one
Sweat collects along the palms of my hands and I wipe them nervously on my pants as I walk toward the empty dock. We told each other to come alone. Not that either of us will. My men litter the area, blending in with the general population and I suspect Dante has his men doing the same.
What he won’t suspect is the secret weapons I have. If he tries anything he will be surprised where the attack comes from. My capacity for trust is a thin thread fraying in the middle as more tension is applied. It won’t take much for the thread to break under pressure.
“Hello, Ava.” Dante’s low voice comes up behind me. I turn to face him, the wind whipping at my hair.
“Hello, Dante,” I smile up at him, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. “Thank you for coming.”
He smirks. “I was surprised to get your call.”
“Now that I know,” I murmur, reaching my hand out slowly to trace my fingers along his face. “I can’t believe I ever missed their resemblance to you.”
Dante stiffens at my words, but he doesn’t make any move to remove my curious fingers.
“Kenzi inherited your nose,” I tell him with a small, authentic smile as I trace his furrowing features. “But Libby got your fire and that blazing look in your eyes.”
Removing my hand, I take a small step back, waiting for his next move. His throat works, blue eyes brimming with tears he won’t dare to let fall. There is more emotion playing across his face now than I have ever seen before. He is always so stoic and put together. Even when he smiles, but now, that carefully erected barrier shifts beneath the moving sands.
“How did you find out?”
I swallow back my own lump of emotion. “Libby.”
Dante’s eyes widen at her name. “She knew?” he asks incredulously. Nodding sadly, I hold out a large manilla envelope to him. He takes it without question, peeling it open to reveal the contents. It is everything Libby managed to acquire on Kenzi, my grandfather, and a few other shady deals that Mark managed to decrypt.
“She knew a lot more than just that,” I tell him, watching his expression closely. The further he digs into the files, the redder his face becomes, until anger is all he seems to know. Mark added in some special footage as well of the ‘fake’ wedding.
“Motherfucker,” he growls dangerously, his knuckles whitening as he grips the evidence tightly in front of him. The papers crinkle under his fierce grip, bending to his power. “You should have told me. The fuckingtraditore.”
“I tell you to look closer to home,” I remind him bitterly. “You just don’t want to listen.”
Dante lifts his head and sneers at me. “I don’t like games, Avaleigh. You should have been straight with me.”
“Sure,” I scoff, crossing my arms defensively. “Blame the kidnapped victim for not spilling her guts to you in the middleof a funeral where my enemies surrounded me. Makes sense. Christian ordered Eduardo to rape me as punishment for our discussion already. What do you think he would have done if he found out that I outed him to you?”
Confusion tilts his face, making him look years older than his forty-five years.
“What do you mean, kidnapped you? Dashkov is the one who took you from Elias.”
Laughter spills from my lips, tainted with disbelief at his naivety. He honestly believes that? Had Elias told him nothing?
“Elias sold me to Matthias to save Christian,” I tell him, bitterness coating my tongue at the memory. “I helped them take down Elias’s shipping port. That was my idea. Then we staged the fake wedding to draw Elias out. Libby was shot by a sniper. One who works for you, by the way. Paid off by Christian. It’s all outlined in the file I gave you.”
“You’re telling me Christian killed not only his sister, but his father?” he scoffs. “Come on, Ava. You really expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t need you to believe it when the proof is right before you,” I snap. “I’ve outlined everything to a T. These are all records you could scrounge up yourself, you don’t have to take my word for it.”
“Why?” he pushes. “Why would Christian kill them?”
“Elias got in the way.” A heavy weight lifts from my chest as I tell him about the puppeteer Elias had been working with all these years. The man behind the curtain. I don’t care if he believes me. That isn’t what will cleanse the bitterness that has clung to me since childhood. No, all that matters is I am finally able to tell him. The one man who was kind to me when no one else but my sisters were.
“And Libby?”
“She betrayed him,” I admit. “The fake wedding was her idea to draw them out. But he had plans to kill her long before that because he didn’t need her. Her final use to him was framing us for her murder.”
“Us,” Dante murmurs. “Wedding wasn’t so fake, huh?”
I chuckle. “I married Matthias weeks before the fake wedding. It’s why I amPakhannow.”