Chapter 58 - The Sanctuary of Dead Men
Three hours later, we were huddled inside a subterranean cabin built into the limestone bluffs of the peninsula—a safehouse Dante had purchased through three layers of shell corporations years before he ever met me.
A wood-burning stove crackled in the corner, casting warm amber shadows across the cedar-paneled walls. Mateo, wrapped in dry flannel and exhausted to his marrow, was finally sleeping deeply in the back bedroom, guarded by Marcus who sat cleaning his weapons by the door.
I sat on the wooden floor between Dante’s legs, carefully re-dressing his bleeding side. The wound was inflamed, hot to the touch, and I knew without intravenous antibiotics he was flirting with sepsis.
"Why didn't you tell me, Dante?" I asked softly, my hands steady even as my eyes welled with unshed tears. "Five years. We built a home. We had Mateo. And all that time, you were preparing for a war."
Dante leaned his head back against the stone hearth, his eyes sunken, his breath rattling faintly.
"Because I wanted it to be real, Laura," he said, his voice breaking. "With you, in that little kitchen in Lincoln Park, before the board appointed me CEO... that was the only time in my entire existence I wasn't a soldier in my family’s sick game. I wanted to be just Dante. Your husband. Mateo’s dad."
"And Victoria?" The question had been rotting inside me for days, a thorn festering in my heart. "The day I caught you in your office... on our anniversary. Was that part of the game?"
Dante looked down at me, his gaze so pure and agonizingly vulnerable that my breath caught.
"Victoria had found the transfer receipts," Dante said slowly. "She knew about the trust I set up in Mateo’s name—the one that diverted sixty percent of the Castiglione assets away from the board. She came into my office with a digital detonator. She told me if I didn't sign the transfer back to her syndicate, she would detonate the charges under our apartment building while you were inside."
My hands went completely still against his bandages.
"What did you do?"
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"I kissed her," Dante whispered, self-loathing dripping from every syllable. "To slip the thumb drive out of her sleeve pocket with my other hand. To copy the disarm codes. I heard the door open... I saw you. And when you ran, Laura, half of my soul died on that carpet. But if I had run after you, she would have pressed that button."
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