I process this. Someone with two million dollars to spare. Someone who wanted the Santoro wedding disrupted enough to pay for it. Someone now eliminating witnesses.
Someone inside this organization, or connected to it.
“You took money and destroyed our family’s honor.” I stand. The anger seeps through the cracks. “You didn’t care that Papa would be ruined. You didn’t care that the Santoro alliance was the only thing keeping us safe. You just took your two million and ran.”
“I took money to escape a cage.” Elena stands too, her exhaustion forgotten. “I didn’t know it would hurt you.”
“You didn’t care what it would do. You never do.” I’m crossing the room now, closing the distance. “You left, and Papa spent a week drinking himself sick with shame. You left, and I walked into this house and offered myself as a replacement. You left, and I became the bride you were too selfish to be.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“No.You never ask. You just take and take and take, and someone else cleans up after.”
Elena’s face crumples.
“You don’t understand. You were never the one they were going to sell.”
“No.I was the one you never saw at all. And when you left, I became the one who had to fix it. So don’t tell me about cages, Elena. I’ve been in one my whole life. The difference is, I stayed.”
The silence is deafening.
I’m done smoothing.
“Cassia, I.”
“Cassia.”
My name from the entrance. Low and rough, like it was pulled from him against his will.
I turn.
Dante.
He’s standing at the threshold, and his expression is stripped bare. Not the careful blankness he wears for the world. Raw. Open.
His eyes move over me first, checking, assessing, before they shift to Elena. When they do, they go cold.
He crosses the room. Not to my sister. To me.
His hand finds the small of my back. Warm. Solid. A claim so subtle Elena might miss it, but I don’t. Every nerve ending registers it.
“You okay?” Low. Just for me.
I nod, not trusting my voice.
His thumb traces a small circle against my spine. Once. Then he turns to face Elena, and the man beside me isn’t the one who just touched me with tenderness.
This is the Don. Ice and authority.
Elena’s eyes dart between us. Her gaze drops to his hand on my back, then lifts. Her mouth presses thin. She blinks twice, fast.
She expected to find her invisible little sister enduring a marriage of convenience. Not a husband who crossed a room to stand beside me.
Good.
“Elena was just explaining how she ended up here.” My voice is steadier now. His presence does that. “Someone paid her two million dollars to run. Now they’re trying to kill her.”
Dante’s gaze stays fixed on Elena. His hand remains on my back, but his attention has shifted. Calculating. Dangerous.
