Chapter 4 - DANTE’S DEBT
Marco did not turn around immediately.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Most men would have spun in terror with a gun at the back of their skull.
Marco only smiled wider.
“Dante,” he said. “I wondered how long it would take you to choose the losing side.”
Dante stood in the chapel doorway, one hand steady on his pistol. Rain had begun outside, silvering his dark suit and slicking his hair back from his scarred face.
“I chose the same side I chose when Sofia was alive.”
Marco gave a soft laugh. “Sofia is marble now.”
Dante’s eyes did not move. “And you still fear her.”
For half a second, something ugly flashed across Marco’s face.
Then it was gone.
His two men aimed at Dante.
Dr. Bellamy pulled Leo closer behind the altar.
I stayed hidden beside the confessional, barely breathing.
Marco lifted one hand. “No shooting in the chapel. Bad luck.”
Dante’s mouth tightened. “You poisoned a baby in his mother’s chapel.”
“Yes,” Marco said calmly. “So perhaps luck has already left the building.”
The rain grew harder.
In the distance, sirens wailed.
Not police sirens.
Estate sirens.
A private security alarm.
Marco tilted his head, listening.
“Lorenzo got out,” Dante said.
For the first time, Marco’s smile faltered.
The phone in my hand vibrated. I looked down.
A text from Dante.
RUN WHEN I MOVE.
My heart slammed once.
Dante fired—not at Marco, but at the stained-glass window above the altar.
The chapel exploded into color and noise.
Glass rained down like shattered jewels. Dr. Bellamy covered Leo. Marco’s men ducked. Dante lunged forward, striking the first guard with the butt of his gun.
I ran.
I grabbed Leo from Bellamy, who thrust him into my arms without hesitation, and bolted toward the side door near Sofia’s memorial candles.
“Mara!” Marco shouted.
The sound of my name in his mouth made my skin crawl.
I hit the side door with my shoulder and burst out into the rain.
The garden was a maze of hedges, statues, and darkness. I ran barefoot over wet gravel, Leo tucked under my uniform jacket, his small face shielded from the storm.
Behind me, men shouted.
A gunshot cracked.
Stone burst from an angel statue beside my head.
I screamed but kept running.
A hand suddenly grabbed my arm.
I twisted hard, ready to fight like an animal.
“It’s me,” Dante hissed.
He pulled me behind a hedge just as Marco’s men ran past the opening.
Dr. Bellamy stumbled after us, clutching his medical bag.
Dante pressed a finger to his lips.
We crouched in mud and rain while armed men searched ten feet away.
Leo stirred.
I lowered my face to his. “Please, baby. Quiet. Just for one minute.”
His eyelids fluttered.
He was so weak.
Too weak to cry.
That saved us.
When the footsteps faded, Dante led us through the maze to a gardener’s shed hidden behind a stone wall. Inside, he moved a stack of clay pots and revealed another narrow door.
“How many secrets does this place have?” I whispered.
“Not enough,” he said.
We slipped inside.
This passage smelled of soil and oil. Dante shut the door behind us and turned on a small flashlight.
Bellamy examined Leo again, his face grim.
“He needs fluids. Warmth. Milk. And a safe place where I can monitor him.”
I laughed once, bitterly. “Does that exist?”
Dante looked at me. “There is a safe house.”
“Outside the estate?”
“Brooklyn.”
“The gates are locked.”
“I know another way.”
Bellamy shook his head. “Moving him that far is dangerous.”
“Staying here is death,” Dante said.
Leo’s hand opened against my skin, tiny fingers curling in nothing.
Something inside me broke again.
Not like when Lily died.
Different.
Lily’s death had left a hole. Leo’s suffering filled it with fire.
I looked at Dante. “Get us out.”
He studied me for a moment.
Maybe he expected me to fall apart. Maybe he expected the maid to beg to go home, to wash her hands of a rich family’s blood war.
But I had already buried one child.
I would not carry another to the ground if I could stop it.
Dante nodded.
“This tunnel leads to the old boathouse.”
“A boat?”
“Under the river wall. Before the main road existed, the Rossis moved everything by water.”
“Everything?”
He gave me a look.
I decided not to ask.
We moved for what felt like forever. Bellamy stumbled twice. Dante stayed behind us, listening, checking corners, gun raised.
Finally, we reached the boathouse.
An old black speedboat waited beneath a tarp.
Dante uncovered it and climbed in.
“Get in.”
I stepped forward, then stopped.
A figure stood at the far end of the dock.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Covered in blood that rain could not fully wash away.
Lorenzo Rossi emerged from the shadows.
His eyes found Leo first.
Then me.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Then Lorenzo said, “Give me my son.”
I held Leo tighter.
Not because I wanted to keep him from his father.
Because I no longer knew who could be trusted.
Lorenzo noticed.
Pain crossed his face before anger buried it.
Dante stepped between us. “Boss.”
Lorenzo looked at him. “Is Marco alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then we are not done.”
His gaze returned to me.
“Mara,” he said, and my name sounded different from his mouth now. Not like a servant. Not like a suspect.
Like a person standing between him and the edge of the world.
“I was wrong upstairs.”
My throat tightened.
“You almost shot me.”
“I know.”
“You believed I was hurting him.”
“I know.”
“You should have watched sooner.”
That landed.
Dante looked away.
Bellamy froze.
Lorenzo took the blow without blinking.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I should have.”
Then Leo made a tiny sound.
A father’s face collapsed.
Lorenzo reached out, not commanding now.
Begging without the word.
I stepped onto the boat and placed Leo into his arms.
The mafia boss held his son like something holy.
May you like
Then he looked at us all.
“Brooklyn,” he said. “Tonight we take back my child’s life.”
