Page 24 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

CHAPTER SIX

Sweat collected along my palms, and I wiped them nervously on my pants as I walked toward the empty dock. We’d told each other to come alone. Not that either of us would. My men littered the area, blending in with the general population, and I suspected Dante had his men doing the same.

What he wouldn’t suspect is the secret weapons I had. If he tried anything, he would be surprised where the attack came from. My capacity for trust was a thin thread, fraying in the middle as more tension was applied. It wouldn’t take much for the thread to break under pressure.

“Hello, Ava.” Dante’s low voice came up behind me. I turned to face him, the wind whipping at my hair.

“Hello, Dante.” I smiled up at him, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “Thank you for coming.”

He smirked. “I was surprised to get your call.”

“Now that I know,” I murmured, reaching my hand out slowly to trace my fingers along his face. “I can’t believe I ever missed their resemblance to you.”

Dante stiffened at my words, but he didn’t make any move to remove my curious fingers.

“Kenzi inherited your nose,” I told him with a small, authentic smile as I traced his furrowing features. “But Libby got your fire and that blazing look in your eyes.”

Removing my hand, I took a small step back, waiting for his next move. His throat worked, blue eyes brimming with tears he wouldn’t dare to let fall. There was more emotion playing across his face now than I had ever seen before. He was always so stoic and put together. Even when he smiled, but now, that carefully erected barrier shifted beneath the moving sands.

“How did you find out?”

I swallowed back my own lump of emotion. “Libby.”

Dante’s eyes widened at her name. “She knew?” he asked incredulously. Nodding sadly, I held out a large manilla envelope to him. He took it without question, peeling it open to reveal the contents. It was everything Libby had 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 told him, watching his expression closely. The further he dug into the files, the redder his face became, until anger was all he seemed to know. Mark had added in some special footage of the ”fake” wedding as well.

“Motherfucker,” he growled dangerously, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the evidence tightly in front of him. The papers crinkled under his fierce grip, bending to his power. “You should have told me. The fuckingtraditore.”

“I told you to look closer to home,” I reminded him bitterly. “You just didn’t want to listen.”

Dante lifted his head and sneered at me. “I don’t like games, Avaleigh. You should have been straight with me.”

“Sure,” I scoffed, crossing my arms defensively. “Blame the kidnapped victim for not spilling her guts to you in the middle of 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’d found out that I outed him to you?”

Confusion tilted his face, making him look older than his forty-five years.

“What do you mean, kidnapped you? Dashkov is the one who took you from Elias.”

Laughter spilled from my lips, tainted with disbelief at his naivety. He honestly believed that? Had Elias told him nothing?

“Eliassoldme to Matthias to save Christian,” I told 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 worked 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 scoffed. “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 snapped. “I’ve outlined everything to a T. These are all records you can scrounge up yourself. You don’t have to take my word for it.”

“Why?” he pushed. “Why would Christian kill them?”

“Elias got in the way.” A heavy weight was lifting from my chest as I told him about the puppeteer Elias had been working with all these years. The man behind the curtain. I didn’t care if he believed me. That wasn’t what would cleanse the bitterness that had clung to me since childhood. No, all that mattered was I was finally able to tell him. The one man who had been kind to me when no one else but my sisters were.

“And Libby?”

“She betrayed him,” I admitted. “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 murmured. “Wedding wasn’t so fake, huh?”

I chuckled. “I married Matthias weeks before the fake wedding. It’s why I amPakhannow.”

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