Chapter 3

I stared at the two documents on the desk.

One ordered me to live. The other ordered me to die. Both were signed by Dante De Luca.

"Which one is real?"

Dante stood by the window, watching me through my own eyes.

"Both."

I tightened my grip on the edge of the paper.

"You protected me three years ago and tried to kill me yesterday. Which one is really you?"

He didn't answer.

I opened his computer. He stepped closer.

"What are you looking for?" Dante asked.

"The answer you won't give me."

"This isn't the time."

"People kept in the dark don't feel protected. They feel controlled."

His jaw tightened, but he didn't stop me again.

The database was full of names, deals, and records of contact. I searched my own name and found strangely little. When I searched Moretti instead, the screen filled with old articles and death records.

The family's destruction twenty-six years ago was always blamed on betrayal and war.

"You believed they were all guilty?" I asked.

"That's what I was told as a child."

"And later? Did you question it?"

"Yes."

He wouldn't say when that had begun.

I kept searching and found a hidden file with my name as the title.

"Close it," Dante said.

I looked at him.

"My identity could get me killed, but I don't have the right to see it?"

I opened the file.

It was full of photographs.

Me drinking coffee in the hospital break room. Walking toward the bus stop before dawn. Choosing groceries at the store.

All those moments when I'd thought no one was watching had been saved on his computer.

"You were watching me. For how long?"

"Three years."

The date matched the protection order.

Three years.

He knew when I got off work and when I walked home alone, while I hadn't even known he existed.

"Why did you never approach me?"

"Someone was always looking for you. If I openly got close to you, you'd be in more danger."

"That doesn't make surveillance something else."

"I know."

He didn't defend himself, which somehow left me with nowhere to put my anger.

I scrolled farther down.

There were records of several protection operations.

Two years ago, a threat near my apartment had been removed. Eighteen months ago, someone in the hospital parking lot had been warned off. Six months ago, security around my address had been increased.

"What did you do to those people?"

"Stopped them from hurting you."

"How?"

He paused.

"In my world, making a threat disappear is protection."

I thought about all those nights I'd made it home safely.

Someone had been removing dangers I didn't know existed—and taking away my chance to know the truth.

I didn't want to thank him.

I wanted even less to realize that I was starting to understand him.

My phone lit up. The hospital was asking again if I could cover a shift.

I didn't answer.

"You would've said yes before," Dante said.

"You kept track of that too?"

"Why is it always you?"

I stared at the familiar request.

"Because someone needs help."

"In my world, no one dares ask me to sacrifice myself." He looked at me.

"You do it willingly every day."

I locked my phone and turned it facedown on the desk.

This time, I didn't type the automatic yes.

That evening, I found an ER incident report from three years ago.

The man in the photo was lying on a hospital bed, his face obscured, one wrist exposed.

There was a scar on it.

I raised the wrist I had now.

Same place. Same shape.

The rainy night came back to me all at once.

A man covered in blood who refused to give his name. He wouldn't let me call the police. He had stared at me the entire time, as if closing his eyes meant he might never open them again.

I'd always thought he was just one more patient I'd saved.

"It was you."

I turned.

Dante nodded.

"That's why you protected me later?"

"You saved my life that night."

My chest tightened.

But he kept going.

"The next day, the first order I received was to find you—and kill you."

"You already knew I was a Moretti?"

"I knew after the investigation."

"Then what happened?"

He opened another scanned document. The handwritten note was only two lines long.

I found the woman who saved me. She is the last Moretti.

The page ended there. The bottom edge was torn away, and the rest had never been archived.

"What came after that?"

Dante reached for the computer to close the file.

I held the mouse down. His hand stopped beside mine.

For the first time, I saw panic on his face.

The man who had stayed perfectly calm while pointing a gun at me was avoiding one old page.

I printed it and stared at the blank space where the rest should have been.

Whatever decision he'd made three years ago had cost him something.

And that missing page recorded the price.

I stared at the torn document.

The empty space was more glaring than any words could have been.

Because I knew Dante hadn't simply forgotten to write the rest.

He didn't want me to see it.

"You tore it off," I said softly, looking at him.

Dante stood beside the desk and didn't deny it.

"Yes."

The answer was so direct that it unsettled me even more.

I picked up the page and studied the ragged edge.

"Why?"

Dante lowered his eyes to the paper.

"Because knowing would put you in more danger."

I gave a short laugh.

"That reason again."

I put the page down.

"Protect me. Hide the truth. Decide what I'm allowed to know and what I'm not."

I stared at him.

"Have you ever considered that if someone is never allowed to choose, that's not protection? That's control."

Dante didn't argue.

That surprised me even more.

The Dante I'd seen before never accepted anyone questioning his decisions.

But now he only stood there in silence.

I turned back to the computer and kept searching.

Dante watched me.

"You won't find the answer," he said quietly.

I didn't stop.

"Were you always like this?" I asked.

"Telling people not to look. Telling them to trust you. Then deciding their lives for them?"

Dante's eyes settled on me.

"I was protecting them."

I turned to face him.

"Dante."

I held his gaze.

"Do you know what the biggest problem is?" He said nothing.

"You actually believe you're protecting people. So you never ask whether they want that kind of protection."

The room went still.

Dante didn't answer.

Because he couldn't.

I searched Moretti.

Information slowly filled the screen.

Twenty-six years ago, the Moretti family had been wiped out.

The news reports made it sound absurdly simple.

Betrayal. War. Death.

Everyone told the world the same story: the Morettis were guilty.

