Chapter 25 - The Sins of the Fathers
The safehouse was a reinforced stone cabin buried deep within a dense thicket of spruce trees, undetectable from the air and invisible from the forest road.
By the time Dante kicked the reinforced steel door shut and secured the triple-bolt deadlocks, Julian had lost consciousness, his breathing shallow and rattling. Dante dumped him onto a heavy leather couch near the stone hearth, not gently, but efficiently, before immediately moving to the gun locker to retrieve medical kits and fresh ammunition.
Clara collapsed to her knees beside her father, checking his neck. "He’s in shock. He’s freezing."
Dante tossed a thermal foil blanket across Julian’s chest, then threw an emergency suture kit at Clara’s feet. "Bandage his shoulder. Shrapnel took out his deltoid. He won't bleed out, but if he gets an infection, he’s done."
Clara caught the kit, but she didn't open it immediately. Her hazel eyes lifted to Dante.
In the dim, orange emergency lighting of the cabin, she saw it: a dark, widening stain spreading across the left side of Dante’s ribcage. A bullet had grazed him deeply through his coat during their sprint through the pines.
"You're hit," she whispered, rising to her feet.
"It's a scratch."
"Shut up, Dante," Clara snapped, her street grit cutting through his aristocratic mafia authority. She marched over, gripped the lapels of his soaked coat, and shoved him down onto a wooden bench near the hearth. "Take it off."
Dante stared at her, his jaw clenching, but something in her fiery eyes made him obey. He peeled off the heavy coat, unbuttoning his blood-soaked dress shirt to reveal a torso carved of corded muscle, marred by dozens of old knife scars and bullet wounds. A fresh, ugly furrow of torn flesh wept crimson along his lower ribs.
Clara knelt beside him, pouring antiseptic directly onto the wound. Dante didn't flinch. He didn't make a sound, only his silver eyes burned brighter as he watched her hands work with clinical, steady precision.
"Why didn't you leave him?" Clara asked softly, threading the surgical needle. "You hate the Bellandis. You thought my family killed your father. Why did you carry him through three miles of snow?"
Dante was silent for a long moment, the crackle of the wood stove filling the heavy air.
"Because he’s your father," Dante said, his voice dropping into a raw, gravelly register that made her hands tremble for a fraction of a second. "And because whatever lies he told you in that room... you believed them."
Clara paused, needle in hand. Her heart thudded against her ribs. "He told me Armando Serrano was not your real father."
Dante didn't move. Not a muscle in his face twitched, but she saw the flare of his nostrils, the subtle tightening of his throat.
"I know," Dante whispered.
Clara’s breath caught. "You... you knew?"
"I found Armando’s private journals three years ago, right after I took the head of the family," Dante confessed, his gaze turning distant, hollow, and terribly cold. "I know I have Bellandi blood. I know that my entire life was a lie built on stolen lineage. Armando stole me from your uncle to use me as a battering ram against your family."
"Then why?" Clara's voice broke. "Why marry me? Why crown me as your queen?"
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Dante reached out, his blood-stained hand cupping her jaw, his thumb gently stroking across her cheekbone. "Because you were the only real thing in a world made of ghosts and poisoned blood, Clara. When I dragged you out of that alley, with your two meters of hair tangled in filth, looking at me with eyes that refused to die... I didn't see an heiress. I saw my mirror. And I swore to God and the Devil that if I had to burn both the Serrano and Bellandi names to the ground to keep you safe, I would."
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