Nico never broke our stare. “I think I’ve loved you since that night on the boat before your wedding, when you told me you couldn’t swim. You were so angry and so proud, and so sure you could take down the entire Dominico family all by yourself. I’d never met anyone as determined. Or as brave.”
I let out a little sound, and Dante lunged, nothing in his face but blind rage.
“Stop.” My voice cracked like a whip through the garden.
I stepped through the doorway as Dante slammed intoNico, power driving him into the wall. Brick crumbled. Ivy tore loose. Nico barely had time to raise his hands before Dante drew back his fist, face twisted in jealousy and unspent violence.
“Dante.” I shoved between them, palm braced against my husband’s chest. “Enough.” For a heartbeat, I thought he wouldn’t stop.
The rage in his eyes was terrifying—raw and feral, like something the Fossa had carved too deep to ever fully retract. His breath came hard and fast, and beneath my hands I could feel the rage boiling, the barely leashed need to destroy whatever stood in front of him.
Including Nico.
Including me.
“Get out of the way,” Dante growled, looking over my head at Nico as if he’d never seen him before.
“No.” I forced my voice to stay steady even as my pulse raced out of control. “You don’t get to hurt him because he told the truth.”
Nico didn’t move. Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t even flinch.
“Go back inside, Emberline,” he said quietly behind me. “I’ll leave. Leave and never come back. I shouldn’t…” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have come back here after what I did to you.”
“You’re not leaving,” I snapped without turning. “None of us are leaving. We’re grown-ass adults, and we can figure this out between the three of us.”
I pressed harder against Dante’s chest, grounding him the only way I knew how. “You will not tear each other apart while Giovanni is still breathing. We are the only thing that stands against him and innocent people getting hurt. Ourpersonal conflicts don’t matter, not in the face of what he’s planning to do.”
That finally did it.
Dante’s focus snapped to me, and I saw flames flickering in the depths of his blue eyes. Then he blinked, and they were gone. His hands flexed at his sides, knuckles white, as if it took every bit of his self-control not to lunge at Nico.
“This isn’t the time for a feud,” I said, softer now but no less firm. “You both know that.”
I was acutely aware of everything—Dante’s heated skin beneath my palms, Nico’s ragged breathing at my back, the way the garden felt suddenly too small to contain all of this brewing violence.
Then Dante took a step back.
Just one, and it felt like a victory and a failure all at once.
I exhaled slowly, putting myself fully between them. “We cannot be fighting amongst ourselves,” I met both their gazes in turn. “Not if we want to survive what’s coming.”
Dante’s jaw was clenched so tightly, I thought his teeth might crack. He didn’t answer.
So, I kept going.
“You think Giovanni wouldn’t exploit this?” I waved a hand between us. “You think he wouldn’t leverage the cracks forming between the only people standing in his way? He would use this to tear us apart, and I refuse to let that happen.”
I turned to Nico then, and gods help me, my heart lurched in my chest.
Because he was looking at me—not possessively, not hungrily—but with an expression so open and unguarded, my stomach flipped over.Love.
The word echoed in my mind, absurd and terrifying and very real.
Internally, I was absolutely losing it.
Nico loved me.
And gods help me…I loved him back. I forced myself to breathe.
