The first time Dante learned that love could be taken away, he was seventeen.
Gunshots did not sound the way movies described them.
They were louder. Sharper. Final.
He stood frozen on the marble staircase as his father’s bodyguards ran past him, their voices urgent, their weapons drawn. Somewhere below, his mother was screaming his father’s name.
Dante did not move.
He had been raised to be strong.
To be silent.
To never show fear.
But when he finally reached the study and saw the blood spreading across the white tiles, something inside him broke, not loudly, not visibly but permanently.
From that day, he learned two things: Love makes you weak.
Control keeps you alive.
Years later, men would fear his name.
Women would admire him from a distance.
Enemies would fall before they ever saw his face.
But none of that would matter.
Because one day, in a crowded airport, he would see a woman who looked at him without fear.
And for the first time since his father died, Dante would lose control.
