Page 84 of Blood Vows

“Only what was in the file Luca gave me. I knew his alias,” Dante said.

“Did you remember him then?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“When did you remember who he was?” she asked.

“I recognized him from the photograph Hale sent,” Dante said. She nodded. Every answer hurt, but every answer mattered.

“Did you enjoy it?”

Dante went white. Isabella whispered, “Elena.”

“No.” She kept her eyes on Dante. “I need to know.”

“No.” His voice broke. “No, I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Did you feel anything?” she asked.

“Yes,” he insisted.

“What?”

Dante swallowed. “Nothing good.” That surprised her. He looked down. “I thought he was a traitor. Thought he was selling out the family. I believed the intel.” His hands clenched. “I was wrong.”

Elena’s chest tightened. “You were doing your job.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” he said. “It makes it worse.”

She looked at him. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t ask enough questions.” Dante met her gaze. “I pulled a trigger because someone told me to.” Luca stiffened, and Dante didn’t look at him. “I trusted the system. Trusted the intel. Trusted the family.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “And your father died because of it.”

Elena didn’t know what to do with his guilt. She wanted to hate him. It would be easier, so much easier, but all she could see was the man who had been homeless at fifteen. The man Luca had saved. The man who had built his entire identity around loyalty. Hale had used that against him, just like he’d used her father, and just like he was using her now.

“Elena,” Dante said quietly. “I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes. There it was—the apology she’d wanted from someone for two years. Except it came from the last person she ever wanted to hear it from.

“I can’t forgive you,” she whispered.

Dante nodded. “I know.”

“Maybe someday,” she said. His eyes lifted to hers. She didn’t know why she’d added that part. Maybe because she couldn't stand the hopelessness in his face, or maybe because she meant it. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll take maybe,” he said. Her throat tightened.

Luca cleared his throat. “There’s something else.”

Elena almost laughed. “Of course there is.”

Luca pulled a small evidence envelope from the file, and Dante straightened. “The key.” Inside was a small brass key. Elena stood, and Luca handed it to her. A number was stamped along the side—417. She turned it over and found three letters scratched into the metal. CHR.

“Crimson Holdings,” Dante said.

“Maybe.” Elena stared at it. Her father had been carrying it the night he died. The safe-deposit key she already had was different, which meant there was another box, and another secret. There was another piece of the life her father had hidden from her.

Luca opened his laptop. “I already searched the number.”

“And?” Dante asked.