Page 85 of Freed
The silence after that is suffocating. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. Lorenzo’s gaze is on me, but it feels like he’s seeing something far beyond me now. Something dark and old and inevitable.
When he finally speaks, his voice is almost conversational.
“You sound very certain.”
“I am.”
Lorenzo tilts his head. “Interesting.”
“Try me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Lorenzo says. “That’s what makes this so entertaining.”
“Lorenzo,” I say, my voice shaking now. “Don’t.”
He ignores that too.
There’s a pause on the line, then Dante says, quieter, “Birdie. Come back to me.”
And that is what changes everything. Not the threat. Not the rage. Not the promise of men and guns and blood. Those four words.
Come back to me.
I see Lorenzo hear them. See the impact land. His mouth goes hard. His eyes burn black and I know, with sudden sick certainty, that he has folded those words into every terrible suspicion already growing in his head. The fast wedding. The secrecy. The baby he thinks is Dante’s.
My throat tightens.
“Dante,” I say quickly, “please don’t do anything reckless.”
A humorless sound comes through the phone. “Too late.”
My fingers grip the edge of the chair. “Please.”
His voice drops, and now it’s just for me. “Did he touch you?”
“I’m all right,” I say.
Lorenzo laughs once, low and without amusement.
Dante hears it. “You find this funny?”
“No,” Lorenzo says. “I find it revealing.”
“Meaning what?”
Lorenzo’s gaze drags over me, slow and knowing and furious all at once. “Meaning you seem very invested in rushing things, Russo.”
Dante goes silent. Lorenzo hears that silence too. Oh God. His expression doesn’t change, but something brutal flashes in his eyes. There it is. Not proof. But enough to feed the beast.
I stand up so abruptly the chair legs scrape the floor. “Hang up the phone.”
Neither man listens.
Lorenzo’s voice is silk over broken glass. “Tell me, did you propose because you’re sentimental? Or because you were in a hurry?”
“Watch yourself,” Dante says.
Lorenzo smiles. “That would be a yes, then.”
