Dante
Upon termination of bond, controlling interest transfers to Vincenzo Hale.
She looked at him. “What do you mean by done?”
“Here,” he added. “We’re done here.”
“We haven’t gone through everything,” she said.
“We don’t need to go through everything,” he said.
Her brow furrowed. “There could be more.”
“There will be more,” he said.
“Then—”
“We take it with us,” he said.
She stared at him. “You can do that?”
“It belongs to you,” he reminded.
“That hasn’t stopped anyone else from taking things that belong to me.”
Dante went still because it was a fair point. He closed the metal box. “Then this time, we take it first.”
Her mouth curved slightly, and he reached for the flash drive. Elena caught his wrist. “Wait.”
Dante looked at her hand and then looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know what’s on that,” she said.
“Right,” he said.
“What if opening it alerts Hale?” she asked.
Dante paused because that was a damn good question. “You’re learning.”
She sighed. “Please stop sounding proud when I become more paranoid.” She released his wrist, and Dante pocketed the flash drive without plugging it into anything.
“Marco can handle it offline,” he offered.
“I agree,” she said.
He looked at her. “You just agreed with me twice in ten minutes.”
“Don’t make it weird,” she teased.
“Too late.” Elena almost smiled, and then her gaze dropped to the letter from her father, and her smile disappeared. Dante watched her carefully. “You want a minute?”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Are you offering me privacy?”
“Don’t get used to it,” he said.
She gave him a look and then shook her head. “No. I want to get out of here.”
“Good,” he breathed. Dante packed the letter with the rest of the papers.
Elena touched his hand. “This stays with me.” Dante looked down at her father’s letter and hesitated before handing it over without argument. Elena took it and folded it carefully before slipping it inside her purse. “Thank you.”
He nodded, and they left the vault five minutes later. Luca and Isabella were waiting upstairs. One look at Dante’s face and Luca stopped asking questions. “Let’s get to the car,” he ordered. That worked for him because Dante wasn’t discussing any of this in a lobby.
The SUV doors shut, and Luca immediately turned to look at Dante and Elena in the backseat. “What did you find?” Dante handed him the document, and Luca read it. His face went cold.
Isabella leaned over. “What is it?”
Elena answered her cousin. “If I die, Hale gets control of Crimson Holdings.”
Isabella went pale. “What?”
“Apparently, I’m worth more dead than alive.”
Dante looked at her. “Don’t.”
She frowned. “Don’t what?”
“Say it like that,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s true.”
“You’re worth more than anything in those fucking papers,” he insisted. Dante became aware of everyone looking at him. Luca slowly turned his head toward the window and Isabella’s mouth curved. Elena just stared at him, and Dante swore under his breath. “What?” he growled.
“Nothing,” Luca said, smirking.
“If you have something to say, just say it,” Dante insisted.
“I value my life too much to do that,” Luca said. Elena’s expression softened, and Dante looked away before he did something stupid like kiss her in front of everyone.
Luca returned the document. “So Hale kills Elena and gets controlling interest.”
“Yes,” Dante breathed.
“That explains the attacks,” Luca said.
“Most of them,” Dante agreed.
Isabella frowned. “Most of them?”
Dante leaned forward. “The body numbers don’t fit.”
Elena looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Hale needs you dead. He doesn’t need a war between the Camorras and Romanos,” Dante explained.
“Unless the war makes it easier to kill Elena,” Luca said.
“Exactly.” Dante looked at him. “If both families are fighting with each other, protection around Elena weakens.”
Isabella’s expression hardened. “And we blame each other while Hale disappears with the money.”
“Yes,” Dante said.
Elena stared at the floor. “So everyone was supposed to destroy each other for him.”
Dante’s gaze stayed on her. “That was the plan.”
“Was?” He smiled at her. “Hale doesn’t know we have the stuff from your father’s vault.”
She looked at him. “You think that gives us an advantage.”
“It does give us the advantage,” Dante insisted.
“How?” she asked.
Dante looked at Luca. He knew that Luca understood before he spoke. “We make him think Elena still doesn’t know what the bond clause means.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “You want to use me as bait.”
“No,” Dante said immediately.
Luca said, “Yes.”
Dante turned on him. “Absolutely fucking not.”
Luca held up a hand. “We don’t put her in danger.”
“She already is in danger,” Dante challenged.
Elena crossed her arms over her chest. “Can the two of you stop discussing me like I’m not sitting here?”
“No,” Dante said.
“Yes,” Luca said. Dante glared at him.
Isabella sighed. “I see marriage has done nothing to improve your communication skills.” Luca gave his wife a look, but she ignored it.
Elena leaned forward. “What would me being bait look like?”
