One night, One secret

CHAPTER 5

ELENA'S POV

I stared at the black water beyond the pier, the waves slapping against the wood, dark and endless. That was what this felt like falling into something bottomless, knowing I would never surface the same.

Dante didn’t move. He just watched me with that unblinking intensity, the kind that made me feel like running and collapsing into him at the same time. My fists clenched tighter around the photos until the edges bent and cut into my skin.

“I don’t trust you,” I said again, louder this time, because if I didn’t keep repeating it, I was afraid I’d forget. Afraid I’d remember the nights when I did.

His lips curved, but there was no smile in it. “I don’t blame you. But this isn’t about trust. It’s about survival.”

“Survival?” I let out a bitter laugh. “You call dragging a five-year-old into your blood feud survival?”

He took one step closer, and even though I told myself I wouldn’t move, my body betrayed me—I stepped back.

“I call it protecting what’s mine,” he said. “And whether you like it or not, Elena, that boy is mine.”

The words stung, not because they weren’t true, but because I had spent years convincing myself otherwise. Luca was mine. Mine to raise, mine to protect, mine to love in a world that didn’t care about bloodlines or last names. But Dante’s presence here shattered all of that.

“He doesn’t even know you exist,” I whispered.

“He will.” His voice hardened. “And he’ll know I’d burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone lay a hand on him.”

The absolute certainty in his tone made my stomach twist. He meant it. God help me, I believed him.

I shook my head, trying to clear the idea. “I need time.”

“We don’t have time,” he snapped. “Every second you spend thinking about whether or not you can trust me is another second they get closer to him.”

I flinched, because the image of those photographs burned in my mind. Luca on the swings. Luca with ice cream. Luca with a target painted on his back.

Dante must have seen the look of terror in my eyes, because his voice softened,just a little.

“Elena… I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to come back. I’m asking you to do the one thing you’ve always sworn you’d do, protect our son. And right now, the only way to do that is with me.”

My chest ached so badly it was hard to breathe. “If I say yes… if I go with you… what happens next?”

His jaw tightened. “We keep him safe. That’s all that matters.”

He didn’t say us. He didn’t say me and you. Just Luca. And maybe that was why, against every instinct screaming at me to run, I nodded.

“One night,” I whispered. “One night at this safehouse. Then I decide.”

He studied me for a long, unbearable moment, then gave a single sharp nod. “One night. But I’m not letting him out of my sight once we leave.”

I turned away, hugging my coat tighter. “You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you. Don’t scare him.”

“I won’t.”

“You already scare me.”

The silence that followed said more than words could.

Finally, Dante moved, stepping past me toward the pier’s exit. “Let’s go.”

I stayed frozen for a second, my legs trembling. Then I forced myself to follow. Because no matter how much I hated this, hated him for barging back into my life, the truth was simple.

I was more afraid of what waited for us if we didn’t.

…

We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing on the weathered boards of the pier. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the night itself was pressing down on me.

Dante walked ahead, his broad shoulders cutting through the darkness like a blade. He didn’t look back to see if I followed he didn’t have to. He knew I would.

The city lights grew faint behind us, swallowed by the empty streets leading back to where he had parked. The black BMW waited at the edge of the docks, sleek and foreign, out of place as he was in my world.

When he opened the passenger door for me, I hesitated.

I stared at the interior leather seats, tinted windows, the faint scent of expensive cologne that was so unmistakably him. The kind of car that didn’t belong in my life of secondhand strollers and minimum-wage paychecks.

“Elena,” he said, his voice sharper this time. “Get in.”

I slid inside without another word.

The door closed with a loud bang, sealing me into his world again. My hands twisted together in my lap, my heart pounding so hard I thought he might hear it.

Dante got in on the driver’s side, his movements smooth and efficient. The engine roared to life, and the car glided forward.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke. The only sounds were the low hum of the motor and the rhythm of tires on asphalt.

I pressed my forehead to the cool glass, watching the city blur past. Every streetlight felt like a countdown, ticking away the last of the free life I clung to.

Finally, his voice broke the silence.

“Where is he?”

I turned my head slowly. “Who?”

His jaw flexed. “Don’t play games with me, Elena. You know damn well who. Our son.”

The word still burned, even when it came from his mouth. Our.

“He’s at a friend’s,” I said quietly. “Safe.”

Dante’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “Safe doesn’t exist anymore. Not for him. Not for you. Not for me.”

“You think I don’t know that?” My voice cracked, sharper than I intended. “Do you think I haven’t spent every day of his life looking over my shoulder? Praying no one would connect the dots? You brought this danger, Dante. Not me.”

His head snapped toward me, eyes flashing. “You think running away erased my blood from his veins? You think hiding him made him any less mine? You stole five years from me, Elena. Five years I’ll never get back.”

I flinched at the venom in his tone. “I was protecting him.”

“You were protecting yourself.”

The accusation sliced through me. Maybe it was true. Maybe part of me hadn’t just been afraid of the Mafia, but of how much I would have loved him, how much he’d broken me with secrets he never told.

I turned back to the window, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Believe what you want. But don’t you dare stand there and act like you’re some kind of savior. You don’t know him. You don’t know what he likes, or the way he cries when he’s sick, or how he insists on sleeping with the night-light on because he’s afraid of the dark. You don’t get to come in and claim him now.”

The car slowed as we stopped at a red light. The light beamed on his face, was hard, unforgiving, but with something buried deep in his eyes.

“I don’t have to know those things to know he’s mine,” he said, his voice low, almost broken. “And I’ll die before I let anyone take him from me.”

The light turned green, and the car rushed forward again, silence filling the space between us like smoke.

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. Because deep down, I believed him.

And that terrified me more than anything.