Chapter 4 - The Dragon’s Lair
The sun rose over the Long Island Sound, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange and bruised purple, but inside Dante’s private study, time had lost all meaning.
The room smelled of old paper, leather, and stale tobacco. Stacks of yellowed journals, police reports, and financial ledgers covered the massive mahogany desk. I sat in a high-backed leather armchair near the unlit fireplace, wrapped in a thick wool blanket Kael had quietly brought me hours ago. Little Leo was asleep in a bassinet beside me, his breathing peaceful and deep.
Across the desk, Dante sat motionless, staring at a single photograph lying under the glare of an antique desk lamp. It was the same polaroid from the restaurant wall, but now it sat beside a modern birth certificate bearing my name and a photocopy of Sarah Vance’s old employment records.
"She protected you," Dante finally broke the silence, his voice rough from hours of smoking and unbroken quiet.
"Sarah?" I asked, my throat dry.
"Sarah Vance was one of my mother’s most trusted maids," Dante said, not looking up. "When Elena vanished, the family tore the city apart looking for her. Sarah must have crossed paths with her that night in the hospital, realized who you were—or who your mother was—and took you to keep you safe from my father."
"Your father was a monster," I stated flatly. It wasn't a question.
Dante let out a dark, humorless laugh. "A monster is too kind a word for him. He believed bloodlines were currency, and weakness was a debt paid in executions. If he had known Elena had a child... if he had known his own flesh and blood was hiding in the city right under his nose..." He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. The silence carried the rest.
"So what happens now?" I asked, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders. "Are you going to kill me to tie up loose ends? Or am I just going to be your pet prisoner in this fortress?"
Dante finally raised his head. The fierce, terrifying predator I had met in the restaurant was gone, replaced by a man drowning in a lifetime of ghosts.
"You are my blood, Mara," he said quietly. "In the Moretti family, blood is an anchor. It either saves you or it drags you to the bottom of the sea. I spent my whole life thinking I was the last branch of a broken tree. Finding out I have a niece... finding out she is you..." He shook his head slowly. "I don't kill family. I protect them."
"I don't need your protection," I fired back, though my voice lacked its earlier heat. "I had a life yesterday. I had a job, a home, a routine. Now I'm sitting in a mafia boss's mansion learning that my entire existence was built on a lie."
"You think your life yesterday was safe?" Dante stood up, walking over to the window, looking out over the iron gates where the morning fog was beginning to burn off. "A month ago, an explosive was planted under my car outside a board meeting in Manhattan. Last week, a hit squad tried to intercept Leo’s nanny carriage in Central Park."
My breath hitched. "Leo..." I looked down at the sleeping baby in the bassinet. "Someone tried to hurt him?"
"They want the bloodline ended," Dante said, his voice dropping into a register of pure, cold steel. "And now that you're here, now that the archives have been breached... you aren't safe out there anymore either. The people who hunted your mother twenty-five years ago are still looking for loose ends. And they just found a very big one."
Before I could digest the terrifying reality of his words, a loud, concussive boom rattled the windows of the study.
May you like
The lights flickered once, twice, and then died entirely, plunging the room into emergency red-lit shadow.
Across the estate, alarms began to wail.