Dante answered before Luca could. “Nothing, because you aren’t doing it.”
“Dante,” she breathed. “You told me I get to choose.”
“I was clearly emotional and not thinking straight,” he said. She stared at him.
Luca covered a laugh with a cough, and Dante pointed at him. “Don’t.”
Elena’s mouth twitched. “If Hale thinks I’m still confused, he might call again.”
“He will call again,” Luca said.
Dante didn’t like that either. “Why would he call her?”
“Because he needs control.” Luca tapped the document. “He's spent twenty-seven years controlling the information around Elena. Now she’s asking questions. That scares him.”
Elena leaned back. “So we let him think I’m scared too.”
“No,” Dante said.
She ignored him. “What if I tell him I found the vault?”
Luca shook his head. “That would be too much.”
“Then what should I say?” she asked.
Dante already knew, and he hated knowing because it would only put Elena in danger. “You tell him you want out.” Elena looked at him, and he continued reluctantly. “You tell Hale the Camorras lied to you. You tell him you believe he’s the only person who can explain what your father did.”
“And then what?” she asked.
“We let him choose the meeting location,” Dante said. Elena nodded slowly, and Dante immediately regretted saying any of it. “No, never mind. It’s a horrible idea,” he said.
She stared at him. “You just came up with the plan.”
“I changed my mind,” he said.
“Because?” she asked.
“Because I hate it. It’s a horrible plan,” he mumbled.
“That isn’t a good reason not to follow through with it,” she said.
“It is to me.”
Elena held his gaze. “We’re ending this,” she insisted.
Dante’s chest tightened. “You don’t know what ending it might cost us.”
“No.” Her expression changed. “But I know what waiting costs us.” That shut him up. She had spent two years waiting for answers about her father. Twenty-seven years living inside something she never knew existed. He couldn’t ask her to wait anymore.
Dante exhaled. “Fine.”
Luca looked surprised, and Elena looked even more surprised. “Fine?” she asked.
“You can make the call,” he said.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes.” Dante leaned closer. “But you do exactly what we agree to.”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “Within reason.”
“No,” he breathed. “You’ll do exactly what we agree to.”
She considered it, and he could tell when she resigned herself to his demands. “Fine.”
For a moment, tension loosened. Finally, he pointed at her, and then Dante looked at Luca. “We do this once.”
“One shot,” Luca agreed.
“If anything feels wrong, we pull her,” he ordered.
“Agreed,” Luca said.
Dante looked at Elena. “No arguing when it happens.”
She opened her mouth, and he raised an eyebrow, getting ready for her argument. “Fine.” He considered her agreement to be progress, but he knew Elena well enough now to know that she was always going to give him a fight.
Marco had the house locked down by the time they returned. Three laptops covered Luca’s dining table. A signal jammer Dante didn’t ask about allowed Marco to look up everything that they needed to know.
“You brought presents,” he said. Dante placed the flash drive on the table.
“Offline only,” Dante ordered.
Marco’s expression sharpened. “You act like this is my first rodeo,” he mumbled, causing Dante to roll his eyes.
“Anything from Hale?” Luca asked.
“No,” Marco said.
“Good,” Dante said.
Marco held up another sheet of paper. “But I traced the shell company that paid the men who hit the safehouse.”
Dante stopped. “And what did you find?”
“Crimson Holdings subsidiary,” Marco said.
Elena looked sick. “So technically my company paid the men trying to kill me.”
Marco grimaced. “Technically.”
Dante muttered, “I hate that word—technically.”
“Same,” Marco said, inserting the flash drive into an isolated computer. Everyone waited, and it felt as though the room was holding its collective breath. A password prompt appeared, and Marco sighed. “Encrypted,” he said.
“Can you break it?” Elena asked.
Marco looked insulted. “Again, it’s not my first rodeo.”
“How long will it take?” Luca asked.
“Depends on how paranoid your father was,” Marco said.
Dante glanced at Elena. “Very paranoid,” she breathed.
“Then give me a little while,” he said. They left him to work. Dante followed Elena into the kitchen. She reached for water, and he noticed that her hands were shaking again. He took the glass from her before she dropped it.
“I can hold a glass,” she insisted.
“I know,” he whispered.
“Then why did you just take it from me?” she asked.
“Because I wanted to help,” he said. That stopped her argument. Dante filled the glass and handed it back to her. She drank as he watched her. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Elena.
“You’re hovering,” she grumbled.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am.”
“You know most people find that annoying,” she warned.
“I’m not most people,” he said.
“No argument there.” She set the glass down. “Dante.” He knew that tone—she was going to be serious.
“What?” he asked.