“Good.”
“We also found something else in Dante’s study. Another safe, hidden behind the bookshelf. More files, but these are different.”
Alaric’s expression hardens. “Different how?”
“Financial records. Offshore accounts, shell companies, investment portfolios. Looks like he was building his own empire separate from family operations.”
“How much money?” Alaric asks.
“Preliminary estimate? Seventy million, maybe more.”
Seventy million dollars that Dante accumulated through God knows what means, hidden from everyone, including his father.
“That money belongs to his victims,” I say without thinking.
“Legally, it belongs to you,” Benedetto points out. “As his heir.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Kasimira—” Alaric starts.
“I don’t want the money he made by hurting people. Use it for victim compensation, legal fees, whatever it takes to help the women he targeted. But I don’t want a penny of it.”
Alaric and Benedetto exchange a look that carries years of shared understanding.
“You realize what you’re saying?” Alaric asks carefully. “Seventy million dollars is enough to disappear completely. New identity, new life, anywhere in the world you want to go.”
“Is that what you want? For me to disappear?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point. You’re giving me an out. Clean escape, enough money to never look back. So I’m asking, do you want me to take it?”
The silence stretches between us. This is the moment where he could let me go gracefully, where I could walk away from this world and everything that comes with it.
“No,” he says finally. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“Then it’s settled. The money goes to more victim compensation.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Benedetto shakes his head. “Most people would at least think about seventy million dollars.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” Alaric says quietly. “You’re not.”
After Benedetto leaves, Alaric speaks.
“You meant it. About the money.”
“Of course I meant it.”
“Why?”
“Because some things are more important than money. Because those women deserve justice, not just warnings. Because…” I struggle to find the right words. “Because I want to build something good out of all this horror.”
