Chapter 14
Dante raised the gun.
Then stopped.
Not because of me.
Because Leo’s voice came from the chapel speakers.
A recording.
Soft.
Clear.
“Papa says I’m real.”
Dante flinched.
I had not planned that part.
Alessia had.
She said Dante needed to hear the truth from the person he tried to erase.
The recording continued.
“Mama sang to me. Papa comes back. I count.”
Dante’s hand shook.
For one second, I saw the emptiness inside him.
Not guilt.
Hatred.
He hated that a child without his chosen bloodline had more claim to love than he did.
“You made this family weak,” he spat.
“No,” I said. “Men like you made strength ugly.”
He fired.
The bullet struck the stone angel beside me.
Agents surged from the dark.
Dante tried to run.
Tony tackled him before he reached the gate.
The gun skidded across the grass.
I picked it up with a cloth and handed it to Detective Voss.
No revenge.
No secret grave.
No old family justice.
Real justice.
Dante screamed as they cuffed him.
“You think courts can protect you forever?”
I looked down at him.
“No. But truth travels farther than fear now.”
He was taken away under the lights.
Sofia’s memorial stone stood behind me, chipped by his bullet.
I touched the broken marble.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Alessia came from the chapel.
“He wanted you to kill him.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
She looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“Sofia would be proud.”
I did not know if that was true.
But I needed it.
Back at the safe house, Leo was asleep.
Rosa sat beside him.
I kissed his forehead.
He woke slightly.
“Papa came back?”
“Yes.”
“Bad cousin?”
“Gone.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
Then he fell asleep again.
As if the world had finally obeyed a simple rule.
Bad people gone.
May you like
Papa back.
For him, I would spend the rest of my life making that true.
