Chapter 1
Ava’s monitor was still screaming when Dante carried her through the porch doors.
Her little arms locked around his neck.
She was trembling so hard that the buttons on his vest clicked against her teeth.
Dante lowered his voice.
“Look at me.”
Ava tried.
One cheek was pressed against his shoulder.
Her fingers still clutched the smartwatch.
“Did they hurt your heart?”
She shook her head.
Then whispered:
“They said I had to stay until you got mad.”
Dante’s expression became completely still.
Behind him, Vivienne pushed herself upright beneath the fallen floral rack.
She did not apologize.
She brushed petals from her gown.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Then she looked at Dante as though he were the one embarrassing the family.
“She sat there for twenty minutes.”
Her voice was cold.
“Stop acting like I chained her to a train track.”
Every capo on the porch went silent.
Dante turned.
Vivienne held his gaze.
Still arrogant.
Still certain she had a shield he did not understand.
Marcus pulled himself away from the overturned trolley.
He wiped dirt from his sleeve.
“Your daughter is fine.”
His tone carried open contempt.
“Maybe if you stopped raising her like the whole world should panic every time she whimpers, she wouldn’t be so pathetic.”
Ava’s fingers tightened around Dante’s collar.
Dante felt it.
That mattered more than Marcus’s insult.
He handed Ava carefully to his oldest bodyguard, Nico.
“Take her inside.”
Ava immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
She held up the watch.
“Camera.”
“What about it?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“They kept checking if it could see the door.”
Dante slowly looked toward the smartphone on the porch stand.
Vivienne’s eyes flickered.
Tiny.
Almost nothing.
He caught it.
Marcus laughed.
“She’s three.”
Dante looked at him.
Marcus leaned one shoulder against the pillar.
“You’re really building a conspiracy out of toddler babbling?”
Vivienne smiled.
A cruel little smile.
“She probably thinks the flower pots are spying too.”
Ava buried her face against Nico.
Dante’s thumb stopped moving across his signet ring.
Then he walked to the phone.
The recording was still running.
Twenty-seven minutes.
He rewound.
Vivienne chaining Ava.
Marcus adjusting the camera.
Vivienne checking the porch doors repeatedly.
Then Marcus’s voice:
“He’ll come through that door after the council breaks.”
Vivienne:
“You sure?”
Marcus:
“I was told exactly when.”
Dante paused the video.
Marcus’s smile vanished.
Only slightly.
Dante turned.
“Who told you?”
Marcus straightened.
“That part doesn’t concern you.”
The arrogance was almost impressive.
Dante took one slow step toward him.
Marcus did not back away.
“You think because you broke a trolley over my shoulder, I suddenly forget who I am?”
Dante said nothing.
Marcus smiled again.
“You should be asking yourself who in your own house hates you enough to hand me your schedule.”
Vivienne folded her arms.
“And maybe ask why.”
Power shifted.
Not completely.
Marcus believed the mystery protected him.
Dante looked toward the reception hall.
Twenty men stood inside.
Capos.
Family.
Old allies.
One of them had known the exact moment the council would end.
Then Nico spoke behind him.
“Boss.”
Dante turned.
Ava had tapped the watch again.
Another recording played.
Not Marcus.
Not Vivienne.
A different voice.
Male.
Low.
Familiar.
“Use the little girl. He never thinks when it’s about her.”
Every man inside the reception hall went still.
Dante listened twice.
His eyes slowly moved toward the house.
May you like
He knew that voice.
It belonged to someone sitting at his own council table less than fifteen minutes earlier.
