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Chapter 7

Author: Bryn
Dante’s voice came from the living room.

“We checked. The car belonged to a guest of someone in the neighborhood.”

Selena sniffled softly.

“But I’m so frightened. Ever since that letter arrived, I keep feeling as though someone is going to take Lulu away from me.”

“No one will bother you here.”

“But isn’t this Viola’s house?”

My steps stopped beside the doorway.

After a brief silence, Dante said,

“She still has the estate.”

I went no farther.

The keys pressed into my palm. At dinner, he had pushed them toward me as though they could settle everything between us. He had never mentioned that someone else was already using them.

Through the half-open door, I saw Lucia curled up on the sofa.

Dante was adjusting a child’s GPS watch on her wrist.

“Don’t take this off,” he told her. “If anything happens, press here, and I’ll get the alert.”

The little girl nodded, then caught the hem of his shirt.

“Will you ever ignore my calls again?”

Dante’s hands paused.

“No.”

I lowered my head and looked at the cracks across my phone screen.

Those nineteen unanswered calls were still in my call history.

I remembered trying his number with blood drying on my fingers. Here, he patiently showed her which button to press, then waited while she tried it herself.

Selena looked up and saw me first.

Surprise flickered across her face for only a moment.

“Viola?”

Dante turned.

I looked at him.

“The keys you gave me tonight—were they for this house?”

His gaze shifted to the keys in my hand.

“The situation changed. We needed to get them settled first.”

“So you had to revoke my access, too?”

“Security reset the permissions. Yours will be added back afterward.”

“Afterward?”

Lucia shrank closer to him.

Selena immediately covered the child’s ears.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you would come here tonight. If you mind, I’ll take Lulu and leave right now.”

Dante placed a hand on her shoulder.

“No one is asking you to leave.”

I watched him make that gesture.

He had answered before she could even stand. I waited, but he offered me no explanation beyond the one he had already given.

Suddenly, I knew I had not come for nothing.

At the restaurant. At the hospital. In countless moments when I had still tried to make excuses for him, something had always blurred my view.

Not anymore.

I walked over and set the keys on the coffee table.

They landed beside the watch’s open packaging. I straightened the key ring without thinking, then took my hand away.

“Don’t bother changing the access again.”

Dante stood.

“Vee, what are you saying?”

“Let them have the house.”

He frowned, as though he had finally heard something wrong.

But I had already turned away.

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