Chapter 12
DANTE
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it in the shower. Water scalding my back, hands braced against tile, her taste still on my tongue.
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it while shaving. The blade steady, even when my pulse isn’t. My father’s face in the mirror, those last eleven years carved into every line.
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it during the morning briefing, while Renzo outlines security concerns I can’t remember five seconds later. Valentino movements at the docks. A shipment rerouted through Baton Rouge. Words that slide off me like rain.
Because all I can think about is how she looked at me after. Soft. Trusting. The look that sent me running.
It can’t happen again.
Forty-seven times today. I’ve been counting.
And none of it matters, because it’s 9:00 a.m. and I’m standing in the kitchen asking Maria what my wife had for breakfast.
“Nothing, Don Santoro.” Maria doesn’t meet my eyes. “She took tea and went to the study. Been there since seven.”
Seven. Two hours without food. Since yesterday.
“She didn’t ask for anything?”
“No, sir. Should I bring her something?”
Yes. Eggs and toast and those beignets Nonna Rosa keeps frozen for special occasions. Whatever will put color back in her cheeks.
Because of me.
“No.” The word comes out too sharp. “Leave her be.”
Maria nods. Disappears into the pantry.
I stand in my own kitchen like a stranger, hands curled around coffee that’s gone cold, and wonder when I lost control of my own goddamn life.
The morning vanishes into paperwork I don’t read. My hand moves across documents while my mind tracks her movements.
She’s still there.
I know because I asked Pietro to confirm the perimeter check covered the east wing, and he mentioned that Mrs. Santoro was working at the desk.
Still. Hasn’t moved.
I asked Gia to check the medical supply inventory. She reported back an hour later: inventory complete, and Cassia looked tired.
“Has she been sleeping, Dante? She looks exhausted.”
I didn’t answer.
I sent Marco on an errand that took him past the study door. He came back with information I didn’t request.
“Your wife’s still in there. Hasn’t looked up once. Pretty focused.”
“You look like hell.”
Renzo’s voice cuts through the haze. We’re in my office, midday sun harsh through the windows, and I’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He drops into the chair across from my desk. Sprawls out like he owns it. “You’ve read that contract six times. Still haven’t signed it.”
The Valentino territorial agreement. Boundaries, terms, provisions I negotiated myself. I don’t remember a damn thing in them.
“Long night.”
“Mhm.” His eyes are flat. Assessing. “The new wife keeping you up?”
My teeth grind. “Drop it.”
“Can’t. Distractions get people killed.” He leans forward, elbows on knees. “Whatever happened, fix it. Or don’t. But get your head right. We’ve got enemies circling, and I need my Don functional.”
He’s not wrong. That’s what makes it worse.
“Anything else?” My voice could freeze water.
Renzo holds my stare for three long seconds. Then shrugs. Stands. Heads for the door.
“Whatever you did, she’s hiding. Might want to handle that before it becomes a problem.”
The door closes behind him.
Cazzo.
Nico appears around four.
He doesn’t knock. Just leans against the frame with that easy posture that makes everyone think he’s harmless. I know better.
“You’re somewhere else today.”
I don’t look up. “I’m working.”
“You’re staring at a shipping manifest like it offended you.” He tilts his head. That slight angle that means he’s reading me. “That’s not like you.”
“Long week.”
“Has it?” He pushes off the frame. Takes three steps into the room. Stops at the distance that’s close enough to be intimate, far enough to retreat.
Nico always knows the geometry of a conversation.
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like the ground shifted. And you’re handling it about as well as you handle everything emotional.”
My jaw locks. I don’t give him the satisfaction of a flinch.
“Nico.”
“I’m not pushing.” He raises both hands. Surrender that isn’t. “Just observing. You’ve asked six different people about her today. You haven’t gone to see her once.”
I look up at last. Meet his stare. “Don’t.”
Understanding flickers across his face. Or recognition. “When you’re ready to talk about it.” He backs toward the door. “I’m around.”
Then he’s gone.
I stare at the door he closed behind him. My hand grips the pen so hard the plastic creaks.
Six people. He counted.
Fuck.
Midnight.
The compound is quiet. Guards at the perimeter, staff in their quarters, my family scattered to their own corners of this sprawling house.
I’m standing in the doorway of my study with a plate of food in my hands, watching my wife work.
She doesn’t know I’m here.
The lamp pools golden light across the desk, catching the shine of her hair where she’s piled it up with a pencil stabbed through the knot. Reading glasses perched on her nose. Papers spread in organized chaos around her.
Seventeen hours. I’ve been counting those too.
Her pen moves across a notebook in quick, precise strokes. Every few seconds she pauses, frowns, makes a frustrated sound that shouldn’t make my ribs ache.
Distance. That’s what this needs.
