CHAPTER ONE #3
The sound of the bullet hitting her was sickening—a wet thud that stole the breath from Dante's lungs. The physical impact lifted her petite body off her feet, throwing her backward into Dante’s arms. They crashed to the floor, sliding on the shattered glass and spilled wine.
Chaos reigned around them, the Fazzari men returning fire, the roar of death echoing off the walls, but for Dante, the world went terrifyingly silent.
"Flora," Dante choked out, his hands scrambling over her dress. It was supposed to be a cream-colored silk dress. It was already turning a horrific, blooming crimson.
She was gasping, her warm brown eyes wide with shock. She looked up at him, her lips parting as she tried to pull in air.
"Flora, look at me, look at me," Dante begged, his voice cracking, tearing from his throat in a ragged sob.
The untouchable Don, the ruthless boss, was gone, replaced by a terrified boy holding his entire world as it bled out onto the floorboards.
He pressed his large hands desperately against her chest, trying to hold the blood in, trying to force the life back into her.
Her small, bloodstained hands reached up, trembling violently. She found his face, her cold fingertips tracing his cheekbone just as they had in the kitchen that morning.
She didn't speak. She didn't have the breath. But as she looked at him, the fear in her eyes faded, replaced by that endless, boundless gentleness. She tried to smile for him. She wanted to comfort him, even as she died.
Then, the light in her warm brown eyes extinguished.
Her hand slipped from his face, falling limply against the glass-strewn floor.
"Flora?" Dante whispered. He shook her gently. "Flora. No. No, no, no, amore mio. Wake up."
Somewhere in the background, Gabriella Angelini let out a scream that would haunt Dante’s nightmares for the rest of his life.
But Dante didn't scream. As he knelt there, covered in the blood of his childhood sweetheart, holding the only pure thing he had ever known, Dante Fazzari died.
The man who stood up from that floor was a monster.
In the weeks that followed, Dante’s grief had mutated into a devastating, apocalyptic rage.
He didn't just hunt down the rival family that had ordered the hit; he eradicated them.
He killed their soldiers, their bosses, their financiers.
He burned their businesses to the ground.
He found Marco, the spy who had betrayed them, and kept him alive in a soundproof basement for ten agonizing days before finally letting him die.
Dante waged a war so brutal, so ruthlessly efficient, that the entire European underworld bowed to him, out of terror.
He ascended to the pinnacle of power, the undisputed Don. He took everything. But the price of that throne was his humanity. His heart, once softened by the humming of a petite girl with rosy cheeks, had calcified into stone.
Present Day.
"Dante?"
The soft voice pulled him out of the abyss. Dante blinked, the hazy memory of blood and gunfire dissolving back into the warm light of the dining room.
Gabriella Angelini was looking at him from across the table. Her eyes were filled with tears, her hand resting near the basket of rosemary focaccia. She knew where his mind had gone. They all did. The silence in the room was suffocating.
Dante slowly unclenched his jaw. He looked at his hands, expecting to see them coated in her blood, but they were perfectly clean, resting elegantly on the white linen tablecloth.
He forced his lips to curve upwards. He deployed the charm, the mask he wore to interact with the living.
"Forgive me, Gabriella," Dante said smoothly, his voice betraying nothing. He reached out and took a piece of the bread. "I was just admiring the aroma. It smells wonderful. Thank you."
The tension in the room exhaled in a collective sigh. Aunt Nettie took a long sip of her wine. Fina looked down at her plate, her tongue silenced by the tragedy that still gripped her brother's throat.
Dante chewed the bread. It tasted like ash.
For the rest of the evening, Dante played the part flawlessly. He laughed at Giancarlo’s stories, he poured wine for his mother, he lightly teased Isabella's terrified husband to make him feel included. He was the perfect, charming, wealthy son.
But when the dinner finally ended, and the long procession of goodbyes and cheek-kisses concluded, Dante stepped out of the oak doors of the estate and into the cool, dark Roman night.
His driver was waiting by the sleek, black armored sedan, holding the door open.
"Back to the city, Don Fazzari?" the driver asked respectfully.
Dante stood on the gravel driveway, looking up at the sky. He was thirty-eight years old. He possessed more money, power, and fear than any man in the hemisphere. He could snap his fingers and make empires crumble.
But as the cool wind brushed against his cheek, carrying the faint scent of earth and herbs from his mother’s garden, he felt the hollow, cavernous void inside his chest. He was a king alone, ruling over an empire of ghosts.
"Yes," Dante said, his voice as cold and empty as the pale green of his eyes. "Take me back to the city."