Chapter 6
The restaurant lights went out.
Glass sprinkled across the floor.
Nico screamed against my chest.
Dante crouched in front of us, one hand raised to his men, the other reaching for a gun beneath the bar.
I froze.
I had never seen a gun that close.
My mother grabbed my wrist.
“Now do you understand?”
I looked at her.
“No.”
Her face crumpled.
“You still don’t?”
“I understand danger,” I said. “I don’t understand lies.”
Another shot hit the front window.
Dante fired once toward the ceiling, not at anyone.
A warning.
Outside, tires screamed.
Then silence.
Matteo’s voice came through a radio.
“Shooter gone. Dark sedan. No plates.”
Dante stood slowly.
His face was calm in a way that scared me more than shouting would have.
He looked at Nico first.
Then me.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Baby?”
“Scared.”
He reached for Nico.
Nico clung to me.
Dante stopped.
That tiny pause told me something.
He loved his son enough to let him choose comfort, even when it hurt.
My mother stared at him like she had not expected that.
Dante looked at her.
May you like
“You will tell me everything.”
She shook her head.
