Gifted To The Don The Real Mafia Heiress Returns Chapter 08
The Snow
After Dante takes the heads out, the whole Ricci Manor goes dead quiet.
I put on a plain white nightgown and sit by the window, watching the rain fall.
Dante is standing in the garden, back against a pillar across the courtyard.
Rain droplets on his shoulders. Cigarette burned down to the filter between his fingers.
“Dante,” I call.
He comes in with the cold still on him, then stops three paces from me.
“Need anything, Miss Colombo?”
“You planning on standing out there like that forever?”
I watch the rain on his shoulders refuse to leave. My voice is flat.
He doesn’t move. “I’m fine standing outside.”
“Fine standing.” I laugh, soft. “You emptied a mansion for me. You unmade three families in a night. You’ve done enough.”
He doesn’t answer. Just stands there, quiet.
This is the first time in six years he and I have talked without someone else in the room.
I set the cup down.
“Why did you do it? Six years ago I told you — new name, new life. Go be anyone.”
His shoulders barely move.
Dante is quiet a long time.
Just when I think he won’t answer, he speaks.
“A world without you in it isn’t a world I want to be sober in. This life was the closest I could get to yours. So I took it.”
The candle flames jump once, twice.
Finally, softly — “Dante. I’m not… I’m not the Heiress of the Colombo anymore.”
He lifts his head.
First time in six years he lets himself look me in the face.
Everything he’d swallowed for six years bleeding through at once.
“You’re mine to answer to. Isabella Colombo, Bella Moretti, whoever you decide to be tomorrow — doesn’t change anything.”
“My life is yours. Same as it was.”
I look at him, at the madness in his eyes.
And I understand at last.
Dante didn’t build the Ricci Family for power or revenge or money.
He built it as a cage he could stand in — close as he could get to me — waiting.
I look away. “That little red folder. You keep good records.”
His jaw locks. His eyes drop. “I should have burned that file.”
“Enough.” I cut him off. “I’m tired.”
He turns, ready to leave.
“Wait.”
He freezes. Turns back to me. Every line of him wound tight.
I run my finger along the ugly scar on my face.
Soft — “Dante. Do you think my scar looks hideous?”
“Not in a million years.”