“You haven’t been focused as much as you usually are on the threat and weeding it out. We cannot afford a full-blown war like this, Tristan. You’ve been distracted–”
“It’s not her fault–”
“Isn’t it?”
A paus
e.
Dante continued. “Look, I don’t want her under that jerkwad’s roof any more than you do. We have a safe house we could move her to. Maybe get her fake passports, get her out of the country as we did with Catarina and the girls. I will stay back to ensure it all goes smoothly and she’s not harmed and—”
“She comes with me.”
Four words.
Soft. Guttural. Irrefutable.
The breath she’d been holding in her throat escaped in a rush, her heart pounding so hard she felt faint. Putting her hand on her naked chest, she felt the fast thumping under her palm and took a few steadying breaths, relief and something else filling her.
She comes with me.
Did she want to go? To leave behind the only home she’d known, the only city she’d known, the only life she’d known? She knew she could fight him on this, but did she want to?
No.
Dante stayed silent for a long minute and Morana wondered what they looked like right then, how closed off they were to each other, how hard they challenged the other’s stare.
“Father will retaliate,” Dante warned in that quiet tone.
Tristan Caine snorted. “Like I give a fuck.”
“It’s not retaliation against you that I worry about,” Dante clarified. “It’s her. For doing what he couldn’t ever do.”
Which was what exactly? she wondered.
“Leave it, Dante,” Tristan Caine uttered, his voice a dangerous blade. “He’ll know the exact score once we land. Just get the plane ready for the morning.”
“Be ready at 8,” Dante stated.
“Done.”
Okay.
Taking a deep breath, she heard the soft ding of the elevator, indicating Dante had called for it.
“By the way,” Tristan Caine called out, “Chiara called.”
Chiara Mancini. The phone call. Who was she?
“What for?”
“I didn’t answer. Nor will I,” Tristan Caine replied. “But if he gets her to–”
“I’ll take care of it before we board,” Dante responded and the elevator dinged another time, telling her he’d left.
Who the hell was this woman?
Morana turned on her side, looking out the smaller glass windows in her room, watching the rain, and marveled at how drastically her life had changed since the last time she’d been in the same bed in the rain like this. She’d been contemplating jumping beyond those windows then, even hypothetically. Now, she couldn’t fathom letting go of something so precious inside her - something that made her feel everything so acutely, something she’d begun to fight for.