20. Cassie
CASSIE
I freeze like someone cut the air supply to the room. My pulse slams hard against my ribs, my throat tightens, and every ounce of oxygen feels poisoned with panic.
He knows. And from the cold fury in his eyes, he’s not guessing. He knows.
“What are you talking about?” I try damn hard to make him second-guess.
Dante looks like he could burn a hole through my mouth. He just stands there, towering over me where I sit on the edge of my bed, looking so damn angry that I wonder if it’s truly him.
“Don’t,” he says with such coldness that it kills any damn lie on my tongue. “Don’t you dare lie to me again.”
His eyes drill into mine. The kind of stare that strips you bare and leaves nothing hidden. I’ve never seen him like this—so still, so contained.
Dante’s not yelling. He’s not pacing or slamming fists or doing any of the things I learned to expect with anger when I had Gino around.
He’s dangerously calm.
I’ve never seen Dante like this. Even at his angriest, he’s always had fire. This... this is different. This is the kind of calm that cuts deeper than rage because he’s past anger. That the damage is already done, and now we’re standing in the wreckage.
And I hate that I’m the one who disappointed him. Hate that this version of Dante isn’t looking at me like I’m precious, like he could kiss the ground I walk on.
“You… you can’t know that for sure,” I stammer, reaching for the nearest escape route to redemption. “You… you don’t?—”
His stare pins me in place as I stand, storm-grey eyes so sharp I feel them flaying me alive. “I had the DNA test done.”
God, I’m such an idiot. I never thought he’d go this far. Never thought he’d test her without me knowing.
The air leaves my lungs.
No.
No, no, no ? —
“Cass. Stop lying.”
“When did you run the test?” I ask softly.
“Does it matter?” He snaps. “The only thing that matters is that my daughter is three years old, and I’m just finding out she exists.”
“Aria is?—”
“Mine.” He cuts me off. “Say it, Cassie. I want to hear you say it.”
I look away because I can’t bear to face those eyes that see right through me. That have always seen through me.
“Look at me.” His command brooks no argument. I drag my gaze back to his and find nothing but cold fury waiting. “Tell me the truth. Just once.”
The pressure builds inside me. It’s been three goddamn years of raising our daughter alone, wondering if I made the right choice, if there was ever a right choice to be made.
The walls crumble. My chest caves. My last thread of composure snaps clean in half, and the words spill out like poison I’ve been choking on for all these fucking years.
“Yes.” I sit back down on the bed and bury my head in my hands. “She’s yours.”
He doesn’t speak. He just waits because he knows there’s more, and there is.
The words hang irreversibly between us. I can’t take them back now. The truth is out, and there’s no putting it back in its box.
“When I saw you three years ago, I thought I was starting over. Clean slate. New beginning.”
My fingers twist in the bedsheets, remembering.
“That first week back at Cedar Falls, when we were together, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences.
I wasn’t thinking at all. It was just one night.
Gino had agreed to the divorce, and I thought…
I thought I was finally free. It was the first decent thing he did in years. ”
I swallow down the acid in my throat and keep going because there’s no way back now.
“I didn’t find out I was pregnant until weeks later. And you were gone. No note, no call, no nothing.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t explain.
“I was terrified because the first time I told Gino I wanted to leave, he put his hands around my throat and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. Because when I mentioned divorce, he said he’d rather see me dead than with someone else.”
Dante’s eyes darken, but he doesn’t interrupt. I meet his eyes, and for the first time in my life, I don’t see the dangerous man who walked back into my world like a wrecking ball.
I see the one I left behind.
The one who never looked back.
“You want to know what he was like?” I hiss through gritted teeth, all the fear and rage I’ve swallowed for years bubbling up like poison. “He monitored my phone. My friends. What I wore. How I spoke. Every breath I took belonged to him. And when I didn’t obey? When I wasn’t perfect?”
I yank up my sleeve, revealing the faint scar near my wrist. “Glass from a broken wine bottle. Because I talked to a male server for too long.” I turn and pull down the collar of my shirt to show another mark on my shoulder. “Cigarette burn. Because I came home late one night.”
Dante’s face has gone completely blank.
“I finally got away from him. Got the divorce papers signed. But it wasn’t over. It’s never over with men like that.” My voice cracks. “So when I found out I was pregnant... God, Dante. What was I supposed to do? Tell him the baby wasn’t his? Watch him hunt you down? Hunt us down?”
“Cassie—” A flash of pain crosses his face.
“You left,” I interrupt. “You left without a word, Dante. And I—I panicked. Gino was still lurking, still watching everything I did. If he thought the baby wasn’t his…”
I shake my head, tears burning hot as they slip down my cheeks.
“You don’t know how cruel he is,” I whisper. “The way he twisted my life until I couldn’t breathe.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, guilt clawing up my throat, ripping me apart. “I hadn’t slept with him after you. Not once. But we’d been together a month before that night… and I lied.”
The confession spills like broken glass, ready to cut through us both.
“I lied about the timing. Lied about that night. About… everything.”
Dante doesn’t move, and I can’t breathe.
“I was scared,” I sob. “Scared for Aria and myself. I didn’t know how to protect my daughter and tell the truth at the same time.”
The silence cracks like a gunshot between us.
“And me?” Dante asks with a disappointing sigh, at last. “What about my right to know my own child?”
“Like I said, you were gone!” I cry out.
“You disappeared without a word, just like before! I had no idea where you were, if you were coming back, if you even wanted—” I choke on the words.
“And then more time passed, and the lie got bigger, and I didn’t know how to fix it without putting Aria in danger. ”
My hands are shaking uncontrollably now. “Every time I thought about telling the truth, I’d get another threatening call from Gino. Another message. Another reminder that he was watching. And I just... I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t.”
I look up at him, pleading. “I was trying to protect her. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”
His stare stays locked on mine, a hundred emotions swimming under the surface, but none of them rise. None of them show.
Finally, his voice scrapes the quiet clean apart.
“You should’ve trusted me.”
It’s not a question.
It’s a verdict.
My heart caves in on itself as he steps back, the distance between us stretching wide and unforgiving.
He turns, hand on the doorknob.
“Dante—” I croak, but the words disintegrate in my throat.
The door slams behind him, the sound splitting the night apart, and I crumble in the wreckage of everything I’ve tried to keep buried.