My fingers rub together at my sides, a nervous habit I never quite managed to break around him. “Good news?” I ask lightly, even though the words feel foolish the moment they leave my mouth.
His lips thin, pressing into a line that tells me everything I need to know.
I breathe out slowly.
So… not good news. Which means one of two things. Either the trail he’s been following has gone cold, leaving him right where he started, or what he’s uncovered is something he never wanted to find in the first place. Judging by the way his jaw tightens, the faint crease appearing between his brows, it’s almost certainly the latter.
“Dante,” I say softly, his name slipping out before I can stop it.
He exhales, weary, and drags a hand down his face as if trying to physically wipe the day away. He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he closes the distance between us in a few long strides. I instinctively move to step aside, assuming he wants past me, but then his hand closes around my arm, firm enough to make his intention clear.
He tugs me along with him, guiding me out of the atrium without a word. I follow, heart pounding, unsure what just shifted but afraid to resist it. Whatever fragile truce we’ve stumbled into feels like it might shatter if I say the wrong thing.
Once we’re back in his study, he shuts the door behind us and locks it. The sound echoes too loudly in the room. My gaze tracks him as he circles me, heads for his desk, and tosses his phone down onto the polished wood.
For a moment, I think he’ll stop there, putting the desk between us like he usually does.
To my surprise, he doesn’t.
Instead, he turns toward the couch and nearly collapses onto it, stretching out along the length of it. His eyes fix onto the ceiling, unfocused, one arm lifting to rest across his forehead as if the weight of his own thoughts have become physically unbearable.
Something in my stomach sinks hard.
I’ve seen Dante angry.
But this?
This looks a lot like defeat.
All the certainty I’d been clinging to about the ledger, the truth inside it and the things inside it finally making sense, starts towaver. It’s clear whatever he’s learned has been something he, or maybe the both of us, never anticipated.
I don’t know if I’m ready for what comes next.
“It seems you were right,” he finally murmurs. The words are quiet, almost hollow sounding, and they hit me harder than if he’d shouted them.
I cross the room slowly, afraid the wrong movement might fracture whatever fragile moment this is. I stop just short of the couch, not quite daring to sit or touch him. “About what?”
I ask it even though I already feel the answer coiling in my gut.
He doesn’t look at me. His gaze remains fixed on the ceiling, eyes distant and unfocused as if he’s watching something only he can see. My fingers rub together at my sides, a useless attempt to bleed off the adrenaline flooding my system. Waiting like this, hovering on the edge of a truth I’ve been carrying alone for years, feels like agony.
“Romano found the paper trail,” he says at last. His voice is steady, but there’s something underneath it now, a careful edge that sounds like he’s on the verge of tipping over it. “It wasn’t easy. Whoever did this was careful… Very careful.”
I swallow hard, afraid to speak in case my voice betrays me. Afraid that if I interrupt, he might stop and dismiss me entirely, and I’ll never get to know the truth.
He draws in a slow breath. “Enzo deposited a large sum into one of your father’s accounts. Structured it to look like a legitimate payment for assisting with onboarding a new contract.”
My eyes widen.
“That money,” he continues, quieter now, like each word costs him something, “was what funded the hit.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe or think. The truth hits me like a physical blow.
Grief comes first, crashing over me in a suffocating wave. For my father and the years he spent branded as a traitor, for the fear that drove him into hiding and for the life we lost the moment the lie was spun against us.
Vindication follows close behind, almost cruel in its timing. Ihadbeen right. The sick certainty I carried for years, the quiet voice that told me my father was incapable of something so monstrous to someone he cared for, hadn’t been delusion or blind loyalty.
It had been truth.
