DANTEThe moment I heard the voice, I felt the hair at the back of my neck rising. It came through the baby monitor in this strange, almost singsong tone. It was soft enough that for half a second I thought maybe it was static or even a dream. But then the words sank in.“You never should have let me live, Flora.”That was no dream. That was Dalia.I didn’t even realize I’d clenched my hand into a fist around my phone until the screen cracked slightly. My chair screeched against the floor as I pushed it back and stood.“Flora?” I said into the line. I could hear the urgency in my voice. “Talk to me. What did you just hear?”On the other end, her breathing was labored and shaky. She sounded like she couldn’t decide whether to answer me or just scream.“The monitor,” she whispered. “Dante… it’s Dalia… she’s…”I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I was already moving. I grabbed my keys and gun off the counter. “Lock the doors. Stay put. I’m coming right now.”The phone stayed pressed to my e
SOFIAI didn’t trust him. Not even a little.Lorenzo was sitting in the back seat now, with his arms crossed over his chest like he had nothing to prove. The sound of the tires on the road was the only sound between us for the first thirty minutes of the drive. We were headed toward Georgia, but I didn’t let myself forget that the man sitting at the back of the car had once been Dalia’s puppet.“Are you going to keep staring at me like that?” he finally asked, not even looking my way.“Like what?” I kept my voice cold, and my eyes fixed on the long stretch of road ahead.“Like you’re trying to figure out the fastest way to kill me.”I didn’t blink as I said, “That’s because I am.”His lips twitched into what might have been a smirk if there was any real humor behind it. “I told you, Sofia. I’m done with her. Dalia’s grip on me is gone. I’m not doing her bidding anymore. I want to help Dante and be his brother like I once was.”“People like Dalia don’t let go, Lorenzo,” I said. “If sh
MARCUSThe second I heard the name Dalia from Dante, I was already moving.I didn’t hesitate or second-guess my decision. I didn’t wait for Dante to process it. I didn’t even wait to hear whatever warning he might have thrown at me. My body just reacted on pure instinct. I was halfway down the hallway before my brain caught up with me and I remembered exactly why I was going downstairs in the first place. Dalia.She’d planted a gun in Sofia’s car, almost killing her if not for Sofia’s good instincts and quick thinking, and now she had the audacity to walk into the hospital where Flora had just given birth?I was going to destroy her when I set my eyes on her.The elevator was taking too much time to come up, so I took the stairs. As I ran down, my boots pounded on each step hard enough to make the walls vibrate. I could hear my own pulse loud in my ears, and I could feel the adrenaline that rushed through my body, pushing me forward.She had guts, I’d give her that. Guts and quite f
FLORAAll I could see around me was darkness.And no, it wasn’t the peaceful kind when you were drifting to sleep. This one was heavy and thick, like it had been wrapped around me from the inside out. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were closed or if the world had simply gone black.My body felt weightless, yet I couldn’t move a muscle. Even thinking took effort. I didn’t know where I was, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was alive.Then came the silence. Not the type of silence you would hear in the middle of the night when you were alone in your bed, but a strange and empty kind of silence. The kind that would make you wonder if you’d slipped out of the world completely.I wanted to fight it and pull myself back up to the surface, but my limbs felt like they were being held down by something.And then I heard a sound that cut through the darkness immediately.Someone was crying.The sound was loud as it suddenly flitted into my ears. My chest clenched painfully.And then I heard anot
DANTEThe sound of the gunshot was still echoing in my ears when the door slammed open.A man stumbled inside. His face was twisted in shock, and there was a dark hole in the center of his forehead. He fell and landed on the floor with a thud. Blood spread quickly across the sterile white tiles.Behind him stood Marcus with his arm extended, and his gun still raised. His expression was cold and unreadable.“Stay down,” he yelled. Flora screamed again, but this time it wasn’t fear. It was pain.“Dante!” she cried, her hand stretching out for me.I rushed back to her side immediately. I caught her hand, and wrapped my fingers around hers, trying to reassure her. Her grip around my hand was so tight but I really didn’t feel it. All I could focus on right in that moment was how badly her body was shaking.More footsteps were heading toward us from the hallway, and for a moment, I thought it was more of Gianni’s men, but then Agent Harrison was standing beside Marcus with a gun in one han
FLORAMy first thought was that my body had betrayed me. My second was that I wasn’t ready for this right now.I’d been scrolling through the dark web, trying to see if I could find any more information on Gianni Bianchi when I felt it. A sudden rush of warm liquid quickly spread across the couch beneath me. My heart stopped for half a second, then before I knew it, I felt the first cramp. The pain was sharp and deep as it slammed through me. That’s when I knew for sure that my water had broken and I was going into labor.“Dante,” I breathed out, immediately scrambling to pick up my phone.I dialed his number and screamed for him to come as soon as he picked up. My whole body was already shaking at this point.He rushed into the living room almost immediately. His eyes widened when he saw me on the floor and then he was moving fast. He scooped me into his arms as if I weighed nothing.“We don’t have time,” I whispered, clinging to his shirt.He didn’t answer. He just carried me to th