Second Chance Daddy: Broken Boss Daddies, page 16
Three years ago. Back in Chicago for some divorce stuff. The hotel bathroom.
A ragged, rundown place, I knew Gino wouldn’t think to look twice. Whenever I hit Chicago, I never told him where I really stayed. Fearing he’d be waiting outside, watching like a hawk.
I remember my hands trembled so badly, holding the plastic stick with its two pink lines. Clear as a death sentence.
I stared at it so long that the edges of my vision blurred.
Pregnant.
I crumpled onto the grimy bathroom floor.
The test result had been a cosmic middle finger to everything I thought I had under control.
Dante was gone. Ghosted like it was his passion project. And me? I was stuck. Scared. Wrecked. Barely holding my spine upright.
I could’ve told him.
Could’ve called Tina, gotten a number, tracked him down, and screamed the truth through a phone line.
But I didn’t.
My pride? That nasty, sharp thing I’ve been feeding my whole life? It got in the way. It whispered he didn’t deserve to know. That I could protect Aria better alone.
And something in me—that broken piece Gino had spent years grinding under his heel—couldn’t bear the thought of begging Dante to come back for a baby he never asked for.
And I lied. To Gino. To myself. To everyone.
He believed me. Or pretended to. The timing was close enough if you didn’t look too hard. And Gino never looked too hard at anything that didn’t serve him.
The divorce still went through. The protective order held. But he hovered at the edges, sending gifts for “his” child, making casual threats wrapped in concern.
I built my bakery. Built a life. Built walls.
All on a foundation of sand.
And now… my baby suffers for it.
“I could’ve reached Dante through you,” I admit. “But I was too proud. And now my daughter’s paying for my mistakes.”
“Cass—” Tina starts, but I cut her off.
“No. This is my fault. I lied to a violent man about a child that wasn’t his. I put her in danger every single day she breathed.”
“Hey.” She gets up, grabs my wrist, and squeezes it tight. “Don’t go there. You survived. You did what you had to do. This isn’t helping you right now.”
She’s right. But the truth still sits like acid in my gut.
I collapse onto the couch, legs finally giving out. “I don’t know how to wait while my baby’s out there with that monster. God, Tina. If Dante had known… he would’ve treated Aria right from the start.
Tina sits beside me, rubbing soothing patterns down my back. “One breath at a time.”
Minutes crawl by like years. My phone remains silent. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticks so loud I want to smash it.
“It’s getting dark,” I say, voice hollow.
Tina crosses to the window. “They should’ve been back by now.”
The worry she’s been hiding all day creeps into her voice. It lands like a stone in my stomach.
“Call him,” I beg. “Please.”
The phone rings. And rings. And rings.
“Voicemail,” she whispers, petrified.
My hands start to shake so bad I have to sit on them.
“He’s fine,” Tina says, but I don’t know who she’s trying to convince. “He’s just... busy.”
The room grows darker as clouds swallow the last of the daylight.
And then, the distant rumble of engines cuts through the rain like a blade to the gut.
My heart stops. Then kicks back to life so hard my ribs feel like they might crack.
Tina’s at the window in an instant, shoving the curtain aside. “It’s them.”
The front door crashes open within a matter of seconds.
My knees nearly buckle when I see him—Dante—storming through the doorway like a war just ended behind him. His jaw’s tight, shoulders squared, eyes wild—but all I see is the little bundle in his arms.
Aria.
She’s curled against his chest, dazed, pale, but alive.
“Aria.” Her name shatters out of me, my legs moving before my brain catches up. I reach them, hands trembling, heart cracking wide open. “Oh my god, Aria?” I look up at Dante. “Why isn’t she waking up?”
“She’s fine,” he whispers, kissing Aria’s little head. “The bastard sedated her. The doctor’s on his way.”
She’s so small in his hold. Her head limp on his shoulder. Eyes fluttering open, lashes sticking together like she cried herself raw. But she’s here.
I break.
Tears flood down my cheeks as I cup her face, press kisses to her head, her cheeks, her little hands. She whimpers, burying her face in Dante’s neck, and I can’t blame her. The safest place in the world right now? It’s wherever he is.
I look up at him, and his face… God, it’s carved from stone. But his arms tighten around both of us, one locking around my waist, the other cradling her like she’s glass.
For a second, none of us speaks.
We just… exist.
I sob into his shirt. He holds steady like he’s carrying the weight of all three of us.
And then Tina’s voice slices through, sharp with something like fear.
“Dante.” Her eyes drop lower, her face blanching. “You’re bleeding.”
I follow her gaze.
His jacket’s slicked dark along the side. Blood soaks the fabric. Not his, I realize—there’s too much of it for that, and the way he stands?
Unbothered.
“What… what did you do?” Tina’s voice hardens, cuts like steel.
27
DANTE & CASSIE
Dante
The earth is still damp where I bury the evidence.
Clothes soaked through with Gino Esposito’s blood. His arrogance. His life.
All gone.
I press the last shovelful of dirt down with my boot, watching the ground settle like none of this happened.
