Bound by Blood and BeastI looked down at the enormous dog, who had now settled comfortably against my leg.

By midnight, the storm had passed, leaving behind a damp, oppressive fog that clung to the estate grounds.

I was moved to Dante’s personal quarters on the second floor—a suite built like a bank vault, with steel-reinforced doors, bulletproof windows, and no exterior balconies. Orion had refused to leave the room until he had thoroughly sniffed every corner, finally curling up against the foot of Dante's massive bed.

A medic had bandaged a minor cut on my forearm from the flying glass. I sat on the edge of a leather armchair, clutching a mug of black tea, listening to the muffled shouts of guards securing the grounds below.

The door clicked open. Dante walked in, having showered and changed into fresh clothes. He wore a dark henley that clung to his broad chest, his damp hair falling over his forehead, making him look younger, yet no less lethal.

In his hand, he held a small, charred metal box.

"What is that?" I asked, setting my tea on the side table.

"Enzo found this among the personal effects retrieved from your tiny apartment in Queens," Dante said, walking over and placing the metal tin in my lap. "My men brought everything before Lorenzo's cleaners could torch the building."

The tin was an old cigar box, its corners rusted, bearing the faint scent of smoke and old paper. My heart skipped a beat.

"That's mine," I whispered. "The social worker gave it to me when I turned eighteen. She said it was in the pocket of my coat the night I was found in New Jersey."

"Open it," Dante said softly, pulling up a chair opposite me.

My fingers trembled as I pried open the corroded latch.

Inside lay a few faded receipts, a silver dollar, and a small velvet pouch. I reached into the pouch and tipped its contents into my palm.

A silver medallion slipped out.

It was the identical twin to the one Dante had shown me earlier—the roaring lion clutching a broken dagger. But this one had an inscription engraved across the back, weathered by time and smoke.

Dante reached out, his warm fingers brushing mine as he turned the medallion over in my hand. He read the Latin words aloud:

*"In sanguine veritas. In fide aeterna."*

"In blood, truth. In faith, eternal," I translated, the words surfacing from the depths of my subconscious before I could stop them.

Dante looked up from the medallion, his eyes locked onto mine. "It’s the Valenti motto. This pendant belonged to your mother, Isabella. She never took it off."

Tears, hot and sudden, blurred my vision. I closed my fingers tightly around the silver disk, the cold metal biting into my skin. For fourteen years, I had believed I was discarded garbage. A nameless orphan abandoned on the side of a New Jersey highway because nobody wanted me.

Now, holding this piece of silver, the truth was far more terrifying.

"They didn't abandon me," I choked out, a single tear escaping down my cheek. "They died trying to hide me."

Dante shifted closer. To my shock, his hand reached out, his thumb gently catching the tear on my cheek, wiping it away with unprecedented tenderness.

"Your father spent his dying breath ensuring you got into that cellar, Alessia," Dante said, his voice thick with raw emotion. "And someone took you out of that fire and brought you here, to New York, knowing that the only place Lorenzo Rossi wouldn't look for a Valenti heir was under the shadow of the Moretti family."

"Who?" I asked, looking into his eyes. "Who saved me?"

"That’s what we’re going to find out tomorrow," Dante said, his jaw tightening into hard stone. "Tomorrow night is the quarterly Syndicate Assembly at the Plaza Hotel. Every family head will be in attendance. Including Lorenzo Rossi."

Panic seized my chest. "You're taking me there? To a room full of mobsters who want me dead?"

"They don't want you dead because of who you are, Olivia," Dante said, leaning in until our foreheads almost touched. "They want you dead because of what you represent. You are the sole living heir to the Valenti empire. You hold the legal deed to the Chicago territories, worth billions."

He took my hand, placing it firmly against his chest. Beneath the soft fabric of his shirt, I could feel the powerful, steady thumping of his heart.

"Tomorrow night, I introduce you to the underworld. Not as an orphan. Not as a victim. But as the rightful head of House Valenti, under the total protection of the Moretti crown."