Page 60 of Blood Vows

“What did he find?” Dante asked.

“The red ledger wasn't the only thing missing,” Luca said.

Dante's mood changed instantly. “What else was missing?”

“Marco found a false bottom in one of the boxes,” Luca said.

Elena leaned closer, trying to hear what Luca was saying, and Dante put the call on speaker. “What was inside?” she asked.

Luca paused. “Photographs.”

Elena frowned. “Of what?”

“Not what, but who,” Luca said.

Dante felt her tense beside him. “Who, Luca?” she asked.

“Your father, standing with Hale,” Luca said, pausing mid-sentence. “And someone else.”

Elena gripped the sheet. “Who?”

“We don't know yet,” Luca said.

Dante's instincts started screaming at him. “Why don’t you know who it is?” he asked.

“Because the man's face was cut out of every photograph. There was writing on the back of one,” Luca said.

“What did it say?” Dante asked.

“It said, ‘Four families, one empire. Sealed in blood,’” Luca said.

Dante went still, and Elena looked at him. “What does that mean?” she asked. He didn't answer because he didn't know, but Luca wasn't finished.

“There's more.”

Dante's grip tightened on the phone. “Great,” he grumbled. “What else?”

“The date on the oldest photograph is twenty-seven years ago,” Luca said. Elena went pale. That was the year she was born.

Dante got out of bed. “Send me everything,” he ordered.

“I already did,” Luca said.

“Call me when you have something,” Dante said, ending the call. Elena stared at him as Dante opened the photographs on his phone. The first loaded, and he saw four men with one of their faces cut out. The second photo loaded, and he saw the same four men, but younger. The third loaded, and Dante stopped dead in his tracks.

“What’s wrong?” Elena asked. He zoomed in. On the table behind the men sat a red ledger, and beside it was a photograph of a newborn.

Elena moved closer to look at his phone, and her breath caught. “Oh, my God.” Dante enlarged the photo. A name had been written beneath the baby. Elena Romano. The warmth that had filled the room disappeared. Dante stared at the photograph. This hadn't started with the accounts. It hadn't started with her father's death. It hadn't even started with the Camorras. Someone had been building something around Elena since the day she was born.

Dante looked at the woman sitting in his bed with his sheets wrapped around her. His marks were still fresh on her skin. Something dark settled inside him. Whoever had planned Elena's future had made one serious fucking mistake because they hadn't planned on him being a part of her life. And Dante Vitale had no intention of letting anyone else decide what happened to her.

Elena

Elena stared at the photograph until the words beneath the baby blurred. Elena Romano.

That was her name and face staring back at her. They had planned out her entire life, except the infant in the photograph wasn’t old enough to have a life yet.

That was the part she couldn’t get past. Someone had taken a picture of her when she was barely more than a newborn and placed it beside a red ledger in a room with four men—one of whom someone had gone to considerable trouble to erase from the photo, twenty-seven years ago. That was the same year Crimson Holdings had been created. Hell, it was the same day, if Marco’s records were right.