The first shot was to the knee.
Not because I wanted information. Not because I cared to draw it out.
It was principle.
The gunfire had cracked through the air, and one of my men dropped, clutching his shoulder. The others scattered for cover, returning fire at shadows in the trees.
Gino was already moving when he saw the fury on my face, scrambling back toward his SUV.
Where Aria lay drugged in the backseat.
I ran, the world narrowing to a single point: my daughter.
I ducked, rolled, and came up firing at the two men behind Gino’s SUV.
The first one took it in the throat. Second in the chest. Hell, they dropped like stones.
Gino had the back door open now, reaching for Aria’s limp form.
“Don’t,” I snarled.
He froze, half in the vehicle, then slowly turned. The fear in his eyes gave me a sick satisfaction.
He knew.
At that moment, he knew exactly who he was dealing with.
“Romano,” he said. “Let’s be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? You drugged my kid.”
His face twisted ugly with rage. “She’s not yours.”
“DNA says otherwise. Besides, would a father drug his own kid?”
The idiot went for his gun. I made it easy—shot him in the knee. He screamed, collapsed against the SUV door, clutching the shattered joint.
“That,” I stepped closer, “was for making Cassie flinch every time a door slams.”
His gaze jumped, hunting for an escape. Too late. His guys were dead or trapped in the tree line. He was alone.
“The kid,” he gasped. “She’s all yours, okay? Take her. We can work something out.”
I crouched beside him, close enough to smell the fear.
“You know your mistake, Gino?”
He swallowed, eyes fixed on my gun.
“You thought she was leverage.” I leaned in, voice razor-sharp. “She’s my blood. You don’t fuck with a man’s blood.”
For a man so trigger-happy, for his pride, the bastard groveled.
“I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again. I swear it.”
I laughed. “That’s the one true thing you’ve said today.”
His eyes widened as I pressed the barrel to his forehead.
“That’s for touching what’s mine,” I said, and pulled the trigger.
It wasn’t rage when I did it. Rage gets messy. Rage makes you sloppy. What I felt? That was redemption. The only thing keeping me from putting more bullets in his corpse was the fact that I already had my hands full carrying Aria out of there.
She never woke up. Sedated like a pawn, a prop in his sick power play.
But now she’s home. Now he’s six feet under at the edge of that airstrip, rotting with the worms where he belongs, along with the rest of his cronies.
No one will find him. No one except me knows exactly where he’s buried, and my men? They’re ghosts when they need to be. Sworn to silence. Paid to make sure this never circles back. They’re good guys. Work hard. As we speak, they’re towing Gino’s cars further into the forest, before they set them on fire.
Tina can suspect all she wants. Cassie… she’ll ask questions eventually. But tonight?
Tonight, I bury any trace of Gino.
Tomorrow I start building something better.
But first? I need to wash the stink of him off my skin. I head back toward the house, boots crunching through underbrush, the faint glow of the lake house windows calling me home.
Cassie
I put Aria to bed and go check on Dante. I stand at the doorway and watch as he peels off his jacket, his boots, his blood-soaked clothes.
Something’s wrong.
Not wrong like Aria’s missing wrong, but wrong like I can smell it on his skin.
Blood.
Old, metallic, copper-heavy. It clings to him under the clean clothes. His eyes are darker than usual, and the shadows stretched long across his face.
He told Tina the stain on his shirt was “nothing.” That classic deflection, brushing off concern like it’s a loose thread.
But I know better.
I’ve felt that weight on him all night—the tension coiled under his skin, the shadows stitched along his spine.
He turns and sees me watching. “Cass?”
“I… wanted to thank you,” I say, in all honesty.
He simply nods. “I’m really tired.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
When I no longer feel welcomed, I retreat to check on Aria one more time. But then, when I go to close her blinds so the sun doesn’t bother her, I see him walking out through the lawn, heading to the forest out back.
And when he disappears into the trees, I stop wondering.
I start looking.
Quiet steps down the hall, soft enough not to draw attention from Tina or one of the guards stationed around the house. His bedroom door’s cracked already.
I push the door open and slip in.
The room smells like him. Cedar, rain, gunpowder. And something darker. Something old. Something dangerous.
I scan the dresser and the nightstand. My heart hammers like it knows I shouldn’t be doing this.
But curiosity’s a nasty thing—it drags you places your fear says to stay away from.
There, on the bedside table, half-hidden under his discarded clothes… I see it.
A ring.
Heavy. Silver. Worn.
The crest etched into the metal stops my lungs cold.
A double-headed eagle. A snarling wolf flanked by blades. And words in Cyrillic that, even with my broken memory of college-level documentaries, I can decipher enough to make my spine lock up.
I’ve seen this before.
A late-night deep dive into a true-crime special about power families. Not just mafia.
Royalty.
Bratva royalty.
The kind of family with their claws in every corner of the world. The kind that doesn’t just survive—they build empires. The kind that buries threats like weeds and leaves no witnesses.
