“Your daughter is marrying me again. Properly. One week.”
More silence. I hear him breathing.
“The first ceremony was contractual.” I don’t let him finish. “This is a choice. Mine and hers.” I let the words land. “You’ll be there.”
Not a request.
“Dante.” His voice shakes. “She wants this?”
Cazzo.
The question cuts deeper than it should. Because I hear what he’s asking. My invisible daughter. The one I never saw. The one I’d have traded to the highest bidder without a second thought.
She chose this? She chose you?
“She walked into my study the day Elena ran and offered herself in her sister’s place. She uncovered a conspiracy against my family. She sat at my bedside for a week while I was dying.” My grip tightens on the phone. “And when I asked her to marry me again, she said yes. No hesitation.”
I let that sit.
“She chose me. I’m choosing her back.Pubblicamente.”
In front of everyone who ever overlooked her.
The silence shifts on the other end. I don’t care what it holds.
“I’ll be there,” Umberto says. His voice cracks on the last word.
“Sunday. One o’clock. The garden.”
“I’ll be there.”
I hang up.
Ti daro tutto, tesoro.I’ll give you everything.
Starting with a wedding that proves you were always worth choosing.
Renzo arrives at noon.
He moves like a ghost. Silent, contained. Drops into the chair across from my desk without invitation. My brother. My weapon. The one I trust with everything except the truth of what’s happening behind his eyes.
“Where are we?”
He knows what I mean. Romano’s betrayal. The Benedettis. Papa’s death.
“Getting closer.” Renzo’s shoulders go rigid. A micro-shift, there and gone. “Romano was careful. Not careful enough. We’ll have answers soon.”
“Good.”
A pause. His jaw works. He looks past me, not at me.
“Gia’s taking it hard.” His voice drops. “She keeps going through Papa’s medical records. Thinks she missed something.”
“She didn’t miss a damn thing.” The edge in my voice comes out sharper than I intend. “She didn’t know to look for poison. None of us did.”
“I know. She knows too.” Renzo lifts one shoulder, drops it. “Doesn’t help.”
Gia.Dio.
