Page 92 of Blood Vows

“I changed my mind,” he said.

“Because?” she asked.

“Because I hate it. It’s a horrible plan,” he mumbled.

“That isn’t a good reason not to follow through with it,” she said.

“It is to me.”

Elena held his gaze. “We’re ending this,” she insisted.

Dante’s chest tightened. “You don’t know what ending it might cost us.”

“No.” Her expression changed. “But I know what waiting costs us.” That shut him up. She had spent two years waiting for answers about her father. Twenty-seven years living inside something she never knew existed. He couldn’t ask her to wait anymore.

Dante exhaled. “Fine.”

Luca looked surprised, and Elena looked even more surprised. “Fine?” she asked.

“You can make the call,” he said.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes.” Dante leaned closer. “But you do exactly what we agree to.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “Within reason.”

“No,” he breathed. “You’ll do exactly what we agree to.”

She considered it, and he could tell when she resigned herself to his demands. “Fine.”

For a moment, tension loosened. Finally, he pointed at her, and then Dante looked at Luca. “We do this once.”

“One shot,” Luca agreed.

“If anything feels wrong, we pull her,” he ordered.

“Agreed,” Luca said.

Dante looked at Elena. “No arguing when it happens.”

She opened her mouth, and he raised an eyebrow, getting ready for her argument. “Fine.” He considered her agreement to be progress, but he knew Elena well enough now to know that she was always going to give him a fight.

Marco had the house locked down by the time they returned. Three laptops covered Luca’s dining table. A signal jammer Dante didn’t ask about allowed Marco to look up everything that they needed to know.

“You brought presents,” he said. Dante placed the flash drive on the table.

“Offline only,” Dante ordered.

Marco’s expression sharpened. “You act like this is my first rodeo,” he mumbled, causing Dante to roll his eyes.

“Anything from Hale?” Luca asked.

“No,” Marco said.

“Good,” Dante said.

Marco held up another sheet of paper. “But I traced the shell company that paid the men who hit the safehouse.”