[Dante’s POV]
Valentina is looking at me like I'm a puzzle with sharp edges that might be coated in blood. Fair assessment.
The question she's really asking isn't "did you kill him?" She already knows. What she wants to know is: are you someone I should be afraid of?
I could lie. Cazzo, I'm good at lying. Could dress this up in strategic language, make patricide sound like a business decision.
Except she's standing there seeing right through me, and I'm so fucking tired of lying to her. Five years was enough.
"My mother didn't die of illness when I was twelve," I say. The words taste like ash. "She was poisoned. Slowly, over months. Made to look like sickness so no one would question it."
Valentina's expression shifts—confusion first, then dawning horror. "Poisoned? By who?"
"My father." I lean against the desk. "She tried to take me and run. Got as far as the train station before his men found us."
The memory surfaces—hazy, fragmented. My mother looking scared. Being dragged back to the house while she screamed that she was trying to save me.
"He had her poisoned over months. Made me watch her waste away while everyone whispered about tragic circumstances."
"Dante..." Valentina's voice cracks.
I’m not stopping, because if I stop, this story dies with me. And I can’t let that happen.
“Right before our wedding, when he summoned me, he wanted me to start preparing to take over his position. Which also meant exclusive clearance to his records no one else was privy to.”
"It was three years ago. I found proof." I move to the safe behind the painting, spinning the combination. Inside: documents I should have burned but can't. "Letters. Witness testimony from men he trusted to keep quiet. Medical records that didn't match the official story."
I pull out the folder and drop it on the desk. Yellowed papers, faded ink, proof that my father murdered my mother for trying to save her child. "He killed her. Slowly, methodically, while I sat beside her bed believing she was just sick."
The silence stretches. Valentina stares at the folder.
"So I killed him." The words come out steady. "Not for power. Not for the family. I killed him for her. For fifteen years of believing a lie."
I watch her face as the pieces click into place. Why Dante Romano became Dante Falcone. Why I carry the name of a man I despise like wearing his skin. Why there's ice in me that never fully thaws no matter how close she gets.
"I walked into his office, put a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger." The memory is crystal clear—his expression shifting from arrogance to understanding to fear. "Then I claimed his position, his name, everything he built."
"Does that make me a monster?" The question comes out quieter than intended. Almost vulnerable. "Killing your own father? Even for revenge? Even for a mother who died fifteen years ago?"
Valentina is quiet for a long moment. Processing, calculating, probably reconsidering every decision that led to standing in a mob boss's study listening to patricide confessions.
Then she speaks, voice steady and clear. "No."
I blink. Not the answer I expected. "No?"
"A monster would have enjoyed it." She crosses the room, stopping close. "Did you? Enjoy it?"
The question lands like a punch. Did I enjoy watching my father's blood spray across expensive furniture? Did I feel satisfaction when his body hit the floor?
"No." The admission comes out hollow. "I felt empty. Like I'd been carrying something heavy for fifteen years and finally set it down, except now there's just a void where it used to be. No satisfaction, no relief. Just... nothing."
She studies my face, those dark eyes seeing everything I usually hide. Then she takes my hand—the same hand that pulled the trigger, that's killed more people than I can count. She holds it like it's something worth saving.
"I'll disappear with you." Her voice is firm, certain. "Whatever we're planning, wherever we're going. I'm in."
My chest tightens. Cristo Santo. She's serious. She's actually choosing this—choosing me—after hearing exactly how damaged I am.
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." She squeezes my hand. "I'm choosing to. There's a difference."
I pull her close because words are failing and actions are easier. She fits against me perfectly, head tucked under my chin, arms wrapping around my waist like she belongs there.
"Your mother would be proud you survived," she whispers against my shirt. "That you became someone who could love despite everything he taught you to be."
The words hit harder than expected. My mother—the woman who tried to save me from this world, who died trying to give me a different life.
"I don't know about that, bella." My voice is rough. "I'm still the man who runs a criminal empire. Who makes people disappear. Who just spent five years playing games with the woman I love because I was too damaged to be honest."
"You're also the man who protected me when I didn't know I needed it." She pulls back to look at me. "Who spared Marco when law demanded execution. Who's planning to give up power rather than hurt me further. That's not nothing, Dante. That's everything."
Amore. The most dangerous weapon anyone's ever used against me, and she wields it without even trying. Just stands there seeing past the violence and ice to something worth saving, and I'm completely fucking defenseless.
I kiss her because what else am I supposed to do? Instead I pour everything into the kiss—gratitude, fear, the desperate hope that maybe we can actually pull this off.
When we finally break apart, she's smiling. Small, tentative, but real. "So. Fake deaths and disappearing. When do we start?"
"Soon." I rest my forehead against hers. "But first I need to ensure your mother is protected if everything goes wrong. Make arrangements that survive us."
"Our deaths, you mean." Her smile turns sharp. "We're staging our deaths. Might as well commit to the terminology."
Dio. She's perfect. Absolutely insane for agreeing to this, but perfect. "Our deaths," I agree. "Convincing enough that Lorenzo stops looking. Thorough enough that no one questions it."
"Sounds romantic." But she's already thinking, planning, committing to this insanity with the same determination she applies to everything. "We're terrible at this whole 'normal relationship' thing, aren't we?"
"Spectacularly terrible." I kiss her temple. "But we're excellent at dramatic gestures and questionable life choices. So we're playing to our strengths."
She laughs, and the sound fills the study like light breaking through. For the first time in fifteen years—maybe longer—I feel something that isn't ice or calculation or the careful control that keeps me alive.
Hope.
Stupid, dangerous, completely unjustified hope that maybe we can survive this. That maybe there's a version of the future where I'm not Don Falcone, where she's not the woman I destroyed and claimed. Where we're just two people who found each other and decided that was enough.
Cazzo. I'm completely screwed. But with Valentina holding my hand and promising to disappear with me, I can't bring myself to care about the consequences.
My mother tried to save me from this world. She failed. But maybe—just maybe—Valentina and I can save each other from what it made us.
Or we'll die trying. Either way, it's better than the alternative.
Better than the ice.