Page 25 of Blood Vows

“You’ve had privacy, yet people keep trying to kill you.” Her mouth fell open, and Marco laughed outright. Luca looked away, probably hiding a smile. Dante didn’t smile because he meant every word.

Elena glared. “You’re impossible.” Her expression said she wanted to throw something at him. He almost hoped she did. It would mean she was comfortable enough to forget she was in danger.

Luca stepped between them before it got worse. “Enough.” Dante looked over, and Luca’s expression had changed to serious again. “Marco found something.”

Marco turned the laptop around, and a transfer screen filled the display. Dante stepped closer. “What the hell is that?”

Marco pointed to a routing number. “The fifty thousand found on the body came from one of Elena’s ghost accounts.” Elena went pale, and Dante’s stomach dropped.

“Was it the same account?” Dante asked.

“No.” Marco pulled up another. “A second one.”

Dante stared at the screen. “How many are there?”

Marco’s face was grim. “Seven.” Elena swayed slightly, and Dante moved automatically. His hand went to her waist, and she grabbed his arm. This time, neither of them moved away. There were seven accounts, seven trails, and seven chances to frame her.

Marco kept talking. “And they all opened after her father died.” Dante’s grip tightened around her. That changed everything.

Luca’s voice went cold. “Someone built her identity into the network.”

“Exactly,” Marco said.

Elena looked at Dante. “What does that mean?”

He hated the answer, but she deserved the truth. “It means this didn’t start recently.”

Her face drained of color. “How long has it been going on?”

Marco answered. “Long enough that whoever did this planned everything years ago.” Dante felt Elena’s fingers tighten around his sleeve, and he looked down at her. He saw fear looking back at him—real fear, and something inside him snapped into place. It was a decision he made—not Luca, and not the Camorra family. It was his alone. Whoever had spent years building a trap around Elena Romano had made one mistake. They had waited too long to close it, because now Dante was standing inside it with her, and he was not the kind of man who let anyone take what he was protecting. Not ever.

Dante had spent most of his life trusting instincts over evidence. Evidence could be planted, numbers could be manipulated, and witnesses could lie, but instinct was harder to fake. And every instinct he had was telling him Elena Romano was in more danger than any of them understood.

He stood at the far end of Luca’s study, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the seven accounts Marco had pulled up on the laptop. There were seven accounts, all opened after Elena’s father died, all carrying her name, her information, her forged signature, and at least one tied directly to the money found on a dead man.

Someone hadn’t just framed her. They had built her into the foundation of whatever operation they were running. They had years of planning, and years of patience that made Dante uneasy in a way bullets never did. Bullets were simple. You saw the gun, you found the shooter, and you ended the threat. But this was a fucking maze, and Elena was standing right in the middle of it.

Dante’s gaze shifted to her. She sat beside Isabella now, pale but composed, hands clasped tightly in her lap—too tightly. Her knuckles had gone white, and Dante noticed that too. He noticed everything about her, but that was a problem for another day.

Marco clicked through another file. “These aren’t random accounts,” he said.

Luca stood behind him. “What are they?”

“Layers,” Marco said. Dante’s brow furrowed, and Marco pointed toward the screen. “Money comes in here, gets broken apart, moves through these three accounts, then merges again overseas.”

“Laundering,” Isabella said quietly.

Marco nodded. “Professional laundering.”

Elena looked at him. “My father used to do that?” Marco hesitated, and Dante immediately caught it—so did Elena. “What?” she asked.

Marco leaned back. “I’m not saying he did.”

“What are you saying then?” she asked.

“Whoever built this system knew how financial investigations work,” Marco said.

Elena’s face tightened. “My father did.” Dante watched her closely. She wasn’t defending him blindly now. She was thinking, and that was good. Painful, maybe, but good.