Chapter 35 The Exile
The jet engines whined, a high-pitched scream that vibrated through the leather seat and into my bones.
I sat by the window, watching the clouds tear past the wing. The sky was a bruised purple, darkening into night, but inside the cabin, the light was steady, artificial, and cold.
Across the narrow aisle, Dante sat reading a file.
He hadn't looked at me since we boarded. He hadn't spoken a word since he stepped over the dead body in the master suite and told me to pack.
He turned a page, the crisp sound loud in the silence.
I stared at his profile. The sharp jaw, the heavy brow, the mouth set in a grim, unforgiving line. He looked like a stranger again.
The man who had held his daughter in the nursery, the man who had looked at me with a flicker of respect when he critiqued my fighting form, that man was gone.
He had been replaced by the Don. The jailer. The monster I was supposed to hate.
I looked down at my hands. They were clean now, scrubbed raw in the plane’s tiny bathroom, but I could still feel the phantom weight of the silver key.
Stupid, I thought, a wave of self-loathing crashing over me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I had held all the cards. I had the tunnels. I had the element of surprise. I had the one thing Dante Caravelli couldn't control.
And I had dropped it. Literally dropped it on the rug like a clumsy child.
I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the cool plastic of the window.
No, I corrected myself. I didn't just drop it.
I had made a choice. I had chosen to save Jasmine. I had chosen to tell him about the walls because the alternative was letting a mercenary gas a five-year-old girl.
I had done the right thing.
So why did it feel like I had just signed my own death warrant?
"Dante," I said.
He didn't look up. He didn't blink. He reached for his espresso, took a sip, and set it back down without breaking his reading rhythm.
"I know you're angry," I said to the side of his head.
Nothing.
"I saved your daughter," I pressed, my voice rising slightly. "Doesn't that count for anything?"
He turned the page.
"I could have left," I snapped. "When the intruder broke in, I could have used the tunnel to run. I could be halfway to the coast by now. I stayed. I fought."
He finally moved. He closed the file slowly. He took off his reading glasses and folded them, placing them on the table.
Then he turned his head and looked at me.
His eyes were absolute zero. There was no anger in them. Anger is hot. Anger is a connection. This was indifference.
He looked at me like I was a seatbelt, a necessary, annoying safety precaution.
"You stayed because you had nowhere to go," he said. His voice was flat, devoid of inflection.
"You stayed because Rinaldi’s man told you that you are the 'Key,' and you realized that out there, you are prey."
"I stayed for Jasmine."
"You stayed for yourself," he corrected. "And you lied to me. For weeks. You watched me. You invaded my privacy. You compromised my security."
"I was surviving!"
"You were playing games," he said. "And now the game is over."
He put his glasses back on and opened the file again. The wall was back up. I had been dismissed.
I slumped back in my seat, frustration boiling in my gut.
He wasn't a fool. That was the problem. He knew exactly what the key meant.
It meant I hadn't trusted him. It meant I had been building an exit strategy while he was building a truce.
And now, we were going to Sicily.
The Old Country. The place where the rules of civilization were just suggestions.
We landed in darkness.
The air that hit me when the cabin door opened was different hotter, thicker, smelling of dry earth, sea salt, and wild thyme.
Two black SUVs were waiting on the tarmac.
Dante walked down the stairs, buttoning his jacket. He didn't wait for me. He walked straight to the lead car, where a driver was holding the door open.
I scrambled to follow, grabbing my bag. My wrist throbbed where the intruder had twisted it, a dull ache that pulsed with my heartbeat.
I reached the car just as Dante slid into the back seat. I moved to follow him.
The driver, a massive man with a scar running through his eyebrow, stepped in front of me.
"Second car," he rumbled.
I stopped. "What?"
I looked into the back seat of the first car. Dante was already on his phone. He didn't look at me.
"Second car," the driver repeated, jerking his thumb toward the SUV behind us.
