8. Dante
DANTE
Five years later
T he ceiling above the dancefloor pulses in time with the bass, an endless kaleidoscope of electric pink and liquid blue that bathes the room in half-light and sin.
From the upper floor, the crowd below looks like a tide of movement and mouths, all gilded skin and lacquered eyes, bodies pressed close in the hope that proximity might become invitation.
I lean back in the velvet-lined booth and let the world blur for a moment.
The liquor in my glass is aged, expensive, and probably wasted on the girl currently tracing her nail up the inside of my thigh as if she thinks she’s the first to think of it.
La Notte Alta is where Nuova Speranza comes to forget itself.
No politics here, no deals, no bloodstained ledgers or whispered warnings behind closed doors.
Just decadence, carefully curated and paid for in full.
The walls glimmer with crushed velvet, the chandeliers are low enough to remind you that you are meant to look beautiful but not important, and the staff are trained to pretend they don't know your name, even when they do.
This is not a club for desperate men.
This is a club for those of us who have already won.
I let my gaze wander lazily across the room, past the curved bar with its backlit shelves, past the suspended glass walkway that no one ever uses but everyone notices.
Two women blow kisses at me from a low corner booth.
One of them licks the rim of her glass like a promise.
I raise mine in return, not quite smiling.
They are both wearing the kind of dresses that look like bandages, all stretch and shimmer and very little fabric.
Pretty, in the way sugar is pretty—fine for the moment, but easily forgotten.
I’m surrounded, of course.
There’s always a collection.
Tonight, there’s a singer from Milan who thinks she’s famous enough not to beg for attention, a blonde heiress with gold-dusted collarbones, and a diplomat’s niece who smells like roses and lies.
They laugh at the right times, pretend to be shocked when I say the things I always say, their hands lingering on my wrists, my shoulder, the small triangle of skin just beneath my collar.
I let them.
Why not?
The music shifts, a deeper beat taking over, and the room seems to exhale in rhythm.
I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and let it wash over me—the rhythm, the heat, the press of want without consequence.
This is what I was built for.
Not strategy, not war, not the kingdom of shadows Luca lords over like some self-appointed monarch.
Let my brothers drown in duty.
Let them bury themselves in logistics and legacy and all the dull little tasks of empire.
I have never needed that weight to feel powerful.
I exist in the margins, in the silences between the moves they make, untouchable because I am not chained to anything.
They used to call me reckless.
Now they just look the other way when I walk into a room and people start to forget what they came for.
It’s a kind of magic.
Or maybe just old money, sharp suits, and the kind of confidence that only comes from never being told no.
A flashbulb goes off somewhere, catching me mid-laugh, my hand wrapped loosely around the throat of a green bottle I didn’t bother to read the label on.
I blink against the light and gesture lazily for another round.
My bottle girl—a sin in satin and diamonds—nods and disappears.
When she returns, I take the drink directly from the tray, fingers brushing hers with the kind of practiced indifference that says I’ve already forgotten her name.
The girl beside me shifts, pressing closer.
She’s saying something about Ibiza, about the summer, about how she knows the owner of a yacht.
I nod at the right times, even lean in, but my attention’s already sliding elsewhere.
It’s not that she’s boring.
It’s just that she’s not Gianna.
Not that I think about her.
Not really.
Five years, and still her name tastes like unfinished business on my tongue.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming.
The way she vanished after those questions about whether I was ready for fatherhood.
The perfect symmetry of her silence.
One day, she’s leaning across a boardroom table with that tight little smirk and a dress that made me want to ruin her in twelve different languages, and the next, she’s gone.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Of course I know where she is.
Did she really think I wouldn’t?
Valentina might have signed the papers, but she doesn't do anything that permanent unless she has help.
Gianna made it look like it was all some clean-cut assignment, a nice little overseas post to make herself useful.
But she chose to go.
She asked for it.
And that’s what pisses me off.
That she wanted to leave.
That she didn’t even try to lie to my face.
Just slipped out the back door like I was something to be escaped.
I didn’t chase her.
That would have looked like caring.
And caring is not something I do.
She chose her life, even though I clearly told her what I was, and what I wasn’t.
Maybe it was all that talk, the undercurrent in her voice when she asked if I ever wanted more.
The question I dodged without subtlety.
I told her the truth.
I’m not built for permanence.
I’m not built for bedtime stories and strollers and matching linen.
I am built for pleasure and ruin, for quick nights and cleaner exits.
So, if she expected me to look at her and see fatherhood, the mistake was hers.
But she should’ve told me she was leaving.
