Page 67 of Crave Me

“He was close with my father… those were turbulent times back then, especially for the Mancini Syndicate… it could mean any number of things,” I murmured aloud to myself, trying to reason it all away.

The locket… it… no.

Dante’s… no.

The photo on the left was of a young woman in her twenties with long caramel hair and beautiful hazel eyes. She was smiling widely wearing a veil, and I could make out the top of what was certainly a wedding dress, before the picture cut off halfway down her shoulders. It had to be his fiancé, Bianca Greco, the woman who’d been killed years ago. There were absolutely no files or photos of her anywhere. Dante had wiped away every trace of her existence, it likely being a painful reminder for him, I supposed was his reasoning. A rather extreme reaction, but everybody grieved in their own way. I knew that better than most, unfortunately.

I angled the bag a little and peered at the other photo.

My breath hitched. It looked oddly familiar.

“Caspian?” Asher spoke, pulling me back to the moment. “The most likely conclusion is—”

“I know.”

In the next moment, I spun from him and bolted out of the sub-level, hearing his calls to me as I went.

I ignored them, only focused on one thing as I made my way through the mansion toward the only person left alive who could give me the answers I needed immediately.

I knew he was seeing Matteo off as he was well enough to head back to the Mancini Syndicate and oversee it in Dante’s stead while he’d stubbornly insisted on remaining here until Elijah was finally dealt with.

I found him stepping back from the manor entrance and fingering his pendant with a deeply pensive look on his face, his shoulders slumped. He was dressed down in a white open collar dress shirt and a pair of designer dress pants. Dressed down for him, anyway. The fact that we were dressed the exact same had me gritting my teeth, and just added to all the shit I’d just seen from Asher’s investigation. It wasn’t exactly the first time either.

“Dante!” I bellowed out through the entryway.

His gaze shot right to mine and he went stock-still at my aggressive tone.

“Show me!” I demanded, striding up to him.

“Caspian, what—”

“The locket. Show me.”

He was so shocked that he couldn’t move and I was there in the next second, opening it myself. I looked right past the photo of Bianca Greco and focused on the one I’d noticed a familiarity to at the hospital. With everything happening, I’d thrown it to the wayside. I’d had to. But now… now it was right front and center.

A baby, a newborn.

As I stared at it, that combined with what Asher had just shown me, along with Dante inserting himself into my life, it had me making the connection.

I released the locket. “Come with me. Right fucking now.”

I spun and took off through the mansion, hearing his footsteps after me, and a couple of curses from him too.

I burst into my home office and stormed toward the far back, one of the locked filing cabinets in the corner.

“What are you doing?” he called from the threshold.

I unlocked the cabinet, then started rifling through rapidly, searching for one thing in particular. “Get in here and shut the door,” I ordered over my shoulder.

Finally, I found what I was searching for and pulled it out.

I spun and slapped it down on my desk.

A photo that matched the one inside his locket exactly.

He stared down at it, his eyes wide. “This isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Shortly after my parents died, I found it in my mom’s things. There were never any newborn photos of me anywhere while I was growing up, which is startling considering my mom made a photo album for every year of my life, right up until she was murdered when I was a teenager. Now I see why.” I gestured at his locket. “Because she knew you were carrying around that. She didn’t want any chance of a connection being made. Or, was it my father who insisted in order to protect you?”

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