"Status?" Matteo's voice shifts from brother to boss. Cold. Tactical.
"Handled."
"Are you hit?"
"Scratches. Nothing deep."
"And the target? The witness?"
The word grates on my nerves. Witness. Target. Package.
I look down at Gemma. She is watching me. Her dark eyes trace the lines of my face. She reaches up, her thumb brushing a smear of soot and blood from my jawline. Her touch sends a surge of blood straight to my cock.
"Her name is Gemma," I say. My voice lowers into a dangerous rumble.
Silence on the line. Matteo knows my tones. He knows the tactical guard. He knows the lethal enforcer. He has never heard this.
"Dante?"
I pull Gemma tighter against my ribs. I bury my nose in her hair for a second, inhaling the sweet orange and cumin.
"Teo," I say, stepping into the emotional breach. The hardest battle of the night. "I need to tell you something."
"Make it fast. I'm dispatching extraction."
"No. Listen to me." I grip the phone tight. "Dad."
Matteo freezes. I hear him stop moving on the other end of the line. The background noise of the compound war room fades.
"What about him?" Matteo asks softly.
"You went to the alley," I say. The words tear out of my throat, raw and bleeding. "You got the call. You drove in the rain. You turned him over."
"Dante, where the fuck is this coming from right now?"
"I wasn't there."
The admission hangs in the cold air of the loading dock.
"I wasn't there, Teo. For twenty years in exile, I dreamed of the rain. I dreamed of his blood on my hands. I carried your memory because I couldn't carry the truth."
Gemma's arm wraps around my waist. She presses her cheek to my chest. She anchors me to the earth.
"What truth, fratello?" Matteo's voice cracks. The same crack I heard on the phone when I was sixteen.
"The phone call," I say. Tears prick my eyes. Hot. Stinging. "You called the house. I answered. I was sixteen. I sat on the couch with the cord wrapped around my fist, and I listened to you break. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't protect you. I was helpless."
Matteo exhales a long, shaking breath.
"Dante."
"I became the guard because of that phone call. I learned to clear rooms and break bones because I swore I would never sit on a couch and be helpless again."
"You were a kid," Matteo whispers. "You were my little brother. You weren't supposed to protect me."
"I know." I look down at Gemma. "I know that now."
Free.
