Chapter 1
“Dad! I can’t breathe!”
My son’s scream tore through the barbecue garden like a knife.
One moment, I was standing beside the stone grill, listening to men laugh too loudly under white string lights.
The next, every sound disappeared except Leo.
My eight-year-old son.
My quiet boy.
My only child.
I turned and saw him pinned face-down in the grass.
Javier had one knee near his back and one hand pressed between Leo’s shoulder blades, forcing him into the lawn as if he were some grown man who needed breaking.
For one second, no one moved.
Not my cousins.
Not the guards.
Not the men who had eaten at my table and called themselves loyal.
Then I crossed the garden.
Fast.
Silent.
Javier looked up too late.
His eyes widened when he realized I was not walking.
I was coming for him.
I grabbed the back of his collar and ripped him off my son.
He stumbled.
I did not let him fall away.
I drove him down into the grass with my hand locked around his neck.
The laughter died.
The music stopped.
Leo coughed behind me, gasping for air.
My sister Sofia ran to him, but my eyes stayed on Javier.
“You wanted to teach my son strength,” I whispered.
Javier’s face drained of color.
I leaned closer.
“Remember who taught you fear.”
His lips trembled.
“Dante, I was only—”
“Only what?”
He swallowed.
“Training him.”
I pressed him harder into the ground.
“My son is eight.”
The garden went colder than winter.
Javier’s eyes flicked past me.
Not at my hand.
Not at the guards.
At Leo.
That was when I noticed what my son had been carrying.
A small black leather notebook lay open in the grass.
Its pages were bent.
Its cover was muddy.
Leo crawled toward it with shaking hands.
“No,” Javier choked.
I looked down.
On the first page was my late wife’s handwriting.
My wife, Elena, had been dead for three years.
And written beneath her name was a sentence I had never seen before.
If anything happens to me, Dante must know Javier is not family.
I looked back at Javier.
He had gone completely still.
May you like
Not because I had beaten him.
Because my son had found the thing he tried to bury.