The coffee cup beside her is empty. Drained hours ago, judging by the ring it’s left on the paper beneath it. Three pens uncapped, two of them dead. She’s been through them all. Her posture has that deep-set curve of someone who hasn’t stood up in a long time.
I walk in instead.
Her head snaps up. The pen stops. Our stares meet across the room and everything I’ve been telling myself crumbles to ash.
She looks hollowed out. Shadows under her eyes, pallor beneath her olive skin.
I did that to her.
And I can’t stay away.
“Dante.”
My name in her mouth. Careful. Guarded. Like she’s not sure which version of me walked through that door.
Neither am I.
I set the plate on the desk. Roast chicken, bread, cheese.
“Eat.”
She stares at the food. Then at me.
“You brought me dinner?”
“You haven’t eaten all day.” I pull the chair around to her side of the desk. Sit close enough that our knees graze. “Eat, Cassia. That’s not a request.”
Her brow furrows. Her focus searches mine, back and forth, looking for the trap. Then her shoulders drop half an inch. Her fingers unclench from the pen.
Dio.
She picks up the bread. Takes a bite. Chews with care, watching me like I might disappear.
“The discrepancies,” I say, because I need a reason to look at the page instead of the movement of her throat when she swallows. “Show me what you found.”
Between bites, she walks me through the pattern. Someone skimming twelve percent off every transaction for at least six months. Shell companies in the Caymans.
A paper trail that goes cold right where it shouldn’t.
Forensic precision that could save an empire or destroy one.
I tell her so.
Her cheeks flush. She deflects like the compliment is a weapon aimed at her.
“Anyone could have found it with enough time.”
“They didn’t. You did.”
She looks away. Tucks hair behind her left ear. That tell I’ve memorized without meaning to.
We work through the numbers together. I pull vendor contracts from the files. She cross-references payment dates. Our shoulders brush when we both lean toward the same document, and that brief contact burns like a brand.
She doesn’t pull away.
Neither do I.
The hours slide by. The grandfather clock marks time we’re both ignoring. She finishes the food, and my grip on my own glass loosens. I didn’t realize I’d been holding it that tight.
Around 3:00 a.m., her voice starts to slow. Her sentences drift. She’s explaining routing numbers when her head dips, catches, dips again.
“Cassia.”
“I’m fine.” But her eyes are half-closed. “The third shell company. If we can trace the original incorporation documents, we might find the source.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Just a few more pages.”
Her head tips sideways. Lands against my shoulder.
I go still. Every muscle locked.
She’s warm. So warm. Her body settles against me like it belongs there. Her breathing evens out. Deepens.
Within seconds, she’s asleep.
I should wake her. Send her to bed. Maintain the distance I swore to keep.
I don’t move.
Her hair smells like jasmine. Floral and soft, a scent that has no place in this world of blood and ledgers. Her glasses have slipped down her nose.
Without thinking, I reach over and remove them. Set them aside. Let my fingers brush her temple.
She makes a quiet sound. Burrows closer.
Cristo.
I sit there with her breath warm against me. Memorizing this.
When the clock strikes four, I know I can’t leave her here.
I stand with care. Slide one arm beneath her knees, the other around her back. Lift her against me.
She weighs nothing. She weighs everything.
Her hand curls into my shirt, fingers tangling in the fabric like she’s holding on even in sleep.
I carry her through the quiet house, past the dark portraits and the shadows that know all our secrets.
Our bedroom. The bed unmade, sheets tangled where she left them this morning.
I lay her down. Her grip on my shirt tightens, then releases. She sighs. Turns her face into the pillow.
The smart move is to go. Close the door and let this be the last time I touch her tonight.
But I’m standing at the edge of the bed, and she’s lying there in the moonlight, and my body doesn’t give a damn what my mind has decided.
I’m hard. Have been since she fell asleep on my shoulder, since her breath ghosted against my neck, since I lifted her and every curve pressed against me.
My cock strains against my slacks, aching.
I want her.
The truth burns through every barrier I’ve built. I want to hear her say my name. I want her underneath me. I want to feel her fall apart with my name on her lips.
My fingers twitch at my sides. I could touch her. Just once. Just her cheek, her hair, the curve of her hip beneath thin fabric.
She shifts in her sleep. The neckline of her dress gaps open, revealing the swell of her breast, the edge of lace beneath.
Cazzo.
My hands curl into fists. The ache is savage now, my cock so hard it hurts. My heartbeat pounds in my wrists, in the rigid length of me that wants nothing more than to sink into her and never come out.
She trusts me. She let me carry her here.
I can’t betray that. Not again.
I make myself step back. Then another step. Then another, until I hit the doorframe and can breathe at last.
She sleeps on, oblivious. Beautiful. Mine in every way except the ones that matter.
It can’t happen again.
But as I stand at the threshold of our bedroom, hard and wanting and more lost than I’ve ever been, I know the truth.
I’m already gone.