Chapter 3

Dante shook hands with the man who destroyed me.

Lorenzo Valli stood ten feet away from me, clean and smiling, while my blood dried on the carpet.

For a second, I was back on concrete, in chains, with Dante bleeding on the floor while Lorenzo held a gun to my head.

“Run,” I had screamed at Dante then. “Go!”

He had refused at first.

Then I had lied.

I told him I hated him. I told him I would rather die than watch him get weak for me.

He believed me enough to leave.

Or maybe he wanted to.

I never knew.

But I stayed. Lorenzo kept me.

And now Dante welcomed him.

“My apologies,” Lorenzo said. “The docks are a mess tonight.”

Dante released his hand. “Brooklyn always is.”

Lorenzo laughed. “That is why you need my people on the ground.”

Dante nodded toward the table. “Sit.”

My stomach turned.

Sit?

That was all?

No gun. No blood.

Dante walked back to his seat and Bianca slid beside him, smug and safe. Lorenzo sat across from them. His eyes moved over me once.

Then stopped.

For the first time all night, he stopped smiling.

He recognized me.

I saw it.

His fingers twitched against the armrest.

Dante noticed.

“What?” Dante asked.

Lorenzo looked away fast. “Nothing. Bad work by the club. You should demand better quality.”

Bianca wrinkled her nose. “I said the same thing.”

Dante did not even glance at me.

“She’s leaving soon,” he said.

Lorenzo’s smile returned. “Good.”

My hands shook.

He knew.

Lorenzo Valli knew I was Elena Moretti.

And he said nothing because Dante did not care enough to look twice.

A man in a navy suit opened a folder on the table. Maps. Numbers. Names.

Dante leaned forward.

“Two docks,” he said. “Red Hook and Sunset Park. Your trucks move at night. My men clear the checkpoints. We split the clean cash sixty-forty.”

Lorenzo lifted a brow. “Fifty-fifty.”

Dante smiled. “You came to me.”

“Because your judge is useful,” Lorenzo said. “Not because I need permission.”

Dante’s eyes hardened.

For a second, I thought one of them might pull a gun.

Then Lorenzo raised both hands. “Sixty-forty, then.”

Bianca stroked Dante’s sleeve. “See? Everyone behaves when you ask nicely.”

Dante kissed her knuckles.

I went numb.

That mouth had once promised me forever.

Now he was making deals with the man who sold me piece by piece.

Lorenzo took a drink. “And the past?”

Dante’s fingers tightened around his glass.

I held my breath.

Dante stared at Lorenzo for a long moment.

Then he said, “The past is expensive. But everything has a price.”

Lorenzo nodded slowly. “Ten years ago was messy.”

Dante leaned back. “Ten years ago was a small accident.”

A small accident.

People kept talking around me, but I stopped hearing them for a few seconds.

My body had been sold. My kidney had been cut out. And my face had been ruined.

I had begged for death in locked rooms.

And to Dante, it was a small accident.

Bianca laughed softly. “Men are so dramatic about old grudges.”

Dante looked at her with that same gentle patience he once saved for me.

“You’re right,” he said. “Tonight is about business.”

I lowered my head.

Something inside me went quiet. I was not weak anymore. I was done.

The Dante I loved had died long ago.

Maybe he had never existed.

Maybe I had made him better in my head because the truth hurt too much.

Lorenzo signed the papers.

Dante signed after him.

Their men shook hands.

Money moved. Territory shifted.

My life became one more thing they ignored.

Then Lorenzo stood and looked at me again.

This time, his smile was calm.

“Is this one included?” he asked.

Bianca tilted her head. “What do you want with her?”

Lorenzo shrugged. “Loose ends make noise.”

Dante glanced at me at last.

For one heartbeat, I waited.

Then he said, “Do whatever you want. Just not in my suite.”

The Madam grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door.

I did not fight.

I only looked back once.

Dante had already turned away.

And when the door shut behind me, Lorenzo's men were already waiting in the hall, and one of them had a knife.

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