22. Cassie
CASSIE
A ct normal.
The words loop in my skull like some deranged nursery rhyme while I butter toast for Aria with a smile so wide my cheeks hurt. My hands are shaking so bad that the knife clatters against the plate, and the butter lands on the counter instead of the bread.
Great. Nailed it. Totally normal, Cassie. Way to not scare the kid.
“Mommy, you’re being weird.”
Her little voice slices through my panic spiral, and I plaster on the grin again. “Weird? Me? Gee, thanks. You know what Dr. Seuss said? You have to be odd to be number one!”
Might as well distract her with a lesson while I can. I ruffle her curls like I’m not one wrong move away from projectile vomiting all over the breakfast table.
I didn’t sleep last night. Not a wink. Just stared at the ceiling because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dante’s disappointed face.
God, he’d looked at me like I was a stranger who stole from him. And he’s right. I did. God, what have I done?
But that doesn’t make me any less accepting of the situation at hand. In fact, the guilt grows tendrils and turns into a perpetual state of terror.
Dante’s upstairs. Pacing. Or plotting. Or—I don’t know—sharpening his knives. Whatever men like him do after finding out they’ve had a child for three years, and said child and her mother have been living under his roof, acting like they’re just guests in his life.
What’s Dante going to do? That question loops through my brain on repeat. And what if Gino had found out I’d lied about something this massive? Goodbye bruises. Hello, something worse, thoughts of which make my skin crawl.
But Dante isn’t Gino.
He’s worse, in a way. While Gino’s rage was predictable, Dante’s fury is an earthquake. The kind that reshapes landscapes without warning.
My legs practically vibrate with the need to bolt. Every instinct screams. Run . Pack a bag. Grab Aria. Burn the house down for good measure.
Aria chatters on now about some purple dragons she dreamt about, while I’m still thinking we should pack up and leave when I feel it.
That shift in the air that only happens when he enters a room. Like gravity suddenly remembers it exists.
Dante.
I freeze halfway to pouring juice. He appears in the doorway, broad shoulders filling it like some storm warning. His face… Blank. I hate blank.
I’d rather he yell. Rage. Smash the coffee table with those hands. But that eerie calm? The silence? Way, way worse.
“Dante!” Aria squeals, lighting up like a Christmas tree.
My breath catches, chest tightening as I watch him with her. Will he treat her differently now? Will he let his anger at me spill over to her?
“Hey, nugget.”
He doesn’t look at me. He looks at her. And God help me, my stupid heart trips over itself watching him watch her. The hard lines of his face soften. His eyes crinkle just slightly when Aria shoves half a toast in her mouth and grins up at him, crumbs everywhere.
He crosses the room and crouches beside her chair like it’s nothing. Like we’re not Cuba and America. “You brushing your teeth after that, little one?” His voice—Jesus, his voice—low, raspy, lethal, somehow gentle.
Aria nods, giggling. “Mommy says I get cavities if I don’t.”
He shoots me a look. It’s sharp. It’s unreadable. It cuts me open in eight different ways.
My throat’s dry as sandpaper. “She listens sometimes.”
I barely hear my own voice over the blood rushing in my ears.
Dante scoops Aria into his arms like she weighs nothing. She giggles, wrapping those tiny arms around his neck, so damn trusting. So unaware her whole world’s teetering on the edge of a cliff called Mommy’s Bad Decisions.
“Want breakfast?” I ask, trying so hard for normal that it physically hurts.
“Sure,” he says, not looking at me. “Coffee would be great.”
I pour him a mug and hand it over. Our fingers brush, and I feel it like an electric shock. He takes it without meeting my eyes.
The rest of breakfast unfolds in this strange parallel universe where we’re playing house, pretending things aren’t irrevocably shattered between us. Dante asks Aria about her dragons. She shows him how she can stack her toast into a “jelly sandwich tower.”
They laugh.
I stand there feeling like a ghost in my own life.
When Aria runs off to find her crayons, the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
“We need to talk,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
“Later.” Just one word, hard as stone. And then, he walks out.
I spend the morning in a fog, going through the motions, all while my mind races through worst-case scenarios.
Will he take her from me? Fight for custody? Make me pay for every day I kept her from him?
By noon, panic’s crawling under my skin like fire ants. I can’t stay here, waiting for the guillotine to drop. I need to go. I need space to figure out what the hell happens next.
After lunch, I clean up and then go to Aria’s room to put her down for her nap. Maybe when she’s asleep, I can start packing so she doesn’t ask too many questions. Doesn’t throw a tantrum and ask for attention. I know the kid’s gotten attached.
My heart’s pounding so hard I can barely breathe. This isn’t right to go without a goodbye. I know it isn’t. But fear’s a powerful motivator, and right now? I’m drowning in it.
I head down the hall to her room, and what I see stops me dead in the doorway.
There he is.
Six feet of impossible, unreadable man, stretched out on her bed like nothing happened. Aria’s curled against his side, her head resting on his arm, eyes wide as she listens to him read.
“‘I don’t need a prince,’ said the princess. “I just need courage and a really good sword,” Dante reads, his voice dropping to a growl for the dragon’s parts.
Aria giggles, pointing at the illustrations.
I can’t move.
I just… watch them.
My chest cracks wide open, and all that guilt? It drowns me. If this was what he would’ve been from the start… if I’d told him the truth… What would our life have looked like?
Tears burn behind my eyes. I must make some sound, because Dante looks up, catches me watching. His expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in his eyes—a flicker of... something. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But maybe understanding.
I back away, not wanting to interrupt. Not wanting to taint this moment with my presence.
An hour later, I’m in the kitchen, mindlessly wiping down counters, when I hear Dante’s footsteps behind me.
“She’s asleep,” he says quietly.
“Thank you,” I say, voice low, raw. “For being… kind. To her.”
“She’s my daughter.” Three words, simple and devastating. “I would never take our shit out on her.”
We sit in silence by the fireplace after that. No yelling. No accusations. Just quiet. Heavy.
The flames crackle. My chest aches with everything unsaid.
Then his phone buzzes.
I shouldn’t look. I know I shouldn’t. But I do.
One glance at the screen, and my blood freezes colder than the mountain wind outside.
A text: Hide and Seek.
That’s it.
Three words.
But somehow, they make my heart race. Payback’s already started. And I’m not sure who’s hunting who.