Dante acted like my walking into the place barely registered.
He rose from where he crouched, his voice carrying that easy, charitable patience of a man who believed the room belonged to him.
"All right, Adriana."
"Since you came looking for me on your own, I'll treat all that talk of severing the union as you throwing a tantrum."
"Let's just put it behind us."
He glanced down at the pup cradled in his arm, and his face went soft.
"Go home first and tidy up the place. These pups were just born, and things are still touch and go."
"I need to stay a few more days, keep an eye on them with Vittoria."
I stood there on the social club's polished floor, and the whole thing suddenly struck me as absurd.
A mistress installed in plain daylight, in a front the Family's money had built.
A man bound by the codes of the union, betraying the blood without a shred of shame.
And the two of them somehow convinced they were the ones in the right.
As if I had always been the one in the wrong.
I ignored Dante and looked straight at Vittoria, slowly curling my lips into a mocking smile.
"Miss Greco."
"Stealing another woman's man is one thing."
"Now you're stealing her clothes too?"
"Weren't you always parading yourself as some self-made woman?"
"Turns out the empire you built rests on stolen husbands and stolen keepsakes from the dead?"
The air in the club went dead quiet.
A few women picking through the feed and leashes nearby turned to look. One of them blinked, caught off guard.
"Ma'am, aren't you two together?"
"You were sharing one spoon over that cake a minute ago…"
Another frowned.
"Right, I was just saying how good you two looked."
"So he's got a wife?"
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
A few sentences, and Vittoria's face flushed scarlet. Her smile stayed fixed where it had always served her, but her eyes flicked once toward the door, then toward Dante, hunting for the thing that would protect her. She opened her mouth, and not a single word of defense came out.
The customers traded glances, contempt plain in their eyes. The collars and toys they'd already chosen went back onto the shelves. One after another, they filed out of the front.
Watching her marks walk away, Vittoria's eyes reddened in an instant. She flung herself to Dante's side, the picture of injured innocence.
"Dante."
"Did Adriana come here on purpose to wreck my business?"
"I really didn't mean anything by it."
"I just thought that sweater was so warm and soft, perfect for the puppies."
"She spends so much of your money all the time. What kind of clothes can't she buy? Why does she have to fixate on this one?"
"Now everyone who walks through that door thinks the worst of me."
"How am I supposed to keep this place running after this…"
The more she said, the more wronged she sounded. The tears fell one after another.
Dante's heart melted at once. He wiped her tears and turned a cold face on me.
"Adriana, are you done making a scene?"
"I'm the one who took the sweater."
"Why are you taking it out on Vittoria?"
"It's just a piece of clothing. Is this really necessary?"
He frowned, his eyes full of impatience.
"Besides, your body's going to change once you're carrying a child anyway. The sweater wouldn't fit you for long."
"Just have your mother knit another one. Problem solved."
"It's not some collector's piece out of Milan. Why treat it like it's so precious?"
In that moment.
The last thread in my mind snapped clean through.
Crack—
The sharp sound of a slap rang out. Dante's face whipped to the side.
The whole club fell into a dead silence. Even the men near the back, the ones who carried iron under their jackets, went still.
I looked at him, shaking all over, and the tears I couldn't hold back any longer poured down.
"Yes!"
"What my mother knitted is precious!"
"Because she'll never knit anything again!"
My voice came out nearly as a scream. Two days of suppressed breakdown finally tore loose all at once.
"Dante, do you have any idea—while you were here helping her dog give birth, toasting her like she'd become a mother, my parents were already dead!"
"I called you seventy-six times!"
"Seventy-six!"
"And you never picked up once!"
"You'd rather sit with a litter of puppies than come back and save them!"
Dante went rigid where he stood. The color drained from his face completely. He let go of Vittoria without thinking. For the first time, panic surfaced in his eyes. His thumb pressed hard into the knuckles of his other hand, the old surgeon's reflex, scrubbing at skin that was already clean.
"What did you say?"
"How could your parents possibly…"
But before he could finish, Vittoria lunged.
She shoved me hard.
"What gives you the right to hit people!"
"It's just a ratty old sweater!"
"Who even wants it!"
She spun, grabbed the sweater off the puppy, and yanked it free. Then she threw it straight into the litter box one of the staff had just carried out.
"Here, take it back!"
"Who knows if anything you said is even true!"
"I ran into your folks at the market just this morning!"
"Cursing your own parents dead just to fight over a man. Do you have any conscience left?"
The litter box hadn't been cleaned. The moment the sweater landed, it was coated in clumped filth and waste. The sharp stench rose up at me.
That sweater my mother had ruined her eyes knitting. The last thing she'd left me. Defiled like this, beyond saving. An insult against the sacred dead, the kind that, in our world, demands blood.
The young staff member went pale with fright.
"I… I didn't know the owner brought that in…"
"I didn't mean to…"
But I couldn't hear anything anymore. All that remained in my sight was that filthy, befouled sweater. Rage and hatred churned in my chest like lava. Burning until my insides ached.
I walked toward Vittoria, one step at a time. I raised my hand. This slap, I was going to give back to her no matter what.
But before it could land, a rush of air came at me.
The next second.
Crack—
A slap louder than the one before landed hard across my face.
The whole club went silent in an instant. The blow knocked my head to the side. My ears rang. My cheek burned.
And Dante stood in front of me.
Shielding Vittoria.
Like he was shielding the most important person in his life.
