever sleepy haze she was floating in evaporates fast. Her whole body stiffens, face twisting with that wide-eyed, shell-shocked look like she’s only just realized who she’s curled up beside.
I see it hit—the hesitation, the walls snapping back into place, brick by stubborn brick.
I shut that shit down fast.
“You want pancakes, Nugget?” I murmur to the kid. “I’ll make you pancakes.”
Cassie’s brow lifts like I just offered to perform brain surgery.
“You? Cook?” Her voice is dry as hell. “Like hell.”
I grin, slow and cocky. “Trust a little. Live it up, Cass. A bad breakfast won’t kill you.”
Aria giggles, her whole face lighting up, and just like that? I’m gone for this kid. She finds me funny.
We untangle, the bed’s still warm when I slide out, tug on a shirt, and head downstairs.
Ten minutes later, I’m in the kitchen frying eggs, flipping pancakes, making coffee like I’ve been doing this domestic bullshit my whole life. Cassie’s by the counter, arms crossed, wearing nothing but one of my shirts that barely hits mid-thigh.
I make pancakes badly. Burn the first one, the kid laughs like I’m a damn clown, and Cassie shakes her head like she’s regretting her entire life. But the second batch turns out edible.
Cassie’s watching me like I’m performing an act of terror.
“Relax,” I tell her, sliding a pancake onto Aria’s plate with a cocky grin. “They’re edible. I didn’t lace them with cyanide.”
Her eyes roll, but I catch it—that tiny twitch of her lips. The one that tells me I’m getting under her skin.
Aria stuffs her face, syrup smeared across her cheek, and lets out the loudest giggle I’ve ever heard. “You cook good!” She beams, like I’ve just solved world hunger.
That sound? That look? It settles right in my chest like concrete. Certainty.
This.
This morning. These two.
Nothing’s ever mattered more.
I watch the kid while she eats. I can't get enough of her, to be honest. I don’t know why, but every time she looks at me, it’s like getting punched in the ribs—the shape of her eyes, the stormy blue-gray color, and the familiar tilt to her smile.
I shake it off, clearing plates, making small talk, but my mind’s a restless beast. Anxiety’s been planted there since last night. Since I saw that fucker outside and remembered what was scrawled across those photos I saw in the car outside Cass’s house.
Confirm paternity. Then terminate.
Not on my fucking watch.
Later, after breakfast, I head for my office and call a guy I know who’s the best at surveillance across the Midwest.
Later, when they’re upstairs and the house is quiet again, I lock myself in the office, phone pressed to my ear.
“Put someone on Gino Esposito,” I tell him. “I want eyes on him full-time. Every step. Every move, especially if he’s making one against his ex-wife, Cassie Russo.”
“You expecting him to make one?” my guy asks.
“I’m expecting him to try,” I mutter, staring out the window at the long stretch of driveway where shadows still crawl even in daylight. “And when he does? I want to know before his foot hits the gas.”
If anything happens to that kid… if anyone even fucking thinks about putting either of them in danger…
I end the call.
Later that afternoon, with Cassie at the bakery, it’s just the kid and me, sprawled across the living room floor like two inmates on yard time.
Aria’s tiny body stretched out like a starfish, crayons, glitter, and paper wreckage covering every inch of the carpet.
The place looks like a kindergarten crime scene.
She tugs at my sleeve, her little fingers curling around the fabric, eyes wide, grin so bright it could short-circuit the lights.
“Look!” She grins, shoving a piece of paper in my face.
The drawing’s a disaster—stick figures with spaghetti arms, heads too big, colors bleeding outside the lines—but I know exactly what it is the second I see it.
Three figures. Me. Her. Cassie.
All holding hands.
“Family!” she announces
The word doesn’t just hit—it detonates. A wrecking ball to the chest, clean through ribs, straight to the heart—my father spent years forcing me to forget.
I swallow the lump clawing its way up my throat and force my face to stay locked down. Can’t let her see the quake under my skin.
I ruffle her hair and manage some tight-lipped smile like this is just cute, just innocent.
But inside? Inside, the storm breaks wide fucking open.
Because here’s the thing—whoever she belongs to, I’m already all-in with this kid. And that terrifies me more than anything Gino Esposito’s got in his arsenal.
Because if she’s mine? Every fucked-up piece of me will burn this world to ash, keeping her safe.
If she’s not? Doesn’t matter. I already made the call.
She’s mine anyway.
Every wall I’ve built cracks down the center.
She has no idea the fuse she just lit.
And there’s no putting that explosion back in the box.
The house is dark when I move through it hours later, when everyone’s gone off to bed.
I should be sleeping too. Hell, I should be anywhere but here, pacing like a goddamn ghost with a vendetta. But my head’s spinning, and the drawing—the one Aria shoved in my face this afternoon—has been rattling around in my skull on repeat.
Family.
The word shouldn’t mess me up as badly as it does, but it cracked something loose. Made it impossible to ignore the itch in my chest—the need to go beyond guesses and get to the cold, hard truth.
I tell myself it’s because I need to know what I’m protecting. Because that stalker’s orders from the other night still ring in my head like a loaded gun— Confirm paternity. Then terminate.
But deep down? I know it’s more than that.
It’s the way she looks at me. Like I already belong to her. Like I’ve been hers longer than I’ve been anyone’s.
I end up in the storage closet off the old guest room, dragging through dusty boxes like a man hunting ghosts. Tina and I dumped all this shit here when we took over the house—half-forgotten family photos, junk, pieces of a past I never cared to keep track of.
But tonight? It’s precisely what I’m looking for.
It takes hours. Dust sticks to my hands, cardboard boxes collapsing under their weight, but finally, in the attic upstairs, I find the bin: old photos, the faded snapshots of another life.
I go through the memories, and then I find it.
A faded photograph.
I’m barely sixteen in the picture, still not grown into my jawline. Staring back at me is the same wild stare, same blue-gray eyes, and the same deep-set eyes I’ve been staring into every morning.
My stomach knots, and my fingers curl tight around the edges of the photo.
Aria has my eyes, copy-fucking-pasted.
Not just the color. The shape. The fire. The fucking blueprint of my blood staring back at me from another lifetime.
She’s mine—has to be.
But that’s not enough—I need to be sure.