She pulls in a long, steady breath. After a beat, she shrugs out of the jacket draped over her shoulders and sets it aside, her movements careful, almost ritualistic in a way. Then she reaches into the inside pocket and pulls something free.
A book. Leather-bound, old, worn around the edges.
Her steps toward me are slow, hesitant in a way that has my spine straightening. When she gets close enough for me to see it clearly, my attention snaps to it. The lock on the side hangs open. Broken, I realize as she draws nearer.
Her eyes never leave the journal in her hands. Her fingers tighten around it until her knuckles bleach white.
My brow lifts. “You went there to bring back… a journal?”
There’s no effort to hide the displeasure in my voice.
Of all the reckless, idiotic things she could have done—risked being seen, followed,takenby any one of my family’s enemies—it was forthis? Not jewelry, not documents or leverage to help her escape me. Not even something sentimental from her childhood.
Abook.
When she opens it, the pages fan outward, revealing neat rows and columns of numbers, dates, accounts… A goddamn ledger.
I inhale slowly through my nose.
Of course, Elena has never been simple. Only she would risk her life and my patience to retrieve a battered ledger tied to her father’s shadowy business.
I nearly sigh. “You can’t be serious.”
Her eyes snap up from the page. “At least let me explain before you start dismissing me like I’m an idiot.”
There it is. That fire and stubborn refusal to back down that once drew me to her and now threatens to ignite something far more dangerous between us. I push off the edge of my desk and stand, towering over her without effort.
“I’m uninterested in your father’s past dealings,” I say flatly. “Unless that book gives me coordinates to his current location, I don’t care.”
She doesn’t shrink back. Instead, she tightens her grip on the journal, fingers curling around the worn leather until her nails leave marks from biting into the soft material. “I need you to read some of this.”
“For what reason? To rub it in my face that he plotted to kill my brother from the very beginning? Forgive me for remaining uninterested,Tesoro,” I bite out.
“He didn’t kill Matteo.”
I stop moving entirely.
The sound of my own breathing is suddenly too loud in my ears. His name is like a blade slid between my ribs to where my beating heart is, twisted without mercy until I’m left almost gasping in agony. Hearing her say it out loud for the first time causes the mask I hide behind to start cracking.
“Don’t you dare speak his name to me,” I warn, my voice dropping to a growl.
She’s past the fear now, past any caution that would have saved her from the boiling rage currently threatening to spill over inside me. Instead of retreating back like she should from the wild animal she’s suddenly cornered, she advances forward like a fool.
“He wasn’t killed because of my father. Your own men set him up. They used my father’s accounts to fund the hit. It’s all right here.”
Rage surges instinctively inside me, burning white-hot. “That’s a lie.”
She presses the ledger against my chest. “Read it for yourself.”
The impact isn’t hard, but it’s enough to jar me. Enough to make my hand curl reflexively around her wrist and the other around the spine of the book before I shove both back at her.
“No,” I growl. “I’m not indulging this. You’re foolish for even leaving this estate the way you did without any guards with you.”
She lets out a frustrated sound and begins to flip through the pages. Paper rustles violently as she rips through the ledger until she lands near the back. She thrusts it toward me again, this time opened to a page dense with ink.
“Elena—”
“Read the damn notes, Dante,” she snaps at me.
