Chapter Ten: The Reckoning
Dante testified for three days.
Elena watched from the gallery.
She watched him describe seven years of undercover work. Seven years of gathering evidence. Seven years of pretending to be Marcus’s ally while secretly building a case that would destroy him.
She watched him name names. List crimes. Describe bodies that had never been found.
She watched the jury’s faces shift from skepticism to horror to certainty.
And when the verdict came down—guilty on all counts, life without parole—she watched Dante close his eyes and exhale like he’d been holding his breath for a decade.
Afterward, they stood in the courthouse hallway.
Strangers walked past them. Lawyers. Journalists. Family members of victims.
No one looked at them twice.
“What now?” Elena asked.
Dante was quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been fighting this war for so long. I don’t know who I am without it.”
“I do.”
He looked at her.
“You’re the man who loved me enough to leave,” she said. “And then came back to save me. That’s who you are.”
“That’s not a person. That’s a choice.”
“Then make another choice.”
Dante’s brow furrowed.
“Stay,” Elena said. “Not to fight. Not to protect. Just… stay. See who you are when you’re not at war.”
“And if I don’t like who that is?”
“Then we figure it out together.”
She held out her hand.
Dante looked at it.
Seven years ago, he’d walked away from her. Left a note. Disappeared into the night.
Now she was offering him a second chance.
Not a promise. Not a guarantee.
Just a hand. An invitation. A beginning.
He took it.
“Together,” he said.
Elena smiled.
“Together.”
