I reach behind the statue and pull out the waterproof cases. Three of them, heavy with secrets that have destroyed lives for decades. I set them on the floor and kneel there in the dim light, staring at what they represent.
Ultimate power. Complete control over the five families. The ability to protect my family forever. And the truth about my father.
Viktor’s words keep echoing in my head. The things he gasped out while I had my knife to his throat, before I beat him unconscious and left him bleeding on the altar. The confession I didn’t want to hear but couldn’t escape.
The ledger contains proof that my father orchestrated child trafficking operations for over a decade. That he worked hand in hand with Antonio Marchetti to move girls through the ports, selling them to the highest bidder like they were livestock instead of human beings. That Antonio didn’t die because of a simple power struggle between families.
Antonio died because he discovered the full scope of what they were doing and threatened to expose it. My father had his own partner murdered to protect the secret.
He sent me as his weapon.
The man who raised me. Who taught me about honor and loyalty and protecting our blood above all else. Who I spent my entire life trying to impress, working myself to exhaustion just to earn a word of approval from him.
He was a monster. Worse than Antonio ever dreamed of being. Worse than Viktor. Worse than Isabella.
He trafficked children. Sold them like cargo. Built our family’s wealth on the suffering of innocents.
And I never knew. Never even suspected. How blind was I? How desperate for his love that I couldn’t see the truth staring me in the face?
I stare at the cases, my hands shaking. The evidence is all here. Names. Dates. Shipping manifests. Financial records tracing payments from buyers across three continents. Photographs I don’t want to look at but know I’ll have to eventually.
Enough to prove beyond any doubt what my father did. And now I have to decide what to do with it.
I told Viktor I would release it, that I didn’t care about how it’ll impact my family. But as I think of Luca, I can’t bear to run his future with the knowledge from the ledger
Using this ledger means power. Real power. The kind that would let me control every family in the city, guarantee my family’s safety for generations, ensure that no one ever threatens Scarlett or Luca again. Every boss from here to Chicago would answer to me. Every politician on my father’s payroll would become mine to command. Every judge, every cop, every businessman with dirty secrets would bow to the Moretti name.
I would be untouchable. My family would be protected forever.
But using it also means exposing what my father did. Dragging the Moretti name through the mud. Destroying everything my family built over three generations. The legacy I’ve spent my whole life protecting would crumble to dust, and everyone would know that it was built on the bones of trafficked children.
The alternative is destroying the ledger. Burning it all. Letting the dead stay buried and the secrets stay hidden. Protecting my father’s memory even though he doesn’t deserve a moment of protection.
But if I destroy it, I lose the one weapon that ensures Scarlett and Luca will never be hunted again. The other families will keep coming. The threats will never end. We’ll spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, waiting for the next attack, the next kidnapping, the next attempt on our lives.
I’m paralyzed. Kneeling in this ruined chapel surrounded by death, holding the power to change everything, and I can’t move. I can’t think or breathe past the weight pressing down on my chest.
How do I choose between my father’s memory and my son’s future? Between the family name I’ve carried with pride my whole life and the family I’m trying to build? Between power and truth, protection and honor?
I’ve made a thousand hard decisions over the years. Killed men with my own hands. Ordered deaths without flinching. But none of that prepared me for this moment.
I don’t know what to do. For the first time in my life, I genuinely don’t know.
“Dante?”
I look up and there she is.
Scarlett, standing in the chapel doorway with Luca’s hand in hers. She looks like she’s been through a war because she has. Covered in blood that’s mostly not hers, exhausted, traumatized. There are shadows under her eyes and a haunted look that tells me she’s seen things tonight that will stay with her forever.
But her eyes are clear as they meet mine.
And Luca is beside her. My son. Clinging to his mother’s hand, his small face pale and tear-streaked, those dinosaur pajamas torn and dirty. He looks so small. So fragile.
“What’s that?” Scarlett asks, her gaze moving to the cases spread out in front of me.
“The ledger. Everything Antonio hid. Everything my father did.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “The truth about who he really was.”
She guides Luca to a broken pew nearby, tells him to sit and close his eyes for a minute, that Mama and D need to talk aboutgrown-up things. Then she comes to kneel beside me, her hand finding my arm.