She owed me that.
The blonde heiress shifts again, her palm smoothing across my chest like it’s her territory now.
I catch her wrist gently and pull it away, not unkind but not interested.
She blinks up at me, surprised.
I smile.
It never reaches my eyes.
I stand, straightening my jacket, brushing invisible dust from my sleeve.
The occupants of the booth murmur disappointment behind me, but I don’t look back.
I move through the club like I own it, because I do, or at least my name does.
Every bouncer steps aside, every staff member nods, every woman watches.
I make my way toward the back, toward the private staircase that leads to the mezzanine, where the real deals happen.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight, I just need quiet.
Upstairs, the music dulls to a hum behind the soundproof glass.
I pour myself another drink, neat this time.
I sink into the leather chair and let the city flicker beneath me.
Neon and smoke, movement and money.
All of it mine, none of it enough.
I lift the glass to my lips, but don’t drink.
Instead, I picture her again.
Gianna, standing on a balcony in crimson silk, eyes lit with that particular defiance that always made me want to press her against the nearest surface and see how long she could keep pretending I didn’t unravel her.
That mouth.
That mind.
That maddening need to stay three steps ahead of everyone, even me.
Especially me.
She’s gone, but here I am like a lovesick pup, still thinking about her like she’s a ghost I invited in.
The club pulses below, heat rising from the floor like a second heartbeat.
I toss the drink back, fire curling in my throat, and wait for it to burn her out.
The second woman is on my lap now, some dancer from Rome with high cheekbones and a name I didn’t bother remembering.
She’s laughing at something I haven’t said, her perfume clinging to the collar of my shirt like smoke.
One hand drifts across my chest with all the subtlety of a spotlight, and I let her stay there, if only because it keeps the night moving.
The music is louder now, the rhythm soaked in bass and sex, and my pulse moves in time with it, steady and detached.
Then the phone starts buzzing.
I ignore it at first.
Anyone who knows me knows not to interrupt.
This is my time—hours carved out of obligation and wrapped in silk and sin. But the buzzing doesn’t stop.
It hums once, twice, again.
Then comes the call.
I glance at the screen, ready to silence it without a second thought, but the name flashing across it isn’t one I can ignore.
Marco.
I nearly laugh.
Of all the people in the city, my brother is the last man I expect to hear from when I’m buried in nightclub shadows and pressed between women who know better than to expect a morning after.
I let it ring once more, watching the light of the screen flicker against the edge of my glass.
The dancer’s mouth is on my neck now, teeth grazing lightly, but the sound keeps pulling at me.
I tap the screen, slide it open, press the phone to my ear.
"What?" I say, not bothering to hide my irritation.
"I need you to listen," Marco says, his voice edgier than usual, not the carefully composed tone he uses at meetings or the weary condescension he saves for family dinners.
There’s an anger beneath it I don’t like.
"This isn’t about the ports, or the ledger, or that mess in Trieste. It’s personal."
The girl in my lap tries to reclaim my attention, but I lift a finger without even looking at her.
She pauses, pouts.
I push her off gently, not unkind, just finished.
My gaze settles on the mirrored wall opposite, and I stare at myself as I speak.
"You called me during a Friday night for something personal?" I say, voice dry, eyes hard. "Let me guess. Luca’s decided I need a fiancée. Or one of you managed to get shot without dying properly."
"It’s about Gianna Rossi."
The name slides through the line and cuts through me faster than any knife could.
I straighten, not enough to be noticed by the crowd still watching me like I’m a god in velvet and liquor, but enough to feel the change coil tight behind my ribs.
My mouth goes still.
My hand curls around the edge of the table.
"You’re going to repeat that," I say slowly. "And you’re going to do it carefully."
Marco doesn’t wait.
He knows better.
"She has daughters. Twin girls."
My heart stops, then starts again with a fury that feels like drowning.
I told her I didn’t do kids.
"Marco," I say, my voice no longer lazy, no longer amused.
"Why the hell are you telling me this?"
He doesn’t answer immediately.
There’s a sound in the background—papers shifting, footsteps pacing.
When he speaks again, there’s nothing soft in it.
"Because they’re yours, Dante."
The room doesn’t move.
The music doesn’t stop.
The club doesn’t collapse in on itself.
But I do.
Somewhere inside, quietly, without blood or noise.
I don’t hear the rest.
I don’t ask how he knows.
I don’t remember how to speak.
All I hear is the echo of a name I haven’t said aloud in five years—and the impossible, irreversible truth that follows it.
She has daughters.
She did not get that abortion.
The girls are mine.