I nod.
He steps closer, catches the look on my face. His expression tightens. “What is it?”
I swallow the answer, the words come, anyway. “Where’s Rocco?”
Milo straightens. “Patio. Why?”
“When I’m done with Dante,” I say quietly, “bring him to my office.”
Milo’s brows furrow. “Did you get word on Sienna? Did you talk to Volkov?”
“No,” I say. “I spoke to Dominic.”
He waits. Then I say it. “Sienna is dead. Volkov killed her on their honeymoon.” Milo takes a step back like the words physically hit him. He doesn’t speak, just lowers his head.
“Fuck!” he curses knowing also how horrible this will be to tell Rocco.
He nods slowly. “I’ll get him. When you’re done.”
“Thank you.” I walk toward the door, and Milo doesn’t follow. The hallway feels longer than usual. I descend the stairs to the basement, each step heavier than the last. I’ve carried bodies through these halls, heard confessions soaked in blood. Tonight, tonight is something else.
When I reach the bottom, I find my father waiting. The man who built empires out of fear. Who taught me how to cut a man down with words before I learned to do it with steel.
He looks…old.
Not in the physical sense. He still wears his grief in expensive suits and perfect posture. Yet, there’s something gone in his eyes. He peers up at me when I stop in front of him.
“Do you want a moment with him?” I ask.
He stares at the door. Dante is just on the other side, bound and waiting.
He shakes his head slowly. “I can’t face him. Not while knowing what I’m about to allow you to do.” His voice is raw. He’s never sounded like this before.
Like he finally sees the price of looking away.
I nod. “I can’t let him walk”
“I know,” he says, then trudges past me, up the stairs, and out of sight. Milo offered to come with me. I told him no, he is my brother, so I need to do this.
This part is mine alone, and something I should have done years ago. Instead, I held on to the old adage that blood is somehow thicker than water despite years of being shown the opposite.
I unlock the reinforced door at the end of the basement hall and step inside. The lights hum overhead, casting everything in cold white. No shadows left to hide in here. Just cement walls, chains, and torture devices.
Dante sits on the metal chair, hands cuffed behind him, ankles shackled to the bolt in the floor. His lip is split. One eye swollen shut. Santos’s men didn’t go easy on him when they dropped him here, but they didn’t do what needs doing.
That’s on me and I would have it no other way; he needs to pay for what he did to Fallon.
He lifts his head when he hears the door. He smirks through blood and cracked teeth.
“Well, if it isn’t the conquering Italian prince,” he drawls. “Come to slay the monster and hang his head on your wall? How did that conversation go with Papa?”
I don’t answer. I close the door behind me and lean against it, arms crossed.
Dante laughs. “Still dramatic as ever. So, what’s the plan? You gonna give me some long speech about loyalty, family,honor?” He spits blood onto the floor between us. “Don’t bother. I’m not the one who started this.”
“No,” I say. “You’re just the one who sold us out. Who handed my wife to a psychopath and didn’t care if she or the baby lived long enough to see the sun again.”
“Yourwife,” he says, mocking. “Always about you, huh? About your empire. Your name. You think the rest of us didn’t bleed to get this far?”