Chapter 171 Dante's Offer

Chapter 171 Dante's Offer
Dante's office looked different with the morning light coming through the window, papers stacked neat now instead of scattered across every surface, like he'd spent the previous evening putting the chaos of the past weeks into some kind of order.

Lyra sat across from him, Cade beside her, both of them waiting while Dante finished writing something and set his pen down.

"Thank you for coming," Dante said. "I know it's been a heavy stretch. I wouldn't ask you here today if I didn't think it mattered."

"Cade said you wanted to talk about a position," Lyra said. "Something formal."

"I do." Dante leaned back in his chair, studying her with the same careful attention he gave everything. "Director of Operations, that's the title I have in mind."

Lyra sat with that for a moment. "What would it actually mean. Day to day."

"Overseeing the financial structure as we move toward legitimate business," Dante said. "Not just the ledgers you've already been handling. All of it. Contracts, licensing, the accounts we'll need once we're not operating entirely in cash and favors anymore." He tapped the stack of papers beside him.

"You'd be building most of this from scratch. There's no existing system for what I'm asking. You'd have to create one."

"That's a big responsibility," Cade said, more to himself than to either of them.

"It is," Dante agreed. "Which is exactly why I'm not asking you lightly, and why I want you to understand everything it involves before you say yes or no."

Lyra nodded slowly. "What's the complication."

Dante looked at her, something like respect flickering behind his eyes at the question. "You're sharp. There's always a complication."

"Tell me."

"Right now, you're known inside the club," Dante said. "The women trust you, some of the senior members respect what you've done. But you're not publicly associated with us, not in any way that reaches outside these walls."

"And this position would change that."

"It would," Dante confirmed. "Director of Operations means your name is on paperwork. Filings, licenses, contracts with outside vendors and city offices. It means people who aren't already in this world would know exactly who you are and what you're connected to."

Cade's jaw tightened slightly beside her. "Including Garza."

"Including Garza," Dante said. "He already knows Cade's face. He already knows mine. Right now, you're someone he might not fully understand the importance of. This position changes that, you become a known target the same way the rest of us are."

The room went quiet for a moment, the weight of that settling fully. "I want to be honest with you," Dante continued.

"I could offer you something smaller. Advisory, unofficial, none of the exposure. You'd still be useful to the club without your name on anything that reaches outside it."

"But that's not what you actually think I should do," Lyra said, reading something in his tone.

"No," Dante admitted. "I think you're capable of far more than an advisory role would ever let you become. I think this club needs exactly what you'd build if you took this seriously. But I won't pretend the exposure isn't real, especially with Garza still out there."

Lyra looked at Cade, searching his face for whatever he was holding back. "Say what you're thinking," she told him.

Cade exhaled slowly. "I hate the exposure part," he said honestly. "I've spent weeks trying to keep you out of Garza's direct line of sight, and this puts you right into it, permanently, not just for one operation."

"But," Lyra prompted, hearing it in his voice.

"But I also think you'd be incredible at this," he admitted. "And I don't think I have the right to hold you back from something you're built for just because it scares me."

Dante watched the exchange without interrupting, letting them work through it between themselves. "What would the club do to protect me," Lyra asked, turning back to him. "If I take this."

"More than we've done for anyone in a support role before," Dante said. "You'd have security detail whenever you're moving between locations that involve outside meetings. Your home address stays off any official paperwork, routed through the club's registered office instead. We'd train you properly, not just throw you into danger and hope your instincts hold."

"That's more than I expected," Lyra admitted.

"I don't take this decision lightly," Dante said. "If I'm asking you to accept real risk, I owe you real protection in return."

Lyra sat with everything for a long moment, turning it all over slowly, the way she turned over ledger entries and warehouse crates and everything else that had asked careful thought of her these past months. "What happens if I say no," she asked.

"Nothing changes," Dante said simply. "You keep helping the way you have been. Nobody thinks less of you for choosing safety over exposure. That's not weakness, that's just a different answer to a real question."

"And if I say yes."

"Then we start building something that's never existed in this club before," Dante said. "Something that might actually let us survive men like Garza long-term, instead of just surviving one crisis at a time."

Lyra looked at Cade again. "What do you want me to do."

"I want you to decide," Cade said carefully. "Not what I want. What you want, fully, without worrying about what it does to me."

"That's not entirely fair," Lyra said gently. "What it does to you matters. You matter."

"I know." Cade took her hand. "But I don't want to be the reason you shrink into something smaller than what you're capable of. I've watched you grow into this world piece by piece, and every single time, you've been better at it than any of us expected. I'm not going to be the thing standing in the way of that."

Lyra looked between the two men, weighing everything, the risk and the responsibility and the strange, unexpected shape her life had taken since the day she first knocked on Cade's door in Italy.

"I need a day," she said finally. "Not because I'm unsure about wanting this but because I want to think it through properly, the way I'd think through anything this important."

"Take the day," Dante said. "Take two, if you need them. This isn't a decision I want rushed."

"Thank you."

Dante nodded, something settling into his expression that looked almost like relief.

"Whatever you decide, Lyra, I want you to know this club is better for having you in it already. This offer doesn't change that. It just changes how far that goes."

Lyra smiled at that. They left the office a while later, the afternoon light stretching long across the clubhouse floor, and Cade reached for her hand as they walked, giving her the space to think without filling it with anything unnecessary.

"Whatever you decide," he said eventually, echoing Dante's words, "I'm with you."

"I know," Lyra said, squeezing his hand. "That's the only part of this I'm not thinking twice about."