But that relief is fleeting as horror floods in next.
My father had beenused—his accounts hijacked, his reputation shredded, his name turned into a convenient scapegoat for sins that weren’t his. He was left holding the blood-soaked evidence with no one believing him while the real architect stood untouched beside Dante all these years, whispering poison into his ear.
The injustice of it makes my hands shake.
For Dante, it feels catastrophically unfair. He built the last few years of his life around his rage, on a lie fed to him by a man he trusted. Not just on a lie that condemned my family, but one that isolated him completely. One that taught him to turn on the only people who weren’t already corrupted. We were reducedto scapegoats so the men dressed in loyalty could stay exactly where they were, hands clean in public and dirty in private.
Neither of us should have been dragged into this. We shouldn’t have lost everything because men like Enzo and those who stood beside him demanded power and bent the wills of others to secure it. I look at Dante now,reallylook at him, and see devastation etched into every line of his face.
The loss of Matteo alone nearly destroyed him. Matteo, the brother he loved so dearly and the only family he had left aside from me, had been taken from him in such a brutal and unimaginable way. And then, poisoned by lies, Dante turned that grief outward. He blamed my father and pushed me away. He forced me to run, carrying our child into exile, believing he’d been betrayed by the last person who ever truly saw him.
It’s almost unbearable to comprehend how deep the cruelty goes.
Though… maybe this was always the point.
To isolate Dante.
To strip him of everything that mattered and sever every bond that wasn’t already compromised until the only people left standing beside him were the very ones who betrayed him. If that was Enzo’s plan… then it has been horrifyingly effective.
The realization leaves me feeling hollow, staring down at the man I once loved—and maybe still do—wondering how much of this ruin could have been prevented if the truth hadn’t been buried for so long.
“Dante,” I whisper, my voice barely more than a whisper as I sink down beside him.
He doesn’t tell me to go away. He simply tilts his head toward me just enough that I can see his eyes, dark and tired and fractured by something far too sad to name.
I hesitate.
Touch has always been dangerous between us. Too intimate, too loaded with want and regret. But right now, he looks so utterly undone that instinct overrides caution and slowly, I reach out. The backs of my fingers brush his cheekbone.
It’s a feather-light touch at first, giving him the chance to pull away. I trace the familiar line down to his jaw, feeling the roughness of stubble against my skin. His eyes widen slightly, a sharp inhale cutting through the quiet. For a heartbeat, he goes completely still. Every muscle locks like he’s bracing himself for something.
I pause, ready to withdraw.
But then he turns his face into my hand. He leans into the touch like it’s something he’s been starved of. I let out a slow breath, only then realizing I’d been holding it. His lashes flutter shut, his chest rising as he breathes me in. One of his hands comes up to cup mine, holding my fingers firmly against his face as if afraid I might disappear if he doesn’t.
The gesture hits me with a rush of nostalgia so sharp, it nearly undoes me.
How many times have we done this? Sat like this in the quiet aftermath of something heavy, always aware that our time was borrowed. That one day, the world would demand we part ways whether we were ready or not. We clung to moments like this, tender and achingly intimate, while trying to memorize each other while we still could.
My chest tightens.
A part of me truly believes Matteo would have wanted this for him. I know that with an unshakable certainty. He loved his brother fiercely. He would have given up his place as heir without hesitation if it meant Dante could be happy, if it meantwecould be happy. Sometimes, I think he knew, long before anyone else did, that Dante and I were always orbiting each other.
Maybe if the cards had fallen differently—if men like Enzo hadn’t sunk their claws into the Cosenza family—there could have been another ending for all of us. One where no one had to die, where no one had to run, and love wasn’t treated like a liability to be exploited.
Those what-ifs have haunted me since New York.
Every sleepless night, every moment spent staring at my ceiling, I imagined how different my life could have been. How different hisandLuca’s could have been. All the futures that were stolen before we ever had the chance to choose them.
My thumb drags over the ridge of Dante’s nose, tracing the familiar path I could map in my sleep. It’s an unconscious gesture, muscle memory asserting itself before my mind can catch up and stop me.
“I missed this,” I whisper.
The words feel dangerous the moment they leave me.
His eyes snap open.
15
