Chapter 6 - The Unspoken Bond
Vance didn't need to be told twice. He turned on his heel, muttered something to his officers, and practically jogged back to his cruiser, spraying gravel as he tore down the private drive.
Dante watched the tail lights disappear down the winding road before turning back toward the mansion. When he re-entered the nursery, Wren was pacing softly near the window, rocking Nico, who had fallen back into a deep, peaceful sleep.
She stopped when she saw him, her eyes wide with anxiety. "Did they... did they leave?"
"They left," Dante said, closing the door behind him and loosening his tie. He walked over to the armchair and sank into it, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the dull, persistent ache of exhaustion.
"Are you okay?" Wren asked softly, forgetting for a moment who he was.
Dante opened his eyes, looking up at her in surprise. A faint, bitter smile touched the corner of his lips. "Nobody has asked me that since Isabel died."
Wren bit her lip, suddenly acutely aware of her position. She looked down at the baby in her arms. "I... I should put him in his crib. You probably want some privacy."
"Stay," Dante said, his voice dropping any trace of authority, leaving behind something raw and exposed. He gestured to the chair opposite him. "Please, Wren. Stay."
She hesitated, then slowly sat back down in the rocking chair. For a long time, neither of them spoke. The storm outside had passed, and watery afternoon sunlight began to pour through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the nursery, warming the hardwood floors.
"How do you do it?" Dante asked quietly, staring at the baby's chest rising and falling in rhythm. "How do you hold him and not see... everything we lost?"
Wren swallowed hard, feeling the familiar, sharp pinch of grief in her chest. She looked down at Nico’s tiny face, noticing the faint curve of his nose—so much like Dante's.
"At first, I couldn't," Wren whispered, her voice trembling. "When I lost Ivy... I felt like my whole body was a trap. Every time my milk came in, it felt like my own body was mocking me for failing to protect her. I wanted to turn it off. I wanted to numb it."
She looked up, meeting Dante's dark, piercing gaze.
"But when I heard him crying in the hallway last night... it wasn't about my pain anymore. It was about his. He was starving, Mr. Salerno. He was slipping away, just like my little girl did. And I realized... holding him, feeding him... it doesn't mean I forgot Ivy. It means her memory gave me a way to save someone else's child."
Dante stared at her, utterly transfixed. The brutal mafia boss, a man feared across the entire eastern seaboard, felt a heavy lump form in his throat. In Wren Castillo, he saw a mirror of his own soul—shattered by loss, bleeding from the inside out, yet somehow finding an impossible strength in the wreckage.
"Isabel would have liked you," Dante said softly, the words slipping out before he could filter them. "She had a heart too big for this world. It’s... it’s why they targeted her."
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Wren’s breath caught. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Salerno. For your wife."
"Dante," he corrected automatically. Then, realizing what he said, he gave a faint, humorless huff of laughter. "Call me Dante. 'Mr. Salerno' sounds like a stranger, and after last night, we aren't strangers anymore."
