grip.

Her eyes opened when he entered.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Dante had faced prosecutors, rivals, traitors, and men with guns hidden under church coats.

None had ever looked at him the way Elena did now, with exhaustion and pain and the terrible clarity of someone who had already grieved him once.

“You came,” she said.

“I should have been there before you fell.”

Her mouth tightened.

“You should have been there before a lot of things.”

He accepted that.

There was no defense that would not insult her.

Dante moved closer to the bed.

“Who told you to leave the apartment?”

Elena looked away.

“Elena.”

“You don’t get to use that voice with me anymore.”

He went still.

Good, he thought.

Be angry.

Stay alive enough to hate me.

She swallowed, her throat working with effort.

“I tried calling the doctor you arranged.

The number stopped working.

I tried the driver.

He said he wasn’t assigned to me anymore.

The guards outside my building changed.

They didn’t speak to me.

They watched me like I was a problem they weren’t allowed to solve.”

Dante’s eyes lowered briefly.

“I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t.”

That cut deeper than blame.

Elena turned her head toward him again.

“At first I thought you had changed your mind.

That whatever guilt made you leave money and protection behind had finally worn off.

Then someone sent me a note.”

Dante’s body sharpened.

“What note?”

“It was pushed under my door this morning.

No envelope.”

“What did it say?”

“That if I wanted my child born outside your war, I had to leave before midnight.”

The monitor beeped steadily in the silence.

Dante’s voice lowered.

“Your child.”

Her eyes flashed.

“Yes.

Mine.

The one I found out about after you sent me divorce papers and disappeared behind men who wouldn’t even let me ask a question.”

He deserved every word.

“All right,” he said.

“Yours.”

Some of the fight drained from her face, leaving only exhaustion.

“I went to the clinic because I didn’t trust the note.

I wanted a doctor to write down the dates, the condition, everything.

Proof that I was pregnant before anyone could make it sound like I invented a reason to get back into your life.”

Dante looked at the card.

His name was written on the back.

Beneath it, in Elena’s shaking hand, were the words she had not finished in the ambulance.

Do not trust—

The last word had been cut off by the fold.

Dante picked it up and opened it carefully.

Do not trust Carlo.

Carlo Bellandi had been with Dante’s father before Dante was old enough to understand what men whispered behind restaurant doors.

He had held Dante by the shoulders at the funeral and told him the family would not break.

He had sat three seats down at the table tonight, silver-haired and solemn, the old captain who had mentioned the Russo shipment.

Dante folded the card once.

Elena watched him.

“You know him.”

“Yes.”

“Is he the reason you divorced me?”

“No.”

“Is he the reason your protection disappeared?”

Dante did not answer quickly enough.

Elena gave a faint, humorless laugh.

“There it is.”

“I will handle Carlo.”

“No.”

The word was weak, but it stopped him.

“No?” Dante