Chapter 108 DISASTER FOR DINNER.

Chapter 108 DISASTER FOR DINNER.
DANTE.
The chef and I had spent the better part of the afternoon in that kitchen, and it showed. The table had lamb ribs glistening under the chandelier, roasted vegetables fanned out, warm bread. 
Cinnamon was radiant in burnt orange, cutting Oliver's meat into smaller pieces while he babbled about something that had happened at school. Mom sat at the head happy seeing the full table. She laughed at something Dove said, and for a moment she looked ten years younger. Dove wiped Thessa's mouth with the corner of a napkin and the little girl scrunched her face, probably thinking she was too old for that.
"There's something beautiful about this," I said, cutting into my lamb. "All of us, right here."
Mom set her fork down just to place her hand over her chest. "I almost forgot," she said quietly, more to herself than anyone. "I almost forgot what it felt like to just live." She laughed softly and picked her fork back up, shaking her head like she was embarrassed by the admission.
The food was good. The conversation was better.
I waited until the second round of plates before I turned to Dove.
"How are you holding up?" I asked, keeping my voice even. "I've been meaning to ask, have you ever thought about coming into the company? Even just consulting."
She smiled, but it was the lazy, unbothered kind. "Not everyone wants to run a corporation, Dante."
"I'm not saying run it—"
"The company is in good hands." She reached for her glass. "It doesn't need me anywhere near it."
I nodded. "Fair enough. I'll respect that." I cut into my meat again. "But I'd like Thessa to come around at some point. Learn the flow of things. When she's ready."
Mom pointed her fork at me. "Now that makes sense."
Dove didn't argue. Just smiled again and sipped.
"So what have you been up to?" I asked, watching her from under my lashes while I pretended to work through my lamb.
I'd been watching her all evening, assessing, yet, hiding my worry. She was thinner than the last time we saw her. Barely forty-five kilogrammes now. Her eyes were dim. She laughed at something that wasn't funny and the laugh came out too loose. And, her words dragged slightly when she spoke. If I hadn't known her my whole life, I might have sat back and thought, 'Dove seems relaxed tonight.' But I knew her. I knew every version of her. And this one frightened me.
"Thessa," I said, keeping my voice light. "Why don't you take Oliver up so he can show you his science project?"
Thessa's face split open. Oliver was already pushing back his chair before she even answered. They grabbed their juice boxes, nearly colliding with each other at the archway, their laughter trailing up the staircase.
I waited until I couldn't hear their footsteps anymore.
Then I set my cutlery down. The clink of it against the plate was faint, but everyone at that table heard it.
"Dove." I folded my hands. "Talk to us. Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it by yourself. That's not what family is."
She blinked, looking around the table.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" She let out a short laugh. "Like I've gone mad or something?" She bit into her apple pie.
Mom reached forward. "Baby, we're worried about you."
Dove's face changed. The softness was gone.
"Worried?" She repeated. "So you've been talking about me." She looked at each of us slowly, then her eyes landed on Cinnamon and stayed there. "Did you run your mouth?"
"Dove—"
"Did you run your mouth to him?"
"Don't." I lashed out, not intending to be harsh. "Don't you dare speak to my wife that way."
Dove pushed back from the table. Her chair scraped loud against the floor and she threw one hand up.
"Is this your true colour?" she asked Cinnamon, her face red with fury. "You come into this family, into my brother's life, and you turn everyone against me? That's who you are?"
Cinnamon's eyes filled but she didn't look away. "I didn't turn anyone against you. I said something because I love you. Because I couldn't watch anymore and say nothing, not if you needed help." She gripped the edge of the table. "I know you, Dove. I know you well enough to know that something is wrong. Especially with how you've been spending."
Mom straightened in her chair. "I am tired," she said, "of waiting for you to come to us."
Dove's eyes went cold. She turned them on me.
"Is that what this dinner was?" She gestured at the table, the food, the candles, all of it. "You brought me here to insult me?"
"There is nothing insulting about this conversation. You've spent over four hundred million dollars in a little over five months, Dove. No acquisitions. No shares. Nothing to show for it. We want to understand."
"You're monitoring me."
"We're worried about—"
She went wild.
I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the way her hands moved, restless, searching, and unable to be still. I also noticed that she'd started wearing more of long sleeves, even in weather that didn't call for it, and something about the way she tugged at them now made my body move before my mind caught up.
I grabbed her wrist.
"Dante—" Mom started.
I pulled the sleeve up anyway.
