23. Dante
DANTE
C assie’s curled against me, her breathing shallow where her cheek rests on my chest.
Nothing happened last night. But we talked by the fire until Gino’s name came up. It left her shaking so bad that I brought her upstairs, somewhere warmer, safer.
And when she looked at me with those raw, wrecked eyes, whispering, “I can’t be alone tonight,” every line I’d drawn snapped clean in half.
So I held her. Held her all night with the storm of truth sitting between us like a third body. But last night wasn’t the time to fight. Not when she trembled in my arms, and somehow I felt responsible for the hell she’s been crawling through.
We’ve both made mistakes in our own ways.
Sunlight streams through the window like we’ve got all the time in the world. But one glance at the clock says otherwise.
Fuck. We overslept.
“Cass,” I murmur, my hand sliding to her shoulder, her skin warm under my palm, shirt twisted from restless sleep. “Wake up.”
She stirs, eyes blinking slowly, confusion flashing before recognition—and then wariness. Like she’s waiting for the hammer to drop.
I just give her a quiet smile.
“What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Nine—” She bolts upright, panic flashing sharp across her face. “Aria’s always up by seven. Always.”
Cassie’s scrambling out of bed. “She should’ve come in by now.”
“I know.” I’m right behind her, heart already picking up speed. “She’s probably downstairs. Cereal’s in the cabinet, and maybe Tina’s entertaining her.”
“Tina doesn’t wake up before noon,” Cassie points out, panic sharpening every word.
I don’t disagree. But I don’t say it either.
Some days you just feel it—the wrongness.
Today’s one of those days.
She always shows up. Cracks the door. Climbs into bed like she owns the place. Calls me Dante, but curls in like I’ve always been Dad.
But this morning? Silence.
We move fast down the hall, checking Aria’s room.
Empty.
“Maybe downstairs,” Cassie says, but her voice wobbles. “Maybe with the housekeeper. Or Tina. Maybe Tina?—”
I’m already taking the stairs two at a time, that hum of danger rising like static.
“Aria?” Cassie calls, her voice cracking. “Baby, where are you?”
The kitchen? Empty.
Living room? Clear.
Library? Quiet as a graveyard.
We don’t hear the one sound we need—the small feet, that laugh, her voice.
“Tina?” Cassie’s voice rises, desperate now. “Are you here?”
Silence.
“Fuck,” Cassie turns to me, pale as paper. “She… she didn’t come home last night. Tina went out with that guy from town.”
I’ve got my phone in hand before she finishes, pulling up the security feed while Cassie tears through the house like a woman possessed.
The front door. Aria stepping outside, red ball under her arm, playing in the yard.
Then—
The feed freezes my blood.
Digital time stamp: 8:17 AM .
I’m already moving, locked down, every muscle tight with that cold certainty. Cassie’s breath is sharp and panicked behind me as we tear through the house.
The back door flies open under my palm.
Morning sun hits like a lie.
Everything looks normal. Birds. Trees. Aria’s red ball is by the swing set.
Then I see him. The guard. Face-down in the grass. Blood dried and caked around his head.
I drop to a knee, fingers to his neck. Pulse—weak, but there.
“Oh God,” Cassie whispers behind me. “Is he?—”
“Alive,” I grind out, but the word tastes like ash. I roll him gently, checking the wound. Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. Precise. Clean.
Gino’s not that smart. But someone on his payroll could be.
“Aria,” Cassie breathes, her voice splintering in two. “Dante… where’s Aria?”
The world slows to a crawl. Sound cuts out.
One truth slams through me like a freight train:
She’s gone.
My daughter is gone. Someone took her from our fucking backyard.
Cassie sees it in my face before I say it. Her knees buckle, body crumpling like a puppet with the strings cut.
The scream tearing from her throat? I wouldn’t wish that sound on my worst enemy.
Except maybe Gino.
“No, no, no!” She claws at the grass, stumbles toward the trees like Aria’s hiding there. “ARIA! BABY, WHERE ARE YOU?”
I catch her before she can bolt, arms locking around her. She fights me, wild and thrashing, nails digging into my skin, desperate to get free.
“Let me GO!” She sobs, writhing. “I have to find her! I have to?—”
“Cassie. Stop.” My voice slices through the panic—quiet, absolute, final.
“She’s not here.”
She freezes. Eyes wide, swimming with tears. “You don’t know that. You—” But she sees it. The certainty in my eyes. The hard, unmovable truth.
Her body collapses against mine, the fight draining out like water from a cracked glass.
What replaces it?
Despair.
The kind that hollows you from the inside out.
“No,” she whispers, voice wrecked. “Please, no. Not my baby.”
I keep one arm around her, the other calling my head of security.
“Boss?”
“Aria’s been taken. Don’t ask questions, but that’s my fucking kid,” I tell our head of security. “There was a security breach at the house, and she was taken right off our lawn. Rally the family, now.”
There’s no hesitation on the other end. Just orders being relayed in rapid-fire Russian.
“The team from Chicago’s already been told to get en route,” my guy confirms. “Your cousins will have men at every port, airport, and train station within a hundred-mile radius. No one moves with a child matching her description without us knowing.”
“I want helicopters. I want roadblocks. And I want Gino Esposito found.”
“Already on it, boss. We’ll find him.”
I end the call, already calling my sister.
“Dante? I’m fucking hungover and —”
“Aria’s been taken.” The words scrape raw across my tongue. “I need you at the house. Cassie needs you.”
I hear her sharp inhale, the shocked what the fuck . “I’m on my way. Ten minutes.”
When I hang up, my gaze falls on Cassie. She has tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. “Cassie, look at me.”
She doesn’t move. Just stares, lost in a nightmare no parent should have to face.
“Cassie.” I take her face in my hands, forcing her gaze to mine. “I will find her. I will bring her back.”
Her hands fist my shirt, knuckles white, tears streaming. Her voice cracks like glass when she speaks. “Don’t come back without her…” She chokes, swallows, eyes blazing through the tears. “Or don’t come back at all.”