"I can and I do." His eyes are hard now, the vulnerable man from moments ago replaced by the pakhan who makes impossible choices. "Someone has to pay for the crime. I can keep you safe, but your father has to pay. They will come for both of you. I’m playing a dangerous game, Hannah. Let me handle this.”
"You're insane." I'm shaking now, fury and fear and heartbreak all tangled together. "You're actually insane if you think I'd want to live knowing my father died because of me."
"You'd learn to live with it." His voice is flat, final. "People learn to live with worse."
I stare at him, this man I've been falling in love with, and see the monster everyone warns about. The man that decides who lives and dies based on his own personal hierarchy of importance.
"I was wrong about you," I whisper.
Something flickers in his expression—hurt, maybe. "Hannah?—"
"I thought you were two different people. The brutal mob boss and the loving father. But you're not.” I shake my head, scolding myself for buying into the fantasy I spun in my mind. "You're just one person. And that person is someone I can't love."
He leans down, capturing my face in his hands, and kisses me. It's not gentle or asking permission—it's claiming, desperate, like he's trying to prove something to both of us.
"It's going to be okay," he says against my lips. "I'll take care of you. I'll fix this."
"No." I pull away, my voice hard. "I don't want you to take care of me. I don't want to be in your life. I want to go home. To my real home. My apartment, my job, my life. I want my family—not yours."
I watch him absorb my declaration. He climbs out of my bed and steps away. That cold mask I’m used to seeing is back in place.
I hate that I hurt him, but I hate that he’s going to kill my father. I can’t find true evidence, but I’ve provided enough reasonable doubt.
He’s just not going to listen.
“If you kill my father, I will never forgive you.”
22
DANTE
Iwalk to the door and turn back to look at her. I wish I could tell her everything will be fine, but I can't. The hit has already been ordered.
Richard Quinn will die.
I didn't want to agree to it. At the meeting in New York, I argued for more time, presented Hannah's findings about the inconsistencies in the evidence. But the elders were unmoved. Radimir had been in their ears for weeks, painting me as weak, compromised, unable to enforce our own laws.
"Two weeks," Yuri had said. "If Quinn cannot produce the money or proof of his innocence, the sentence is death. This is not negotiable, Dante."
Two weeks passed three days ago. I've been stalling, making excuses, buying hours when I have no more days left to give.
The hit has already been ordered. My only choice now is whether I'm the one to carry it out—or whether I let someone else do it and lose what little control I have left.
I managed to get them to allow me to keep her without fear of a hit being put on her. She has no idea. I don’t want her to know.
“I’ll speak with the doctor,” I say.
“Fuck you! I hate you! I don’t want to go to your home. I’ve changed my mind. I never want to go back there. I refuse. I’ll tell the doctor you’re keeping me as a hostage.”
I shake my head. “And that just seals your father’s fate.”
She shoots me a glare that would make a weaker man wither. "I refuse to let our child grow up with a violent father. You will never be around him.”
I’m about to walk out when I replay what she just said.
The words don't register at first. I hear them, but my brain can't process them, can't fit them into any framework that makes sense. Our child. Violent father. The pieces are there, but they won't connect.
I turn slowly, my hand still on the door handle. "What did you say?"
