The drive back to Blackridge felt longer than usual, even though Dante pushed the car harder than he should have. The storm clouds rolling across the sky didn’t help. Elena sat beside him in the passenger seat, one leg bouncing restlessly, her fingers twisting the loose thread on her jeans. Every time she glanced at Dante, the tension in his jaw only made her chest tighten more.
He hadn’t spoken since they left the abandoned port. Not a single word about the Crimson Line, not a word about the man who claimed her, and not a word about why her name, her full name, had shaken him to his core. She kept staring at him, waiting for him to look her way, but Dante kept his eyes fixed on the road, knuckles pale on the steering wheel.
“Say something,” she whispered eventually.
His breath left him
