Chương 11 - What Love Didn’t Fix
Dante left the office.
Alina found him in the stairwell, staring at the concrete wall.
“You don’t get to vanish now.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Good.”
He turned.
“I loved her.”
Alina’s anger rose so fast she almost couldn’t speak.
“Then how did she end up recording warnings alone in her own nursery?”
He took that without moving.
“Because she knew things about my family I refused to consider.”
“Because everybody around you was too scared to tell you the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And because you made dangerous people powerful.”
“Yes.”
She had expected excuses.
His agreement made her angrier.
“My mother spent twenty-three years believing her little girl was dead or somewhere she couldn’t reach.
Sofia spent her whole life believing nobody wanted her.”
Dante’s eyes reddened.
“I know.”
“No.
You know today.
They knew every day.”
For a long moment, the stairwell was quiet.
Then Dante said, “What can I do that matters?”
“Tell the truth.
Even the parts that cost you.”
He nodded slowly.
Back upstairs, Evelyn asked whether he would submit financial records voluntarily.
“All of them,” he said.
She looked at him carefully.
“You understand those records may expose your own conduct.”
“Yes.”
Alina saw the first choice he had made that wasn’t about controlling the room.
It didn’t erase anything.
It mattered anyway.
Later, at Rosa’s modest house, Leo sat on a blanket between Alina’s knees.
Dante had agreed the baby should stay somewhere outside his brother’s reach while Evelyn sought protective orders.
Leo grabbed Alina’s bracelet.
She touched his soft cheek.
“Your mom knew me before I knew her,” she whispered.
Rosa watched from the kitchen.
“Sofia used to sing to him.”
“What song?”
Rosa hummed four notes.
Alina froze.
Her mother’s bedtime song.
She sang the next line.
Leo’s face lit up.
Alina began crying before she could finish.
Her phone buzzed beside the blanket.
An email from an unfamiliar address.
May you like
I WAS THE NURSE ON SOFIA’S LAST NIGHT.
YOUR SISTER DID NOT DIE THE WAY THEY TOLD YOU.
