“Cara.”
“I led them to her.”
Dante moved around the desk, but I raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped immediately.
That surprised me more than if he had ignored me.
I forced myself to look through the rest of the folder.
There were photographs of the apartment building where my sister and I lived, the bus stop she used, the grocery store where she worked on Saturdays, and a car I had noticed twice without understanding why.
The final page was a copied message intercepted that morning.
Assistant first.
Sister second.
Moretti will trade anything for one of them.
I read it again.
Then once more.
“One of them,” I said.
“They think you care about us.”
Dante said nothing.
The silence answered for him.
I pressed both palms against the desk.
“How long have you known?”
“That the job was false? Since last night.”
“That she was being watched?”
“Three days.”
Rage rose through my fear.
“Three days? You knew someone was following my sister, and you said nothing to me?”
“If you changed your routine suddenly, they would know we had seen them.”
“So you let her walk around as bait?”
“No.” His control finally cracked.
“I put six people around her.
Two near your apartment, two at the school, one at the café, and one mobile.
No one got within thirty feet of her.”
“You do not get to decide what risks she takes.”
“I decided she would come home alive.”
“And you decided to lock me in here.”
His eyes shifted toward the door.
For the first time since I had met him, Dante Moretti looked ashamed.
He crossed the room, turned the lock, and opened the door.
The two men outside straightened.
“Leave us,” he told them.
They disappeared without a question.
Dante stepped away from the doorway.
“You can go.”
I remained where I was.
“What happened to ‘You’re mine’?” I asked.
His jaw tightened.
“It was the wrong thing to say.”
“It was a monstrous thing to say.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No command.
Just the admission.
He looked at the resignation letter on his desk.
“You are not property,” he continued.
“You never were.
I meant that you were under my protection, but that does not excuse the words or the lock.”
“And if I walk out?”