But no one told me why an entire family had disappeared overnight.

"You believed these reports?" I asked.

Dante stood behind me.

"I did when I was a child."

I turned.

"When you were a child?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"Everyone tells a child what he's supposed to believe," he said, voice low.

"Until one day he realizes the answers aren't complete."

It was the first time I'd heard Dante admit it.

He had been controlled too.

I reopened the hidden file.

The title was still Sienna Vale.

My hand stopped.

Dante's voice went cold instantly.

"Close it."

I looked up at him.

"Why?"

He stepped forward.

"Because you shouldn't see it."

I stared at him.

"There it is again. You know who I am. You know my past. You know someone wants me dead. And I know nothing."

I opened the file.

"This time, I decide."

Dante didn't stop me.

There were no threat assessments. No criminal records.

Only photographs.

All of me.

Me at the hospital. On the street. On my way home.

I didn't even know when most of them had been taken.

My hand slowly went still.

"You watched me for three years," I said quietly.

Dante didn't deny it.

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked at the photos.

"Because someone was looking for you."

"So you looked for me too?"

"Yes."

"And then you protected me?"

"Yes."

I laughed once, but there was no sarcasm in it this time.

Only disbelief.

"Do you know what that sounds like?" Dante looked at me.

"Surveillance."

I froze.

Because he'd said it himself.

I kept scrolling.

Another set of records appeared.

Not surveillance.

Protection operations.

Two years ago: someone investigated my home address. Note: handled.

Eighteen months ago: someone approached hospital employees. Note: warned.

Six months ago: someone tried to obtain my personal information. Note: blocked.

I looked up.

"Who were these people?"

"People who wanted to hurt you."

"And you dealt with them?"

Dante paused.

"I stopped them."

I stared at him.

"What's the difference?"

He held my gaze.

"In my world, making the danger disappear is protection."

I fell silent.

Because suddenly I understood something.

Dante and I solved problems in completely different ways.

I saved people.

He eliminated threats.

But the goal was the same.

Keep someone alive.

"Tell me what happened three years ago." I looked at him.

"Why were you at the hospital?"

Dante was quiet for a long time.

Then he answered.

"Someone was trying to kill me."

I frowned.

"Who?" He shook his head.

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It matters to me." I cut him off.

"Because that's where you first knew me." Dante looked at me.

Finally, he said,

"That night, I was supposed to die there."

My breath caught.

"But you saved me."

The memory came rushing back.

Three years ago.

The ER.

A man covered in blood who refused to give his name, refused the police, refused even to let me know who he was.

I remembered keeping him awake. Telling him not to close his eyes.

And I remembered how he kept watching me.

"You know," I said softly, "I didn't know who you were then."

"I know." Dante looked at me.

"You didn't know I was Dante De Luca. You didn't know why everyone was afraid of me. You only saw an injured man."

That silenced me.

For the first time, someone had reminded me he hadn't been born cold-blooded.

Once, he had just been a man who needed to be saved.

"What happened after that?" I asked.

"You found out I was a Moretti." Dante nodded.

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you kill me?"

He didn't answer immediately.

He looked toward the window.

A long time later, he said,

"Because everyone told me who you were. No one told me what kind of person you were."

Something moved sharply in my chest.

Dante opened another document.

It was an order from three years ago.

Target: Sienna Vale.

Disposition: eliminate.

I stared at my name.

"This was the order to kill me?"

Dante didn't look away.

"Yes."

"Did you carry it out?"

"No."

"Why?"

Dante was silent.

Then he said,

"Because that was the first time I didn't want to become the man they expected me to be."

I stared at him.

"So what did you lose?"

He didn't answer.

I stepped closer.

"Dante. You protected me for three years. You disobeyed an order. You hid my identity. What did it cost you?"

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he said,

"Trust."

I frowned.

"The family's trust in me. Their support for me staying in power. And the future that was supposed to be mine."

I froze.

"Because of me?" Dante shook his head.

"No." He looked at me.

"Because of my choice. For the first time, I chose to be myself."

I didn't know why that made my heart sink.

I'd always thought Dante was a man without choices, someone shaped completely by power.

Now I realized he'd simply chosen a path everyone around him opposed.

My eyes dropped to the wrist I was wearing now.

Dante's old scar.

"Was this from three years ago?"

He looked at the wrist I raised.

"Yes."

"You already had it when I saw you at the hospital?"

"Yes."

I didn't say anything else.

Because in that moment I finally understood that some things couldn't be proved by files.

My phone rang suddenly.

Luca.

I answered.

"What happened?"

There was a one-second silence on the other end.

For the first time, Luca sounded tense.

"Boss, someone accessed your private files."

My expression changed.

"When?"

"Just now. They're looking for records from three years ago."

Dante moved toward me at once.

"Hang up," he said quietly.

I looked at him.

"Why?"

He didn't answer, because his phone lit up at the same time.

Unknown number.

A message addressed to Dante De Luca.

Three years ago, you failed to kill her.

My fingers went rigid.

Another message appeared.

This time, choose.

All the color left Dante's face.

I looked at him.

"What does that mean?"

He didn't answer.

The third message arrived before I could breathe.

Kill the girl you saved, or watch everyone you love die.

I looked up. Dante was already staring back at me—his face pale, his jaw tight. The phone in my hand vibrated one last time.

Choose.

I didn't answer. Neither did he. But the silence between us was louder than any gunshot.

And outside that door, someone was already counting the minutes until we broke.