I stared at Dante. He was icing me out completely. Segregation. He was making a point.
I gritted my teeth and walked to the second car. I threw my bag into the back and climbed in.
The door slammed shut, locking automatically. The windows were tinted so dark I couldn't see out.
I couldn't see where we were going, but I felt the road change. It went from smooth tarmac to gravel, winding upward, twisting and turning like a snake.
My ears popped. We were climbing.
I clutched the handle above the door as the car lurched around a hairpin turn.
Dante had said there were no walls to hide in. What did that mean?
The car slowed, tires crunching on loose stone. We stopped as the door opened.
"Out," a guard said.
I stepped out and looked up.
We weren't at a house. We were at a fortress carved into the living rock.
The villa sat on the edge of a sheer cliff that dropped hundreds of feet into the black, churning sea below.
It was built of pale stone that seemed to glow in the moonlight. There were no fences here. The cliff was the fence.
To the north, the mountains rose like jagged teeth. To the south, the ocean stretched into infinity.
It was beautiful. And it was terrifying.
There was only one road in. A narrow, winding causeway that could be defended by a single man.
Dante was standing by the massive wooden front doors, talking to an older man who looked like he was carved from the same rock as the house.
I walked toward them, the gravel crunching loudly under my boots. The wind here was fierce, whipping my hair across my face.
Dante turned as I approached.
"This is Donatello," Dante said, gesturing to the older man. "He manages the estate. You will obey him as you obey me."
Donatello looked at me with eyes like flint. He didn't smile. He nodded once, a sharp, dismissive jerk of the head.
"The girl," Donatello said. His voice sounded like grinding stones.
"Yes," Dante said. "Is the East Wing prepared?"
"Yes, Don Caravelli. But the child..." Donatello glanced at the bundle in Giovanni’s arms.
At that moment, Jasmine stirred.
She let out a small, disoriented whimper. Giovanni adjusted his grip, trying to soothe her, but she started to thrash, fighting the blanket.
"Papa?" she cried out, her voice thick with sleep and panic. "Papa!"
Dante stepped forward immediately, taking her from Giovanni.
"I've got you, Jas. You're safe. We're in Sicily."
But the transition didn't help. She opened her eyes, saw the strange stone walls, the dark sky, the wind whipping around us, and the stern faces of the guards.
She didn't see safety. She saw nightmares.
She started to scream. It was the same high, terrified sound from the night of the gas attack.
"No! No! I want to go home! I want Lily!"
Dante stiffened. He held her tight, trying to rock her. "I'm here, Jasmine. Papa is here."
"No! Lily! Where is Lily?"
She fought him, pushing against his chest with her small hands, looking frantically around the dark courtyard.
Dante looked at me.
His face was a mask of frustration and pain. He hated this. He hated that he wasn't enough. He hated that she was calling for the woman he wanted to punish.
But he was a father first.
"Lilith," he snapped. "Get over here."
I didn't wait to be told twice. I ran to them.
"I'm here, sweetie," I said, reaching out.
Jasmine practically threw herself out of Dante’s arms and into mine. I caught her, stumbling back slightly under her weight. She buried her face in my neck, her small body shaking with sobs.
"You left," she accused, weeping into my collarbone. "You weren't there."
"I was in the car behind you," I whispered, rubbing her back. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
I looked up at Dante over her head.
He was watching us. His arms were empty, his hands clenched at his sides. He looked isolated, cut off from the only warmth in this cold, stone place.
He looked at me with a mixture of resentment and resignation.
"Take her inside," he ordered, his voice rough. "Donatello will show you to the family quarters."
"Where am I sleeping?" I asked.
He looked at Jasmine, who was clinging to me like a limpet.
"With her, apparently," he said bitterly. "Since I cannot separate you without causing a scene."
He turned on his heel and walked toward the cliffs, away from the warmth, away from us, into the dark.
"Welcome to Sicily," Donatello said dryly. "Follow me."