Chapter 8 - THE MAN DANTE TRUSTED MORE THAN A BROTHER
Nobody moved.
Marco aimed at Anthony.
Dante stood slowly.
“Put it down.”
Marco looked at him.
There was grief in his face.
That made everything worse.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No, Dante.”
“You’ve stood beside me fifteen years.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make the sixteenth end like this.”
Marco laughed softly.
“I always hated when you talked like your mother.”
Orion growled.
Marco glanced at the dog.
“Even he knows.”
I stood behind Dante.
Marco saw me.
“I’m sorry about Laura.”
Rage shot through me.
“You murdered her.”
“No.”
“You injected her.”
“Yes.”
The distinction made me want to scream.
Marco continued.
“She was already dying from smoke inhalation.”
“She was conscious.”
“Yes.”
“She could have survived.”
His silence answered.
Anthony moved.
Marco’s weapon shifted.
Dante’s voice became deadly.
“Look at me.”
Marco did.
“Who ordered it?”
“Antonio.”
Dante closed his eyes.
His uncle.
Again.
“Why obey him?”
Marco’s face twisted.
“Because he had my father.”
Everyone froze.
Marco Bellini Sr. had not been a free partner.
Antonio had controlled him too.
Then years later, when Marco Jr. inherited his father’s position, Antonio held evidence implicating Marco’s mother in financial crimes.
Blackmail.
Generations of it.
“You could have told me,” Dante said.
Marco laughed bitterly.
“Your father built a world where telling people things got them buried.”
“I’m not my father.”
“I know that now.”
“Too late for Laura.”
Marco looked at me.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
At least not one he offered.
Then he made a decision.
He placed the gun on the floor.
Dante’s men restrained him.
I expected Dante to hit him.
Shoot him.
Do something matching every rumor I had ever heard.
Instead, Dante said:
“You’re going to testify.”
Marco stared.
“Against Antonio?”
“Against everyone.”
“You?”
Dante’s face did not change.
“If the evidence reaches me, yes.”
That surprised all of us.
Marco nodded.
For the first time, I saw why Elena had trusted Dante.
Not because he was good.
Not entirely.
Because he was capable of choosing something other than loyalty to corruption.
Federal investigators became involved through an attorney Dante trusted outside New York.
The ledgers were copied.
Marco agreed to cooperate.
Antonio vanished.
Rachel moved into the secured Moretti estate with me temporarily.
She complained every hour.
Orion adored her less.
She took it personally.
“He likes you because of the perfume.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Dante entered the library.
“Olivia.”
Something in his voice stopped us.
“What?”
He held an old adoption file.
Anthony had finally surrendered every document Laura kept.
Inside was a sealed paternity result.
I stared.
“My biological father?”
Dante nodded.
I opened it.
The name meant nothing to me.
Dr. Gabriel DeLuca.
Rachel stopped breathing.
I looked at her.
“You know him?”
She looked at Dante.
Dante looked horrified.
“Yes,” Rachel whispered.
“Who is he?”
Dante answered.
“My family’s doctor.”
“Was?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“He treated Orion this morning.”
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My biological father had been standing less than fifty feet from me the day I arrived at Dante’s estate.
And he had said nothing.
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