chapter 6

:The Price of Betrayal

MARA

The first bullet missed my head by less than an inch.

The second shattered the glass behind me.

“GET DOWN!” Dante roared.

I hit the floor as gunfire ripped through the garage. A guard screamed and collapsed beside a black SUV, blood spreading beneath his chest. Dante dragged me behind the engine block just as another burst of bullets tore through the vehicle’s windows.

Vivienne was running.

Her heels struck the concrete as she raced toward the waiting car, leaving her own men to die.

“Your sister is escaping!” I shouted.

Dante checked his weapon. “I can see that.”

“Then stop admiring the scenery and shoot!”

He gave me a murderous look.

I fired first.

The bullet struck the fleeing driver's shoulder. He spun away from the car, his pistol clattering across the ground.

Vivienne screamed.

Dante seized the opportunity, charging across the garage with two of his men behind him. I followed despite the burning pain in my arm.

One of the attackers appeared from behind a pillar and aimed at Dante's back.

I saw him before Dante did.

“DANTE!”

I slammed into my husband, knocking him sideways as the gun fired. The bullet grazed his shoulder.

He hit the concrete hard. I rolled, came up on one knee, and fired twice.

The attacker dropped.

For a second, Dante stared at me.

Then he looked at the blood on his shoulder.

“You just saved my life.”

“Don't make it sentimental.”

I grabbed his arm and hauled him upright.

“Your sister is getting away.”

But when we reached the garage entrance, Vivienne's car was already tearing through the gates.

She leaned out of the passenger window, her beautiful face twisted with fury.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED AT YOUR WEDDING, MARA!”

I raised my pistol.

Dante caught my wrist before I could fire.

“Not yet,” he said.

I rounded on him. “She just tried to kill us!”

“And now she knows we have the ledger. Fear will make her careless. Let her run.”

I wanted to argue, but something in his expression stopped me.

He wasn't sparing his sister.

He was planning her destruction.

A wounded guard staggered toward us, clutching his stomach.

“Boss,” he gasped. “We found something.”

He held out a phone recovered from one of the dead attackers.

Dante took it.

The screen displayed a series of messages. The last one had been sent less than ten minutes earlier.

If Dante survives, kill the girls before sunrise. Leave no witnesses.

The sender's name appeared above the message.

Rafael Voss.

Dante went utterly still.

Then he handed the phone to me.

“Take the girls to the secure room,” he ordered his men. “Double the guards. Nobody gets within fifty feet of them without my permission.”

I grabbed his arm before he could walk away.

“I'm coming with you.”

“No.”

“Those men came for me. They attacked the girls because of what I found. You don't get to lock me away and call it protection.”

His eyes burned into mine.

“This isn't a negotiation, Mara.”

“Then stop treating me like a possession.”

For several seconds, neither of us moved.

Finally, Dante leaned closer.

“Stay beside me, then. But if bullets start flying, you follow my instructions.”

I smiled without humor.

“Try to keep up, husband.”

His expression darkened.

And despite the blood, the dead men, and the threat hanging over our heads, I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Interest.

Dangerous, unwanted interest.

I turned away before he could see that I had noticed.

DANTE

I had spent eighteen months fighting Rafael Voss.

He had bombed my warehouses, murdered my men, and tried to take territory that belonged to my family. I had retaliated every time, leaving bodies and burning businesses in my wake.

But he had never threatened my daughters.

Until tonight.

I entered the sitting room to find Sofia standing in front of Lia, protecting her little sister with her own body.

My heart twisted.

“Girls.”

Lia ran to me. I lifted her into my arms, pressing my lips against her hair while Sofia approached cautiously.

“Is he coming back?” she whispered.

I knew she meant Rafael.

I also knew she wasn't asking whether he would return to the house. She was asking whether she would ever be safe again.

“No one will touch you,” I promised.

Sofia searched my face.

“Mara said that, too.”

I looked toward the doorway.

Mara stood there with a bandage around her arm, arguing with the doctor about whether she needed stitches. She had protected my daughters, fought armed men, and saved my life—all in a single night.

I had married a woman whose face I barely knew.

Now I was beginning to understand why someone had been so desperate to frighten her into silence.

She was not a helpless bride.

She was a threat.

And I was starting to suspect she might be the most dangerous person in my house.

VIVIENNE

Rafael answered on the first ring.

“Did you get the ledger?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did you kill Mara?”

“No.”

“Then explain why I'm receiving reports that Dante is alive and every man you hired is either dead or captured.”

I gripped the phone until my fingers hurt.

“Your men were incompetent.”

“My men?” Rafael laughed coldly. “You hired them, Vivienne. Don't confuse our arrangement.”

I hated him.

I hated his arrogance, his commands, and the way he made me feel like an employee instead of the woman who would one day control the Blackwood fortune.

But I needed him.

“Dante has the ledger,” I whispered.

Silence.

When Rafael spoke again, his voice had lost every trace of amusement.

“Then we move to the second plan.”

My stomach tightened.

“What second plan?”

“The girls.”

I stopped breathing.

“You said they were only leverage.”

“They are leverage. And leverage is useless if your enemy believes you won't use it.”

For the first time that night, I felt genuine fear.

Dante would destroy Rafael if he touched his daughters.

And if Dante discovered my part in the arrangement, he would destroy me, too.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Return to the estate when the shooting stops. Act frightened. Blame Mara. Make your brother believe you were manipulated.”

“And if he doesn't believe me?”

“Then pray you're still useful.”

The call ended.

I stared at my reflection in the dark window.

My mascara had run. My hair was disheveled. There was blood on my dress.

I looked nothing like the elegant woman who had controlled the Blackwood household for years.

I hated Mara for that.

She had taken my money, exposed my secrets, and turned my brother against me.

She had taken everything.

So I made a decision.

If I couldn't control Dante, I would destroy the one thing that could make him kneel.

His daughters.

MARA

The doctor finally left me alone.

Dante was waiting outside the medical room, his shoulder freshly bandaged and his expression unreadable.

“Your sister will come back,” I said.

“I know.”

“And Rafael won't stop.”

“I know that, too.”

I studied him. “You seem remarkably calm for a man whose family is trying to murder him.”

“Panic is for people who have no plan.”

“And what's your plan?”

He stepped closer.

“Find Rafael. Find Vivienne. End this.”

“That sounds more like a threat than a plan.”

“Would you prefer a detailed schedule?”

“Preferably with fewer dead guards.”

His mouth twitched, but the amusement disappeared when he looked at my injured arm.

“You could have died tonight.”

“So could you.”

“You saved me.”

“You're welcome.”

He watched me for a long moment.

“Why did you do it?”

I thought of Sofia's frightened eyes and Lia's tiny hands clinging to my clothes.

“Because I refuse to watch children pay for the sins of adults.”

Something changed in his face.

He reached toward me, then stopped before touching my cheek.

For the first time, the distance between us felt less like hostility and more like a question neither of us was ready to answer.

Then his phone rang.

Luca's voice came through, urgent and strained.

“Boss, we've got a problem. Someone accessed the estate's security system from inside the house.”

Dante's expression hardened.

“Who?”

“We're checking the footage now.”

A pause.

Then Luca spoke again.

“Boss, the system recorded someone entering the girls' corridor five minutes before the attack.”

“Show me.”

The screen flickered.

A figure appeared in the grainy footage, dressed in the uniform of an estate employee.

The face turned toward the camera.

I stopped breathing.

I knew that person.

Dante looked at me.

“Who is it?”

I stared at the screen, cold spreading through my veins.

Because the person who had opened the door for the gunmen wasn't a stranger.

It was someone Sofia and Lia trusted.