Page 55 of Second Chance Daddy

“Fucking Gino.” The words slice through my teeth. I snap the phone shut, pulse steady, mind already calculating how this ends.

15

CASSIE

Ifreeze mid-step, every cell in my body locking up like I just walked into a zombie apocalypse.

My pulse flatlines. My skin goes ice-cold, but my blood’s still roaring in my ears, loud enough to drown out logic. I press closer to the wall, heart hammering, listening hard. The snap of his phone slamming shut nearly makes me jump out of my skin.

But I heard enough already.

Gino.

My ex. My mistake. The monster under the bed I’ve been running from like my life depends on it—because it does.

And Dante?

He’s hunting him down.

I had only come down the hall to check on Aria, and I did. But then I overheard something I wish I hadn’t. The right thing to do would be to walk away like some June Cleaver.

But I’m no June, and Dante’s not who I answer to.

I don’t think. I just storm down the hall like a woman with zero survival instincts, like my mouth’s moving faster than my common sense.

“Gino?” My voice cracks. “You’re going after Gino?”

Dante doesn’t flinch. Just turns real slow, like he’d never be caught dead surprised.

His eyes drag over me. “I have to.”

“You have to? You have to?” I laugh, wild and bitter. “God, you sound just like them.”

“Them?” He arches a brow, crossing his arms like he’s settling in to win this argument.

I shove a hand through my hair, pacing, fighting the chokehold of panic curling tight around my ribs. “The world I barely crawled away from, Dante. The goddamn mafia. The guns tucked under pillows like nightlights. I escaped that.”

“And now it’s back,” he bites out. “Or did you miss the guy casing the house? Watching my daughter sleep?”

The words sucker-punch me in the gut.His daughter.

My mouth opens—but no denial comes out.

Dante steps closer, his voice low, lethally calm. “I’m not your ex. I’m not some jealous asshole making your life hell for sport. But I’m not gonna sit on my hands while the man who’s been stalking you—stalkingher—creeps around my house.”

I shake my head, chest cracking open. “You’re a bullet waiting to ricochet, Dante. That’s all you’ve ever been. You don’t fix things. You blow them up.”

Instead, he moves like lightning. One moment I’m standing there shaking with rage, the next my back hits the wall, his hand around my wrist, pinning it above my head.

“And yet,” he murmurs, eyes dragging over me, softening just enough to shatter my defenses, “you’re still here.”

His gaze drills into mine, silent, waiting for the one truth I refuse to speak.

I don’t say it. I can’t say it.

But I don’t deny it either.

And his eyes darken, like he’s already put the pieces together.