Chapter 4 - Blood in the Nursery
We arrived at the Moretti estate—a sprawling, stone fortress hidden deep within the evergreen forests of Bainbridge Island. High concrete walls, thermal cameras, and twenty heavily armed mercenaries guarded the perimeter.
I carried Mia into a master bedroom upstairs, tucking her into a bed five times larger than her one at home. After she drifted back to sleep, I marched straight into the study, where Dante sat shirtless while Marcus poured isopropyl alcohol directly over his torn surgical wounds. Dante didn't even flinch.
“You lied to me,” I said, shutting the heavy mahogany doors behind me. “Six years ago, you left a note saying you didn't love me enough to stay.”
Dante signaled Marcus to leave the room. Once the door clicked shut, Dante pulled an old, yellowed piece of paper from a hidden safe behind the bookshelf and threw it on the desk.
I walked over and picked it up. It was a formal execution contract, dated six years ago today. Signed by Valerio Moretti.
“Target: Claire Callahan. Reason: Liability to the family lineage.”
“My father died six years ago, Claire,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a guttural register. “The night he died, my uncle Valerio put a gun to my head and gave me a choice. Take the throne and cut all ties with the civilian world, or watch him put a sniper bullet through your forehead while you walked to your morning classes at University of Washington. I left that note so you would hate me. Because if you hated me, you wouldn't look for me. And if you didn't look for me, you lived.”
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I dropped the paper, my mind spinning. “You sacrificed your life… to save mine?”
“And then I built an empire to tear Valerio down,” Dante said, stepping closer to me, his chest rising and falling heavily. “Every kill, every warehouse, every corrupt politician I bought—it was all to build a cage strong enough to protect you. And I didn't even know I was protecting my daughter, too.”
