Semua Bab My Marriage Was a Trap,So I Burned the Whole Table Down: Bab 1 - Bab 8

The second year started with blood.My brother Luca ran a shipment through the Valesi docks without notifying the Moretti family first. Bad move. Worse timing.The Moretti enforcers caught two of Luca's men at the warehouse. By the time Dante and I arrived, one man was already dead—two bullets to the chest—and the other was being held down over a steel table, a pair of bolt cutters positioned above his trigger finger."Elena." Dante's tone held the snap of a whip crack. He stood near the entrance, next to a massive shipping container with our family crest—a black serpent coiled around a dagger—spray-painted on its side. "Your brother. Your territory. Fix this."Luca stood beside me, pale as bone. "I didn't think—""Shut up." I didn't look at him. My eyes were on the man on the table. Marco. Twenty-four years old. New father. His wife had sent lasagna to our apartment last Christmas."What are the terms?" I asked.The enforcer with the bolt cutters—a mountain named Sal who rarely spoke—

The truth, when it came, was worse than I imagined.We met in Dante's private office—a soundproofed room hidden behind a false wall in the restaurant basement. No windows. One door. Dante stood behind his desk; I refused a chair, leaning against the far wall with my arms crossed."First," he said, "you need to understand how we met.""I was nineteen. You walked into a medical clinic and told me to stop crying.""Not that meeting." He pulled a photograph from his desk drawer and slid it across. "This one."The photo was old, faded at the edges. A teenage girl—maybe fifteen—with dark hair and terrified eyes, huddled in a doorway. Behind her, a burning building."Where did you get this?""That's you, isn't it? Five years before the clinic. Your father's warehouse fire. The night the Russians came for him."I said nothing. I didn't need to. My silence was confirmation enough."I was there that night," Dante continued. "I was twenty-three—already running the family after my uncle's. departu

Dante was waiting in the garden when I returned at dawn."You went to the estate.""I went to the estate." I sat beside him, too tired for pretense. "Isabella is working for the Bianchis under duress. They have leverage on her.""Did you threaten her?""I threatened her. Made her an asset. She'll feed us information.""That's. impressive." He sounded almost admiring. "You turned a liability into a double agent in one night.""She hasn't produced anything yet. She might bolt. Or betray me.""She might." Dante looked at me, dawn light catching the gray at his temples. Years ago, I would've said he was handsome. Now I just saw a man who'd survived too much. Same as me. "What did you tell her about us?""That we understand each other. That it's more durable than love.""Is it?"I didn't answer. Couldn't answer."You saved my sister's life tonight," Dante said after a pause. "Did you know that? The Bianchis have been looking for a way into the Moretti organization for years. If Sofia marrie

Retaliation came faster than anyone expected.Three days after the raid, a car bomb detonated outside La Rosa Nera. Two of Sal's men died. The restaurant was destroyed.Arturo disappeared the same night. Intelligence from Maeve's people suggested he'd defected to the Bianchis."Let him go," Dante said when I suggested a manhunt. "He knows nothing useful. We fed him garbage for years.""My father—""Your father has bigger problems. The feds opened an investigation into Valesi operations last week. Someone tipped them off.""Who?"Dante's silence told me everything I needed to know. He'd tipped them. To protect me. To weaken my father's grip so tightly that he couldn't come after us."You started a war on multiple fronts," I said. "The Bianchis, my father, and now the federal government.""Three enemies is the same as one enemy when they're all connected.""That's insane.""That's strategy." He poured us both a drink. "Your father can't protect Isabella anymore. The Bianchis can't hide b