Chapter 5

Alessia POV:

The slap of my bare feet against the cold marble echoed in the hallway as I ran after him.

I grabbed his arm. He stopped, but only turned back to me after a deliberate pause. His features were carved from stone, a mask of chilling indifference.

"I regret it," I said, my voice fracturing on a sob.

He just stared at me.

"You promised," I choked out, the memory igniting a sliver of insane hope. "At the gala. You said... if I ever regretted it, you'd help me."

His jaw tightened. A flicker of something-annoyance?-crossed his face. "What do you want, Alessia?" His tone was laced with a contempt so sharp it felt like a physical blow.

"I want to see him," I sobbed, the words torn from my throat. "My father. Just one last time."

"No."

The word was flat. Final. Unmovable.

That single word didn't just shatter my hope. It burned it to ash. And from the embers, a cold, sharp fury began to rise.

"Our love, our intimacy... every touch, every kiss... it was all a lie, wasn't it?" I demanded, my voice gaining a raw, ragged edge. "A meticulously planned operation to get to my father."

Tears still streamed down my face, but they were tears of rage now, not sorrow. He just watched me, his expression unmoved.

"Your tears mean nothing to me," he said, each word a perfectly formed shard of ice. "It was a mission. My feelings were never part of the equation."

"You used me," I spat. "If you had just told me the truth, I would have helped you. He was my father, but if he did what you said... I would have helped you get justice."

For a split second, something cracked in the glacial calm of his eyes. Regret? Doubt? It was there-I saw it-and then it was gone, sealed away behind a wall of ice.

"The Scorpion's syndicate ambushed my team last year," he said, his voice low and guttural. "They killed my Consigliere. My mentor. He bled out in my arms. Justice was never going to be clean."

Before I could respond, Isabella appeared at his side, sliding her arm through his with an air of effortless ownership. Her touch was proprietary, her tone dripping with condescension.

"Is she causing a problem, mio Don?" she asked, her eyes flicking over me with a look of profound disdain before dismissing me entirely.

Dante didn't even glance my way. He looked at her, and the hard lines of his face softened, almost imperceptibly.

"She's not a problem," he said, his voice utterly detached as he turned his back on me completely. "She's just the daughter of a dead man."

He walked away with her, leaving me alone in the hallway, the echo of his words carving a hollow, gaping hole in my chest.