Chapter 95 The confrontation
Ryder's POV
Sage lifted her chin and met his eyes without flinching. "My answer is no. I'm not marrying you. Not now, not ever, and if you try to force me, you'll regret it."
The smile disappeared from Dante's face and something cold and dangerous took its place. "Is that right? And what makes you think you have any choice in this matter?"
"Because I know about the blackmail," Sage said, her voice steady and clear. "I know you threatened my father with exposing his cooperation with federal investigators. I know you forced him to get you drugs from Dr. Martinez. And I know the real reason you want to marry me has nothing to do with love or alliance and everything to do with getting federal protection as my spouse."
Dante's expression shifted from cold to furious in the space of a heartbeat, his eyes narrowing and his jaw clenching tight. "Who told you that?"
"My father did. He recorded your conversations, documented everything you did to him, every threat you made." Jaxon stepped forward slightly. "We have proof of the blackmail and proof that the promise my father made to you is either forged or gotten from him under duress, which makes it invalid."
"Proof?" Dante laughed, but it was a harsh sound without any humor in it. "You think a recording is going to stop me? You think some tape your father made is going to change anything?"
"It will when we give it to the feds," I said. "They're going to be very grateful to hear you threatening their asset. How do we know you didn't kill him too?"
"That won't stop me," Dante said, and his hand moved to his jacket.
I saw the gun before he fully pulled it, saw the way the light caught on the metal as he drew it from inside his suit and pointed it directly at Sage. My own gun was in my hand before I consciously thought about drawing it, and beside me I heard Jaxon do the same, both of us aiming at Dante while he aimed at Sage.
Mexican standoff in an abandoned warehouse, exactly the kind of situation that ended with someone bleeding out on concrete.
Dante looked at our guns and laughed, a genuinely amused sound that made my blood run cold because it meant he wasn't afraid and that made him unpredictable.
"You're so stupid and slow," he said, shaking his head like he was disappointed in children who had failed a simple test. "All these weeks I've been having her followed, taking pictures of everywhere she went and everyone she talked to, and you never figured it out. Never even came close."
"It was you! Outside my window, at the mall, even here two days ago!"
"Yes it was me. But you have no idea why, do you? You thought it was about keeping tabs on the Romano family." Dante's smile turned cruel. "It was research, Sage. I needed to know if you were worth the trouble of marrying, if you'd be useful as a spouse or just another liability. And you know what I discovered?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"You're not worth it. You're too stubborn, too independent, too likely to cause problems down the line." He shifted the gun slightly, his finger resting on the trigger. "I'm done with you. Done with this plan, done with pretending I need the Romano family's federal protection. I'll find my own immunity, make my own deals, and I won't need to tie myself to a woman who can't follow simple instructions."
Relief washed through me for just a second before I realized what he was really saying. He didn't want to marry Sage anymore, which should have been good news, except the way he was holding that gun told me he wasn't planning to just walk away.
"So what now?" Jaxon asked, his aim never wavering from Dante's center mass. "You called us here to tell us the deal is off?"
"I called you here because I wanted to see the look on your faces when you realized you wasted all this time investigating your father's death when the answer was right in front of you the whole time." Dante's eyes glittered with malice. "Vincent Romano died because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. I already gave you a list but I'm certainly not gonna tell you who exactly killed him."
"How do I know you didn't do it? " Sage whispered.
"I wish I did. I wish I put those three bullets in him myself in that parking lot." Dante's voice was raised and angry. "And now I'm going to fulfill the threat I made to him. I'm going to shoot his daughter right here and let you watch, just like I promised I would if he didn't cooperate."
"You pull that trigger and you're dead before you hit the ground," I said, my finger tightening on my own trigger.
"Maybe. But Sage will be dead either way, and that's all that matters to me right now." Dante's aim never shifted from her. "Leave. Walk away right now and I'll let you both live. Stay and we all die together."
"We're not leaving her," Jaxon said.
"Then you're all stupider than I thought."
We stood there in that circle of light with guns pointed and fingers on triggers, and I knew that the next few seconds would determine whether any of us walked out of this warehouse alive. Dante wasn't bluffing about shooting Sage, I could see it in his eyes, the cold calculation of someone who already decided that killing her was worth whatever consequences came after.
Sage started backing away slowly, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender that made my chest ache because I knew how much it cost her to show that kind of submission. Jaxon and I backed up with her, our guns still aimed at Dante, none of us willing to lower our weapons first.
"Smart choice," Dante said, and he lowered his gun just a fraction, enough that it was no longer pointed directly at Sage's heart.
The gunshot was so loud in the enclosed space that for a second I thought Dante had fired and missed. Then I saw him stagger backward with a red bloom spreading across his white shirt, his gun falling from his hand and clattering to the concrete floor.
Jaxon stood with his gun still raised, smoke curling from the barrel, his expression completely calm.
"You shot me," Dante said, his voice thick with disbelief. He pressed his hand to his stomach and it came away covered in blood. "You actually shot me."
"You threatened my sister," Jaxon said. "What did you think was going to happen?"
Dante dropped to his knees, his breathing coming in wet, rasping gasps. He looked up at us with eyes that were already starting to glaze over, and when he spoke again his voice was barely a whisper.
"This doesn't end with me." He coughed and blood spattered from his lips. "You think you've won, but you've only made things worse."
Then he fell forward onto the concrete and didn't move again.