Page 81 of Blood Vows

“Taking you to Isabella.” Relief hit her in the chest, followed by guilt because she’d wanted him to fight harder for her. She didn’t understand herself anymore.

“Fine.” Dante grabbed his keys and he walked toward the door, then stopped and looked back at her.

“Elena,” he said.

“What?”

“If you decide after we know everything that you never want to see me again—” His jaw flexed. “I’ll find a way to live with it.” Her chest tightened. “But not before.”

She swallowed. “Before what?”

“Before we know if I actually killed your father,” Dante said. The room went silent. Elena wrapped her arms around herself.

“You remember the coat he was wearing,” she said. Dante’s face changed. She’d seen it when Luca admitted the warehouse job—he remembered something. “You said you remembered silver buttons.”

“Yes,” Dante admitted.

“My father had a coat like that,” she said.

“I know,” he breathed.

Her throat tightened. “How?”

“I saw pictures in your apartment,” he reminded. The answer somehow made it worse, because Dante had noticed everything.

“Do you remember his face?” she asked.

“No,” he whispered.

“His voice?”

“No.”

“Do you remember anything?” she questioned.

Dante looked away. “I remember he turned right before I fired.”

Elena stopped breathing, and Dante closed his eyes for half a second. “He had his hand inside his coat.”

“You thought he had a gun?” she asked.

“Yes,” Dante admitted.

“Did he?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Her anger flared again. “How can you not know?”

“Because I was there to kill him, Elena.” The words cracked through the room, and silence followed. Dante looked sick, and Elena felt worse. He hadn’t said it to hurt her. He had said it because it was true, and that was the problem with truth. It didn’t care who survived it.

“Did you check him?” she asked, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Yes,” he said.

“And what did you find?”

“No gun,” he said. Her eyes burned, and Dante continued before she could speak. “There was a phone and a wallet.”