Dante's POV
The shots from Aria's apartment made me physically sick.
I stood in my office three days after taking her, staring at the proof of a life I hadn't expected. Her room was smaller than my closet. The fiddle she'd been playing that night was held together with tape and hope. Her refrigerator held expired milk and half a sandwich.
There were no pictures of Lorenzo. No expensive clothes. No proof of Morelli money anywhere.
Just bills marked "PAST DUE" and a handmade birthday card from a child that said, "You're the best teacher ever."
"She's been asking for food," Marco said from the hallway. "It's been twelve hours since we gave her anything."
"I know."
"Are you trying to starve her to death? Because that's not payback, Dante. That's just evil."
I spun on him, rage boiling in my chest. "Don't teach me about cruelty! Lorenzo Morelli left my family to burn alive. My mother asked for mercy. Sofia screamed for me to save her. Where was his kindness then?"
"Aria isn't Lorenzo," Marco said quietly. "She's not even really his daughter—not the way he sees it. You took the wrong goal, and now you're too proud to admit it."
"She has his blood. That's enough."
But even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. I'd spent three days watching Aria through the cameras I'd placed in her room. She didn't rage or threaten or demand her release like I'd expected. She cried quietly. She hummed violin songs to comfort herself. This morning, she'd thanked the guard who brought her water.
She wasn't what I'd expected at all.
And that made everything worse.
"Send her food," I said finally. "And untie her. She can't escape anyway."
Marco nodded, but he wasn't done. " Lorenzo held a press meeting this morning. About Isabella's marriage. Someone asked if the reports about another daughter were true. "
I looked up sharply. "What did he say?"
" He laughed. Called it 'old stories' and said the woman and child were nobody important." Marco's jaw tightened. "He didn't even say Aria's name, Dante. His daughter has been lost for three days, and he doesn't care enough to look for her."
Something twisted in my chest—something that felt uncomfortably like guilt.
I'd taken Aria to hurt Lorenzo. But Lorenzo didn't care. Which meant I was hurting an innocent woman for absolutely nothing.
"It doesn't matter," I said coldly. "She's still useful. I'll make her matter to him."
"How? By breaking her? By turning her into another piece of your rage until there's nothing left?" Marco stepped closer, and I saw the disappointment in his scarred face. "The Dante I knew fifteen years ago wouldn't have done this. He wouldn't have hurt someone innocent just because he was in pain."
"That Dante died with his family."
"No." Marco's voice was hard. "That Dante is still in there somewhere. You've just buried him so deep under hate that you can't find him anymore."
He left before I could reply.
I sat alone in my office, looking at the photos of Aria's sad little life, and felt something crack in my chest.
What was I doing?
I went to her room that night without planning to. I told myself I just needed to see her with my own eyes, to prove she was real and not some figment of my conscience.
She was awake, sitting on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest. Someone had given her food and freed her, but she looked even more fragile now—pale skin, hollow eyes, hair tangled around her shoulders.
"Why are you here?" she asked quietly. No anger. Just tiredness.
"To make sure you're alive."
"Why? So you can keep hurting me?" She looked up, and I saw tears on her face. "I've been trying to understand what I did to earn this. I've gone through every moment of my life, every move I made. And I can't find anything except being born."
"Your father—"
"My father doesn't want me!" Her voice broke. "He's never wanted me. My mother was his accountant. He had an affair, got her pregnant, and paid her to leave. She died when I was ten, and he sent money every month like I was a bill he had to pay. I've seen him maybe five times in my entire life. And each time, he looked at me like I was his biggest mistake."
I stood frozen, watching her fall apart.
"So whatever you want from him," Aria continued, wiping her eyes, "whatever you think taking me will accomplish—it won't work. He won't pay debt. He won't negotiate. He won't even know I'm gone." She laughed bitterly. "You kidnapped the wrong girl, Mr. Salvatore. You should have taken Isabella. At least she matters to him."
Every word was a knife in my gut because I knew she was right.
I'd planned this payback for fifteen years. I'd destroyed Lorenzo's empire piece by piece, waiting for the right moment to take what he valued most.
And I'd failed.
Because Lorenzo Morelli didn't value Aria at all.
"Then I'll make you valuable," I said, the words coming out before I'd fully formed the thought.
Aria stared at me. "What?"
"If Lorenzo won't care that I have his unwanted daughter, then I'll turn you into something he can't ignore." My mind raced, forming a new plan. "I'll make you strong. Important. Everything he tried to keep you from being. And when everyone knows you picked me over him, when his shameful secret is standing at my side—that's when he'll finally understand what he lost."
"You're insane," Aria whispered.
Maybe I was. But looking at her—broken and abandoned and alone—I realized something terrible.
She reminded me of Sofia. Not in looks, but in innocence. In the way she'd been hurt by violence she didn't understand.
And I was doing to her exactly what Lorenzo had done to my sister.
I was becoming the monster.
"I'll give you a choice," I heard myself say. "You can stay locked in this room, paying for sins you didn't commit. Or you can help me destroy the father who never wanted you. Either way, you're not going. But one road gives you power. The other just gives you pain."
Aria's amber eyes searched mine, looking for something—mercy, maybe, or humanity.
She wouldn't find it. I'd buried those things years ago.
"Why would I help you hurt anyone?" she asked softly. "Even someone who hurt me?"
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed. Marco's name showed on the screen.
I answered, never taking my eyes off Aria. "What?"
"We have a problem." Marco's voice was tight with anxiety. "Isabella Morelli just hired a private detective. She's looking for Aria."
My blood went cold. "Why would Isabella care about finding her?"
"That's what worries me," Marco said. "According to our source, Isabella told the detective to 'eliminate the problem quietly.' Boss— I don't think she's trying to help her sister. I think she's trying to kill her."
I looked at Aria, fragile and innocent and totally unaware that her own family wanted her dead.
And I realized with striking clarity that I might have saved her life by kidnapping her.