Chapter 2 - The Blood on Dante Marino's Hands
The first thing I heard when I woke up was a voice I never expected to hear.
"Open your eyes, Clara."
Dante Marino.
Not the voice of a doctor.
Not the voice of a nurse.
His.
The man whose name made people lower their voices.
The man who could make entire rooms go silent with one look.
But now...
he sounded broken.
I tried to move.
Pain immediately burned through my body.
My eyes opened slowly.
The bright hospital lights blurred above me.
For a moment, I didn't understand where I was.
Then I remembered.
The garage.
The laser.
The gunshots.
Rosa.
I tried to sit up.
"Rosa..."
Dante grabbed my shoulder gently.
"Don't move."
I looked at him.
That was the strangest thing.
Dante Marino was touching me like I was something fragile.
Not because he saw weakness.
Because he was afraid of losing me.
"Is she okay?"
His face changed.
A small crack appeared in the wall he always kept around himself.
"My mother is alive."
I closed my eyes.
Relief came before the pain.
"Good."
One word.
That was all I could say.
Dante stared at me.
"You almost died."
I opened my eyes again.
"And Rosa didn't."
His jaw tightened.
"You don't understand what you did."
"Yes, I do."
"No."
His voice became sharper.
"You don't."
The room went quiet.
Dante looked away.
For the first time since I met him, he looked like a man who didn't know what to do.
"I have spent my entire life protecting my family," he said quietly.
I watched him.
"And today, someone I was supposed to protect saved us."
I didn't know what to say.
Because there was no answer.
There was no simple sentence that could fix what happened.
A few minutes later, doctors entered.
They checked my injuries.
They asked questions.
They told Dante to leave.
He didn't.
The doctor looked at him.
"Mr. Marino, your presence is making the patient nervous."
I almost laughed.
Because that was the first time anyone had ever told Dante Marino to leave a room.
Dante looked at me.
"Do you want me to go?"
I expected him to decide for me.
Instead, he waited.
That surprised me.
"No."
The doctor sighed.
"Five minutes."
Dante nodded.
The second the doctor left, silence filled the room.
Then I noticed his hands.
They were bruised.
Small cuts covered his knuckles.
"What happened?"
He looked down.
"Nothing."
"Dante."
His eyes met mine.
"I found the shooter."
My heart stopped.
"You did?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
I understood.
He was angry.
Not because he failed to find the person.
Because someone had gotten close enough to hurt me.
"Your security team failed."
His expression darkened.
"My security team was betrayed."
That sentence stayed with me.
"Betrayed by who?"
Dante didn't answer.
And that scared me more than anything.
Because Dante Marino always had answers.
Except this time...
he didn't want to say them.
Later that night, I learned what happened after I lost consciousness.
Dante carried me across the garage himself.
He ignored the guards.
Ignored the chaos.
Ignored the possibility that the attacker was still watching.
He only focused on keeping me alive.
Rosa had watched everything.
When she arrived at my hospital room, she was crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly.
The kind of crying that came from a person who had almost lost someone.
"Clara."
I smiled weakly.
"You're okay."
She took my hand.
"No, sweetheart."
Her voice trembled.
"You are the one who almost wasn't."
I looked away.
Because I didn't want her to feel guilty.
But Rosa was too smart.
She always knew when people were hiding pain.
"You saved me."
"I did what anyone would do."
She shook her head.
"No."
Her eyes moved toward Dante.
"Nobody in my world would have done what you did."
Dante stood near the window.
Silent.
Watching.
Like he was afraid to come closer.
That night changed something between us.
Before the shooting, Dante was a man I was slowly learning to understand.
After the shooting...
he became someone who couldn't pretend anymore.
The next morning, I woke up to find him sitting in the chair beside my bed.
He was still wearing yesterday's suit.
He hadn't slept.
"You stayed?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He looked at me.
Like the answer was obvious.
"Because I almost lost you."
My heart moved.
Just slightly.
Because I knew Dante Marino.
I knew how difficult those words were.
"Why do you care?"
He looked away.
That was the first time I saw him uncomfortable.
Not angry.
Not intimidating.
Just human.
"Because my mother loves you."
I waited.
He didn't continue.
I smiled slightly.
"That's not the whole answer."
His eyes returned to mine.
"No."
A pause.
"That isn't the whole answer."
Before I could ask anything else, his phone rang.
His expression changed immediately.
The warmth disappeared.
The businessman disappeared.
The mafia boss returned.
He answered.
"What?"
A voice spoke on the other side.
I couldn't hear everything.
But I heard enough.
"Impossible."
Dante stood.
"When?"
Another pause.
Then his face became cold.
"Lock down the estate."
My stomach tightened.
"What happened?"
He ended the call.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
"Someone entered my house last night."
I froze.
"The estate?"
"Yes."
"While Rosa was there?"
His silence answered.
A cold feeling moved through me.
Someone had attacked Rosa.
Someone had shot me.
And now someone had entered the one place Dante believed was impossible to break into.
"Did they take anything?"
Dante looked at me.
"No."
"Then why are you worried?"
His eyes became darker.
"Because they didn't come to steal anything."
I waited.
"They came to send a message."
The hospital room suddenly felt smaller.
"What message?"
Dante walked toward the window.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then:
"They left something in my mother's room."
"What?"
"A photograph."
I looked at him.
"Of what?"
His face changed.
And I knew immediately.
Whatever he saw...
it wasn't normal.
"It was a picture of you."
The room went silent.
My breathing stopped.
"Me?"
Dante nodded.
"And on the back..."
He stopped.
"What?"
His eyes met mine.
"Your father's name was written."
My blood turned cold.
Because my father had been dead for almost a year.
And nobody connected to Dante Marino should have known his name.
Nobody.
"Dante..."
He stepped closer.
"I need to ask you something."
"What?"
His voice became quiet.
"Did your father ever tell you why he was afraid of my family?"
I couldn't answer.
Because my father never talked about Dante Marino.
Never.
But there was something else.
Something I had forgotten.
Something from the last week before he died.
A sentence he whispered while lying in his hospital bed.
A sentence I thought was caused by the medication.
"Stay away from people with black rings."
At the time, I thought he was confused.
But now...
Dante was standing in front of me wearing a black ring.
And before I could tell him what my father had said...
his phone received a new message.
He looked at the screen.
The color disappeared from his face.
"Dante?"
He didn't answer.
"What is it?"
Slowly, he turned the phone toward me.
One sentence appeared on the screen.
Your therapist knows the truth about her father's death.
And underneath it was a name.
May you like
A name that made Dante whisper:
"She's been lying to us from the beginning..."
