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Her mouth trembled. “It should’ve been me.”
“What do you mean?” he asked softly, getting entirely wet with her.
“Your sister was with me. She should have been here. The real Morana was supposed to be here. I wasn’t. I don’t even know who I am.”
A hand fisted in her wet hair and pulled her head back firmly, another wrapping around her throat, demanding her attention.
Morana closed her eyes.
“Look at me,” he ordered, squeezing her neck once.
She didn’t want to. She was scared of looking at him, didn’t he know that.
The grip on her neck tightened, and she opened her eyes, staring at his throat.
“Eyes,” the demand found its way through the fog.
Slowly, heart thundering in her chest, Morana looked at him.
And found those beautiful, magnificent blue eyes looking at her with anything but hate.
“You are exactly where you were supposed to be,” he told her, his voice leaving no room for doubts. “I know exactly who you are.”
“Who am I?”
“Mine.”
Morana felt her chin quiver, her eyes burning.
“You might have been born with another name but you are Morana. My Morana. You’re the girl I killed for and you’re the woman I’d die for. You are mine and you are exactly where you’re supposed to be. Don’t ever question that again, do you understand?”
Morana did, she understood his words, but her foundations had crumbled, her entire life shaken, her future a blank. In that moment, sitting in the cold shower with him fully-dressed, looking into his blue eyes, there was only one thing that mattered.
“Don’t hate me again.”
His hand flexed on her throat. “Do you know why I enjoy holding you like this?”
She shook her head.
“I can feel your life under my hand,” he stated, his eyes burning on hers, his fingers locking her life to him. “Your body, your life, your heart – they’re all mine now. Trust me to keep all of them safe.”
And Morana collapsed into his chest and broke down for everything they had lost, both of them holding on to the one thing they had found.
“I want things to be clear going forward,” Dante elucidated, looking around at each of the men and few women in the room, his gaze dark. “I will be taking over all businesses starting next week and I want you to come forward and report directly to me about everything you were keeping under the rugs for my father. That’s not how things are going to work now and if you have a problem with that, there’s the door. Get the fuck out.”
Dante had changed. She didn’t know what had happened or what he’d seen in the envelope, but the man with the easy smiles was heading towards an explosion she didn’t think he was awar
e of.
Morana watched him across the table in the mansion, sitting there not in the capacity of his friend but as the surviving Vitalio heir in the West. The rest of the Outfit men gathered around the room, both in shock of Lorenzo’s death and Dante’s return from the afterlife.
Tristan sat just as gravely beside him, his sharp eyes not missing a reaction from anyone’s faces. Nobody moved out. Dante nodded. “Good. Let’s mourn my father this week. Thank you for coming.”
People slowly shuffled out of the room, not muttering, not discussing anything. Morana watched as Leo Mancini, Maroni’s younger brother, gave a bitter look to Dante before walking out.
“He’s going to be a problem,” Morana commented once everyone had left.
Dante got up from the chair and walked to stand at the window, looking at the people outside. While Dante was back to being dressed perfectly, he hadn’t shaved completely since he’d come back, and the scruff suited him. His profile looked severe, harsh, and a little intimidating, if Morana was being honest.
