The interrogation unfolded not in the cold glare of a basement or the sterile tension of the study, but in the deceptive intimacy of their shared bedroom as Abidjan’s night wrapped the mansion in humid silence. Days after the safe house revelation and the jealous ignition with Lieutenant Marco, Dante’s tenderness had not vanished, but suspicion had woven through it like thorns in silk. The Polaroid of young Elena holding his bleeding hand sat on the nightstand like a talisman, yet the full truth of her childhood, the details that bridged their fires, remained a locked vault he sensed she guarded.
He had drawn her into bed after a long day of strategy sessions, their bodies tangled in the aftermath of heated kisses that still stopped short of full surrender. The crossed line from jealousy’
