Chapter 35
EMBERLINE
Nico’s confession echoed through me.
Followed by Dante’s wounded roar, full of pain and betrayal, more than rage.
Nico’s eyes were locked with mine when he admitted, “More than I’ve ever loved anyone.” And that admission—the truth I already knew, somewhere deep down inside me—stopped me cold.
And that truth was the reason I could never hurt him, even with his knife pressed to my throat, not even knowing I was about to die by his hand—because I loved him back.
Frozen in the threshold, the book clutched uselessly against my chest, I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. I’d only come to break the tension that had been building every day, the three of us locked in here together with no way out.
Nico never broke our stare. “I think I’ve loved you since that night on the boat before your wedding, when you told me you couldn’t swim. You were so angry and so proud, and so sure you could take down the entire Dominico family all by yourself. I’d never met anyone as determined. Or as brave.”
I let out a little sound, and Dante lunged, nothing in his face but blind rage.
“Stop.” My voice cracked like a whip through the garden.
I stepped through the doorway as Dante slammed into Nico, power driving him into the wall. Brick crumbled. Ivy tore loose. Nico barely had time to raise his hands before Dante drew back his fist, face twisted in jealousy and unspent violence.
“Dante.” I shoved between them, palm braced against my husband’s chest. “Enough.” For a heartbeat, I thought he wouldn’t stop.
The rage in his eyes was terrifying—raw and feral, like something the Fossa had carved too deep to ever fully retract. His breath came hard and fast, and beneath my hands I could feel the rage boiling, the barely leashed need to destroy whatever stood in front of him.
Including Nico.
Including me.
“Get out of the way,” Dante growled, looking over my head at Nico as if he’d never seen him before.
“No.” I forced my voice to stay steady even as my pulse raced out of control. “You don’t get to hurt him because he told the truth.”
Nico didn’t move. Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t even flinch.
“Go back inside, Emberline,” he said quietly behind me. “I’ll leave. Leave and never come back. I shouldn’t…” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have come back here after what I did to you.”
“You’re not leaving,” I snapped without turning. “None of us are leaving. We’re grown-ass adults, and we can figure this out between the three of us.”
I pressed harder against Dante’s chest, grounding him the only way I knew how.
“You will not tear each other apart while Giovanni is still breathing. We are the only thing that stands against him and innocent people getting hurt. Our personal conflicts don’t matter, not in the face of what he’s planning to do. ”
That finally did it.
Dante’s focus snapped to me, and I saw flames flickering in the depths of his blue eyes. Then he blinked, and they were gone. His hands flexed at his sides, knuckles white, as if it took every bit of his self-control not to lunge at Nico.
“This isn’t the time for a feud,” I said, softer now but no less firm. “You both know that.”
I was acutely aware of everything—Dante’s heated skin beneath my palms, Nico’s ragged breathing at my back, the way the garden felt suddenly too small to contain all of this brewing violence.
Then Dante took a step back.
Just one, and it felt like a victory and a failure all at once.
I exhaled slowly, putting myself fully between them. “We cannot be fighting amongst ourselves,” I met both their gazes in turn. “Not if we want to survive what’s coming.”
Dante’s jaw was clenched so tightly, I thought his teeth might crack. He didn’t answer.
So, I kept going.
“You think Giovanni wouldn’t exploit this?” I waved a hand between us. “You think he wouldn’t leverage the cracks forming between the only people standing in his way? He would use this to tear us apart, and I refuse to let that happen.”
I turned to Nico then, and gods help me, my heart lurched in my chest.
Because he was looking at me—not possessively, not hungrily—but with an expression so open and unguarded, my stomach flipped over. Love.
The word echoed in my mind, absurd and terrifying and very real.
Internally, I was absolutely losing it.
Nico loved me.
And gods help me… I loved him back. I forced myself to breathe.
“And you,” I said, softer now. “You don’t get to pretend this is harmless. Dropping a bomb like that right now? What were you thinking, Nico?”
“I didn’t say it to provoke him.” Nico’s voice was low. “I said it because he asked, and I’ve been bottling up the truth for too long.”
Dante growled.
“Don’t.” I met Dante’s burning gaze without flinching. “Stop looking at him like you want to pound him into the ground.”
“And I will,” he said flatly. “In fact, go back inside, cara moglie, and let us settle this between ourselves.”
There was such an ugly curl to his lip when he called me dear wife, I swallowed, pulse jumping. This was a disaster I didn’t know how to fix, because words… words weren’t enough to heal the betrayal on Dante’s face or take away the misery on Nico’s.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I looked between them. “You don’t get to hurt Nico because you don’t like what he said or because you’re jealous. That is not the male I married, and it certainly isn’t the male I fell in love with.”
My husband’s eyes flicked away for half a second. Barely noticeable.
I seized the opportunity.
“If it wasn’t for Nico, I would be dead. The day of the explosion, I couldn’t dematerialize; I was too scared. Nico dragged me out of that house. He used his own body to shield me from the blast.”
Dante’s shoulders stiffened.
“And what he said is true. I didn’t want to…” I swallowed. “When they took you, I didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to live. He made me do both. So, if I mean anything to you at all, you should be thanking him.”
He had the decency to look ashamed, some of the savage intensity seeping out of his stance as that truth settled heavy between us.
“You don’t get to rewrite the past,” I continued.
“Whatever you’re feeling—jealousy, fear, rage—you don’t get to turn that into violence to make yourself feel better.
Nico was your friend, long before I came into the picture, and I’ll tell you something else.
If this alliance cracks apart because we love each other, then we deserve to be turned into thralls. ”
I laughed bitterly. “At least we can still feel something. At least we’re capable of something other than hate. We are the only thing standing in my uncle’s way right now. If we fall apart, Giovanni wins, without lifting a finger.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
I stood there, heart hammering, mind spinning, trying very hard not to think about the fact that one man loved me and the other looked like he might kill him over it.
Trying very hard not to wonder what that meant for me.
Finally, Nico stepped back, creating space. Deliberate. Respectful.
“This isn’t a challenge,” he told Dante. “And it isn’t a betrayal. It was just the truth, and I’m glad it’s out in the open. I’m still on your side, and I’m still your friend, even if you don’t believe that.”
When Dante didn’t respond, I reached for his hand.
His fingers were shaking.
“We will sort this out,” I said quietly. “But not like this. Not with fists and blood and words that can’t be taken back. Not in ways that will hurt us all.”
Slowly—so slowly, it felt like watching a storm retreat—Dante nodded.
But even as the immediate danger passed, I knew the truth.
Everything between us had shifted.
And whatever we were becoming was far more complicated—and far more fragile—than it had been an hour ago.