[Valentina’s POV]
Technically, yes. I am.
Three days of obsessing over four words that technically aren't even an admission if you squint hard enough. Except they are. And that thread is getting pulled until the whole tapestry unravels.
I find Lucia in the kitchen during the afternoon lull when she's most likely to talk without throwing knives at my head. Metaphorically. Probably.
"Need help with anything?" I grab an apron, projecting helpful enthusiasm.
She eyes me suspiciously. "You volunteering for extra work now?"
"Just bored. Thought I'd be useful." I start chopping vegetables, trying for casual. "This house is so quiet during the day. Must have been different when the old don was alive."
Her knife pauses mid-slice. "You asking about ancient history?"
"Just curious." I keep my eyes on the cutting board. "Everyone talks about the current don, but nobody mentions who came before."
Lucia is quiet for a long moment, then resumes chopping. "The old don was brutal. Made this one look like a choir boy. He enjoyed pain—watching it, making people suffer."
My stomach turns but I keep my voice light. "Sounds delightful. Family man, I assume?"
"No wife that survived him. No legitimate children anyone knew about." She dumps vegetables into a bowl. "But there were always rumors."
"What kind of rumors?"
"Whispers about women he kept. Children he might have fathered and hidden away." Lucia's expression darkens. "Powerful men don't always claim their bastards. Especially when legitimacy matters."
The word bastards makes my pulse quicken. "What happened to those children?"
She shrugs. "Rumors are just rumors, girl. People disappear in this world all the time. Maybe they existed, maybe they didn't. Maybe they changed their names and started new lives." Her eyes meet mine briefly. "Some questions are safer left unasked."
"But—"
"I have dinner to prepare." The dismissal is clear. "If you're done being helpful, the dining room needs setting."
I abandon the kitchen, mind racing. Bastards. Hidden children. Changed names.
Dante Romano becomes Dante Falcone. A soldier becomes a don. Technically, yes. I am.
By evening, the questions have reached critical mass. I find myself outside his study door while my brain screams that this is a terrible idea destined to end in disaster.
I knock anyway because self-preservation apparently left the building.
"Enter."
He's at his desk, reviewing papers with focused intensity. Calculating either profit margins or body counts. Both equally likely.
"We need to talk." I close the door, which either looks confident or suicidal.
He doesn't look up. "About?"
"About the old don. About bastard children. About how a soldier named Romano became a boss named Falcone." I cross my arms. "About what technically means when someone admits they're a bastard."
His pen stills. Then continues like I didn't just drop a bomb. "This isn't a conversation for tonight."
"It's never a conversation for any night!" My voice rises. "You deflect, you distract, you play games—but I'm done. I've been asking questions. And getting some answers."
He finally looks up, expression unreadable. "What did you learn?"
"That the old don had no legitimate heirs. That rumors existed about hidden children. That powerful men sometimes father sons they don't claim." I step closer to his desk. "That someone might kill his own father to take what he believes he's owed."
The silence stretches like pulled taffy. Then: "Is there a question in there?"
"Are you his son?" The words come out steadier than I feel. "Did Dante Romano become Dante Falcone because you killed your father and claimed his name?"
His jaw tightens—the only crack in his controlled exterior. "That's not a conversation we're having tonight."
"Then when? When is the magical night where you stop treating me like I'm too fragile for truth?" Frustration boils over into something sharper.
"I stood at an altar waiting for you. I walked through rain in a wedding dress. I sold myself to save my mother and ended up right back in your world. I think I've earned some fucking honesty!"
He stands, moving around the desk with predatory grace. "Some truths are dangerous."
"I don't care about danger—"
"You should." His voice drops. "Knowing certain things makes you a target. Makes you collateral. I left you at that altar to keep you safe. This conversation puts you right back in the line of fire."
"So you admit it." My heart pounds. "You admit there's something to know. Something dangerous enough that you destroyed us to protect me from it."
His expression shifts—something almost vulnerable bleeding through before he locks it down. "Valentina—"
"No." The anger that's been building for days, weeks, five goddamn years finally breaks free. "You don't get to keep doing this. You don't get to control everything while I stumble around in the dark!"
My hand moves before I can think. The slap cracks through the study, sharp and satisfying.
His head barely turns from the impact. Then his hand shoots out, catching my wrist in an iron grip. "Don't."
"Or what?" I'm breathing hard, fury and something else—something heated and desperate—flooding through me. "You'll tie me up again? Leave me wanting? Play more games?"
His eyes darken. "You have no idea what you're asking for."
"Then show me." The words come out as challenge and plea. "Stop protecting me from truths I have the right to know. Stop treating me like I'm made of glass."
The air between us crackles. His grip on my wrist tightens, thumb finding my racing pulse. We're too close, breathing the same air, balanced on a razor's edge between violence and something far more dangerous.
Then his mouth crashes against mine.
It's not gentle. Not careful. It's five years of rage and want and unresolved everything pouring into a kiss that tastes like desperation and poor decisions. I kiss him back just as hard, fisting my free hand in his shirt, pulling him closer even as my brain screams about dignity and self-preservation.
He releases my wrist only to grip my hips, lifting me onto his desk. Papers scatter. Something expensive-sounding crashes to the floor. I don't care. My legs wrap around his waist, heels digging into his back, while his hands find the zipper of my uniform.
The fabric tears—actually tears—because apparently we've abandoned all pretense of control. His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping skin that's too sensitive, tongue soothing the sting. I arch into him, fingers threading through his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt.
His hands are everywhere—mapping, claiming, destroying any remaining distance between us. I can feel him hard against me, the thin barrier of clothing suddenly intolerable. I reach for his belt but he catches both my wrists, pinning them against the desk.
"Dante—" His name comes out broken.
He pulls back, breathing hard, looking at me with dark eyes that promise everything and nothing. "Some truths are dangerous, Valentina. This is one of them."
Then he releases me and steps back, leaving me wrecked on his desk, clothes torn, questions unanswered, body screaming for something he won't give.
"Get out." His voice is rough. "Before I forget why I'm supposed to keep you safe."
I slide off the desk on shaking legs, holding together my ruined uniform, and walk out without looking back.
The door closes behind me with a soft click that sounds like finality.
He's left me alone again. With more questions than before. With the taste of him on my lips and the knowledge that some truths might actually be more dangerous than the lies.
But I'm still going to find them.