"What are you doing?!" Cinnamon was on her feet. "That's extreme—"
I was looking for what I feared most, the small, brutal puncture marks that would have confirmed everything. It would've given me a name for whatever monster had gotten inside her.
Her skin was clean.
Nothing on it.
I let go.
Dove tore her arm away, stumbling backward, her sleeve hanging off her shoulder where I'd ripped the seam. She looked at me with hurt. Her chest was heaving.
"You monster," she breathed. "You have humiliated me enough."
"Dove, I—"
Cinnamon moved toward her, reaching out, and Dove's hand came across her face so fast none of us saw it coming.
The sound of it swallowed the room whole.
"Don't you touch me," Dove hissed, her voice shaking, barely holding itself together. "You sly, conniving serpent. I hate you."
Cinnamon didn’t move. Her head had snapped to the side and stayed there for a second too long. Her body hadn’t caught up yet with what just happened. Her fingers rose slowly to her cheek, pressing against it as the heat bloomed under her skin. She blinked once, trying to find her place back in the room.
Dove's was filled with grief. Not anger.
She looked at Cinnamon. "Because of you," she said, pointing, "my brother put his hands on me." Her eyes glossed over. "Because of you, I'm standing in the middle of my family feeling like a stranger." Her chin trembled. She pressed her lips together to stop it. "You walked into his life and you rewired everything. Every single thing. He used to be my best friend. He was the one person in this world who would never look at me the way he just looked at me." She gestured at the table, the torn sleeve still hanging. "And now look."
No one said anything.
She looked at me. I'd become someone she didn't recognize.
"You and Mom," she said quietly, "stand there acting so innocent. Acting so concerned. But you're hiding something too. All of this—" she gestured at the dinner, at the warmth, at everything I'd built to make tonight feel safe "is just a stage. And I'm just a problem you're staging an intervention for."
My stomach dropped.
She knew. Or she felt it. Which was almost the same thing.
With her torn sleeve and her dimmed eyes and whatever courage whatever she was on had left her, she turned and ran out of the dinning.
Mom turned to me slowly.
"What was that?" Her voice was hollow. "How could you do that to your sister?" She shook her head, and when she looked at me, I saw the thing no son ever wanted to see, disappointment with no softness behind it. "I didn’t raise you to put your hands on your sister, Dante."
Cinnamon was still standing where Dove had left her, fingers barely touching her cheek.
"Honey." Her voice was quiet. "She didn't deserve that."
"I was looking for needle marks." The words felt wrong as I said it. "The way she was behaving, the slurring, the sleeves. I was looking for proof."
In as much as I hated the thought of thinking that my own sister was a junkie, I was just making sure. Thank goodness I was wrong.
"That's outrageous," Mom said immediately. "Dove is a good girl. She would never."
"Did you find anything?" Cinnamon asked.
I exhaled. "No. She's clean."
Cinnamon closed her eyes briefly. "Then something else is eating her alive. And we just destroyed the only moment she might have let us in."
I raked my hand through my hair. I asked Cinnamon to check on the kids, and she nodded without another word and disappeared up the stairs. I think she needed to be away from me as much as I needed to think.
Mom and I stood in the wreckage of the dining room.
"Does she know?" she asked, almost immediately. No preamble. Like she'd been holding the question behind her teeth all evening.
"I don't think so."
"Then why would she say what she said?"
I pulled out a chair and sat heavily. "Because we've been making people nervous without realizing it. Even Cinnamon noticed something was off between us." I looked up at Mom. "When you carry something this heavy, it shows. It always shows."
Mom's hands fidgeted in her lap.
"What if they haven't gone?" she whispered. "What if they're still watching?"
I stood and crossed to her. Took both her shoulders in my hands and made her look at me.
"The police case is moving in our favor. The best thing we can do, the only thing, is not unravel." I held her gaze. "Forget the past. Leave it where it is. You focus on what makes you happy. That's your only job now."
She swallowed hard, nodding. "I'll try." She reached up and patted my hand. "I need to take Thessa home. In case Dove doesn't come back for her tonight."
I pulled her into a hug and held on.
My phone started ringing and my mother's body stiffen in my arms.
"Is it them?" she whispered.
I pulled back and checked the screen. Unknown number.
"Is it them, Dante?"
Her palms were damp against my forearm. 
"Stop worrying, mom."
I let her sit then answered the call. "Yes," my voice was flat.
"You shouldn't have let her out of your sight." The voice was low, belonged to a male and sounded somewhat muffled. "Something bad might happen."
I stepped away from my mother. "Who is this? Who are you talking about?"
There was a long pause followed by nothing but heavy breathing.
"Your sister," the voice finally said.