Chapter 11 - THE LIE DESIGNED TO BREAK US
Dante did not call Sunday.
Or Monday.
Tuesday either.
By Wednesday, I was furious.
Not scared.
Furious.
Thursday night, the prison number finally appeared.
I answered.
“Hello.”
“Mara.”
His voice was cold.
“Four days.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then explain.”
Silence.
“Do you think I took Gabriel’s money?”
“No.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“I don’t.”
“Then why haven’t you called?”
“Because I’m angry.”
“At me?”
“At myself.”
Of course.
He made guilt look exhausting.
“For what?”
“For not realizing Gabriel had built contingencies around you.”
“So you punish me with silence?”
“No.”
“You disappeared.”
“I needed time.”
“That is disappearing with vocabulary.”
He sighed.
“You’re right.”
I sat on the edge of my bed.
“Why is my name on that trust?”
“We found out.”
My pulse quickened.
“How?”
“Gabriel created it after your apartment burned.”
“Why?”
“To convince authorities you had financial ties to me.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It wasn’t for authorities.”
“Then who?”
“Nico.”
I went still.
“What?”
“He wanted Nico to find it after my arrest.”
“Why?”
“To convince him you were manipulating me.”
I understood.
Destroy Dante’s trust in me through his organization.
Create resentment.
Frame me as the outsider who dismantled them for money.
“Did Nico believe it?”
“For three minutes.”
I laughed.
“Three?”
“He’s getting sentimental.”
“What happens to the money?”
“Federal seizure.”
“Good.”
Silence.
Then I said:
“Dante.”
“Yes?”
“If something scares you, tell me.”
“I know.”
“No. Listen.”
I gripped the phone.
“You spent your life around men who treat information like ammunition. I won’t live like that.”
He said nothing.
“If we are anything—whatever this is—you don’t disappear to protect me from your thoughts.”
A long pause.
“You said ‘we.’”
I closed my eyes.
“Do not ruin this.”
He laughed softly.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“Four days.”
“Good.”
Then his voice became serious.
“I love you.”
My heart stopped.
Prison phone.
Fluorescent room.
No music.
No candlelight.
Of course Dante Morelli would tell me he loved me through a monitored line while discussing offshore fraud.
“You have terrible timing.”
“I know.”
“You couldn’t wait nine months?”
“I tried.”
I stared at the wall.
“Mara?”
“I love you too.”
The silence afterward felt bigger than any room we had shared.
Then an automated voice announced sixty seconds remaining.
I laughed.
Dante did too.
“Romantic.”
“Very.”
His release came seven months later, earlier than expected because of cooperation credits.
I waited outside.
Nico insisted on bringing security.
I insisted on one car.
Dante walked through the gate carrying one bag.
He looked thinner.
Older.
Free.
I had imagined running.
I didn’t.
Neither did he.
We walked toward each other slowly.
He stopped in front of me.
“Doctor.”
“Criminal.”
“Former.”
“Debatable.”
He smiled.
Then I touched his face.
He closed his eyes.
When I kissed him, the world became quiet.
No army.
No gunfire.
No blood.
Just a man who had once collapsed through my door and a woman who once believed her life had already ended.
Then Nico cleared his throat.
We separated.
“I waited seven months to do that,” Dante said.
Nico shrugged.
“I’ve waited seven months to annoy you.”
Normality lasted eleven minutes.
Then a black sedan pulled behind us.
Wrong plates.
Nico saw it first.
“Down!”
The rear window opened.
A gun appeared.
Dante pushed me behind the car.
Shots shattered glass.
Security responded.
The sedan accelerated.
Gone.
Dante looked at me.
My ears rang.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
Nico held up something left on the road.
An envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Gabriel.
Not in prison.
Current.
Free.
Alive.
And underneath:
YOU THOUGHT I WAS FINISHED.
Dante stared.
Gabriel had supposedly been in federal custody.
If the photograph was real—
May you like
either he had escaped,
or somebody had been lying to us for months.
