Page 8 of Between Steel and Secrets
I head down to Dante’s office. I’m not exactly looking forward to the conversation he wants to have.
Harper came clean, she confessed about stealing the stuffed dragon. I’m not sure why she stole it or what she planned to do with it, but I’ll find out eventually.
As it is, she doesn’t know about the threat from Massimo, and seeing as how he’s dead, there’s no reason to worry her.
It’s all in the past.
I head to my father’s office. Moreno stands outside the door. “He’ll be back in a minute, but go ahead inside. I know that he wanted to talk with you.”
I step inside and close the door behind myself.
I’m surprised he wasn’t asking to speak with Ashton as well, but perhaps he’s got him running other tasks—hence putting our clothes together to burn.
Everyone has their own role, I suppose.
My gaze moves over Dante’s desk. There’s a stack of papers in the corner and an envelope that remains sealed. The return address is clearly from a bank; that’s not the unsettling part. It’s who the envelope is addressed to, a PO Box from out of state.
I recognize the name: College Athletics Hockey Foundation.
That’s the foundation that granted me a full hockey scholarship.
Why is Dante receiving mail addressed to them?
I grab his letter opener and tear the envelope open in one smooth motion, retrieving the letter.
The office door squeaks open, and I don’t so much as blink. “Why do you have a bank statement for the College Athletics Hockey Foundation?” I glare at Dante, demanding to know what he’s gotten himself involved in.
My father hates hockey.
He hates even more so that I play hockey.
“Why don’t we first discuss your wife?” Dante gestures for me to take a seat in the chair opposite his desk.
“Harper told me she found the stuffed dragon. What the hell were you doing bringing it up out of the basement? Zeke could have seen it!”
Dante clears his throat. “He did see it, thanks to your wife sneaking into my office and stealing from me.”
I toss the bank statement across the desk at him as he takes his seat, expecting me to do the same. “Now, you explain the scholarship foundation. Are you behind it?”
He strokes his jaw, silent.
“Well?”
Why can’t he just answer me when I ask him a damn question? His silence is guilt. Except the man has not an ounce of remorse in his blood for anything that he’s ever done.
“I may have wanted to ensure that your future and mine were protected.”
He can’t be serious. “What the hell does that mean?” What did he do? My stomach drops to the floor, like being on a rollercoaster heading straight off the track.
“It means that I wanted to make sure the other children of mafia families were around you, protecting you, making you see the light.”
I fall back into the chair behind me. “You expected that they’d convince me to join your little crew and become just like you.”
Dante smirks, proud of his plan and his accomplishments. “It worked, just not like how I had planned. Consider it an added bonus, me paying for your friends’ tuition for four years.”
“You’re sick.”
He clasps his hands together on the desk, watching me intently. “I’m a lot of things, but unwell is not one of them.”
