I’ve seen it countless times before, right before he pulled a trigger. Right before he’d make an enemy realize they’d made the wrong choice and were now paying for it. It used to frighten me then, even when it was never directed at me. Now it terrifies me in a way I don’t have words for because this time, that look is for me.
“You were always good at lies,Tesoro. You lied to my brother every time you came to my bed. You must think I’m a fool to ever believe someone who so easily went behind their fiancé’s back to sleep with another.”
Shame and fury collide inside me. The past rises unbidden in my mind, flashes of stolen moments and whispered promises, the weight of guilt that never stopped pressing down on me even when his hands were on my skin. It all floods in at once.
As if I was the only one who crossed that line. As if I was the one who betrayed my own brother and never dared to care until he was dead.
I snap back before I can stop myself. “Don’t you dare use that against me. You were part of it too. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
A slow smile curves his mouth, but there’s no amusement in it. When he speaks again, his words are flat. “I want your father’s location, Elena. The debt your family owes to mine won’t be erased with tears and denials. Your best chance is cooperation.”
My blood runs cold.
“If you value your life,” he adds, eyes flicking meaningfully toward my abdomen before narrowing back on my face, “and your son’s, you’ll do as I say.”
My instinct is to curl inward and protect the part of my body that grew the pieces of us only I know about. But I force myself to stay still because I refuse to give him that satisfaction or let him see how deeply his threats cut me.
He turns away, the conversation over. My fate and the future of my child are all dismissed with a pivot of his heel. Sunlight catches on the serpent ring at his pinky as he reaches for the door, the gold flashing bright enough to make my stomach churn with nausea.
“Dante.” I swallow thickly, his name bitter on my tongue. “Please… just… let me see my son.”
He pauses at the door.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world holds still. He turns slowly, his expression unreadable as his gaze finds mine again.
4
DANTE
I have never been a man who bends easily.
I was raised to understand power as something taken, not given. Loyalty is demanded, obedience enforced. Mercy is a luxury for men who don’t intend to survive very long. I didn’t rebuild what was left of my family by indulging weakness. Not for enemies, not for family, and certainly not for a woman who walked out of my life, leaving the wreckage of her betrayal behind her.
And yet here I am, brought to a halt by the sound of her voice breaking when she says my name.
I hate that it still affects me.
That a single plea, that single crack in her voice, can cut through years of discipline and restraint like they were never there at all.
I should be immune to this by now.
I’ve rebuilt myself to be, and yet the moment she begs for the child,her child,something ugly tightens in my chest.
The boy she had while she was gone, while she was hiding and building a life that didn’t include me. A life that includedanother man.
I don’t know his name. I don’t need to. I know, with absolute certainty, that he was unworthy of her in every way that matters. The idea of his hands on her skin, of her choosing him, of her trusting him enough to give him a child, twists viciously inside me.
I tell myself the boy means nothing to me.
He’s nothing more than an unforeseen complication, collateral damage in a war half of his bloodline started and will eventually end with.
He is a variable I didn’t account for, nothing more than that. That’s the version of the truth I repeat to myself until it almost sounds convincing.
Because the alternative is far worse.
The alternative is admitting that I care.
That my anger isn’t just about betrayal or the need to seek vengeance.