My throat tightens as I stare at the ring, cold realization bleeding down my spine.
Dante’s not just mafia.
He’s legacy.
And I’ve been sleeping in the lion’s den this entire time—without even knowing just how sharp his teeth really are.
28
CASSIE
Idon’t move.
I sit on the edge of Dante’s bed, staring at the ring like it’s radioactive, my pulse pounding in my throat so hard I might choke on it.
Bratva royalty.
The words keep repeating, looping like a sickness in my chest.
When the door creaks open, I nearly drop the damn thing. But I look up straight at him. For once, I’m not the one who has something to hide.
“What were you doing out in the forest?” I ask accusingly.
“Were you… spying on me?”
This time, he’s the one who looks afraid. For once, I’m not the one hesitating under the weight of secrets.
Dante steps inside, the smell of rain, blood, and dirt still clinging to him like a warning. He looks like he already knows I’ve seen too much.
I hold up the ring and stand, walking closer so he can see what I hold. “What the hell is this?”
Dante stops cold, eyes dropping to the ring in my hand.
For a second, nothing. Just the sound of my breathing—fast, uneven—and the steady tick of his wall clock counting down whatever’s left of my sanity.
“You went digging.”
I meet his stare head-on. “Answer me.”
“It’s a ring, Cass.”
“Don’t,” I snap, the panic bleeding into my words. “Don’t turn this into another deflection, Dante. I saw it. I know what that crest means.”
He goes as silent as a snowfall.
“The crest. The Russian lettering. It’s not just some tattoo club.”
“You know your crime families,” he hisses in self-defense.
“I was married to one. You don’t forget something like that. Tell me the truth now, Dante. It’s not just a ring, is it?”
He sighs, and a wave of guilt passes over his face. “No. It’s not.”
I swallow hard, bile scraping my throat. “Bratva.”
His silence confirms everything.
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, a tremor cutting through me. “Tina never—she didn’t—”
“Tina doesn’t know,” he cuts me off. “Not everything. She knows we come from power. From blood. But the legacy? The weight of it? The family never laid that at her feet. It was safer that way.”
I swallow hard, my throat burning. “Earlier, when Tina saw the blood… when she asked what happened—”
His eyes darken, storm clouds building behind them.
I step closer, my heartbeat crashing in my ears. Dante’s stare glues to mine like he’s bracing for impact.
“What did you do out there?” The words come out shaky. “Tell me!”
“I killed him.” Dante looks away. “Gino.”
The world tilts sideways. My stomach lurches. I press a hand to my mouth, fighting the wave of nausea. “Jesus Christ, Dante.”
He takes a step closer, agony painted in his look.
“I killed him for what he did to you. For every bruise, threat, and time he made you look over your shoulder.” His eyes dip lower. “He drugged Aria, and he would have hurt you both again and again.”
My knees nearly buckle.
Dante keeps going. “I made sure he paid for making you lie. For making you survive him. For putting you in a position where you thought you had no choice but to live in his chains.”
I cover my mouth, shaking. “You killed him…”
“I ended him. For taking something that wasn’t his to take.”
The room’s spinning. But deep under the shock? I feel it.
The terrifying, horrible, anchoring relief.
Gino’s gone.
For good.
I look at him—the quiet violence simmering under his skin—and the pieces start falling into place. I wipe my eyes in disbelief. “Who even are you?”
“My father—he’s head of the Bratva operations in Russia and most of Eastern Europe. Has been ever since he married my mother. Politics, business… everything. His reach stretches beyond borders.”
“My family,” he continues, “built the Romano name here, under the Bratva umbrella. I was born to lead it out here, before taking over his position of power.”
“And where have you been the last three years?” I ask, piecing together the puzzle I’ve been staring at with blind eyes.
“Russia.” His shoulders stiffen. “The first time around, my father wanted me to train there, and then… Well, I couldn’t be here, so I left again. I came back to handle things when it looked like I was needed here.”
“To handle things,” I echo. “Your little crime empire?”
His silence is answer enough.
“And now you’re what? Back? For good?” I can’t help but scoff at that thought.
“I’m back because it’s time for me to build something here of my own.” His voice is steady, certain. “I run America, and I want to run it differently from how my father did.”
The words hit me like bricks to the chest.
“You’re telling me,” I whisper, barely holding the pieces together, “that your father runs a criminal empire across a whole country, and you’re next in line to run… what? The global mafia?”
He doesn’t flinch. “In fewer words? Yes.”
My head spins.
“You let me fall in love with a killer?” The accusation explodes out of me, sharp and bitter, years of trauma cracking open at once. “Again?”
I hadn’t meant to say it—hadn’t even admitted it to myself—but there it is. Love. The four-letter wretched word that’s always been my downfall.
His eyes darken. He noticed what I said. My cheeks blush red.
“You already did,” he says quietly, stepping closer, gaze locked on mine. “That night, three years ago.”
I close my eyes, remembering. The heat. The desperation. How safe I felt in his arms. How I imagined he was different from Gino. How could that man and this one be the same person?
