Chapter 10 - The Resurrection
Nothing happened when Leo pressed the red button.
He pressed it again, panic finally breaking through his arrogant facade.
Dante lowered his gun slightly and smirked through the thick smoke.
"I knew you were a coward, Leo," Dante said calmly.
"My men severed the gas lines while you were busy gloating in the basement."
Before Leo could react, Dante fired a single shot.
The bullet struck Leo perfectly in the chest, dropping him instantly to the chapel floor.
The nightmare was finally over.
Dante turned and ran through the flames, grabbing my hand and leading Mia out the side door.
We collapsed onto the wet grass outside, gasping for clean air as the funeral home burned behind us.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.
Dante looked at me, his face covered in soot and blood, but his eyes were incredibly soft.
"You saved my life, Cara," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
"I am going to make sure you and your sister never have to worry about anything ever again."
True to his word, Dante completely dismantled the Russian syndicate over the next few weeks.
Vanessa survived the fire but was sent to a maximum-security federal prison for conspiracy to commit murder.
Dante set up a massive trust fund for Mia's college tuition and bought me a beautiful, quiet bakery on the edge of town.
I finally had the peaceful, safe life I had always dreamed of, far away from the criminal underworld.
Dante visited the bakery every Sunday, and the silent, romantic tension between us slowly blossomed into something real and beautiful.
It was the perfect, happy ending I never thought I deserved.
But one rainy Tuesday evening, as I was locking the front door of the bakery, a sleek black car pulled up to the curb.
The window rolled down, revealing an older man with piercing blue eyes and a familiar, terrifying scar across his cheek.
May you like
"You have Dante Moretti's heart, Cara, which makes you incredibly valuable," the man smiled coldly.
"Now get in the car, because your real father has been looking for you for twenty-five years."
