Page 74 of Second Chance Daddy

The one who never looked back.

“You want to know what he was like?” I hiss through gritted teeth, all the fear and rage I’ve swallowed for years bubbling up like poison. “He monitored my phone. My friends. What I wore. How I spoke. Every breath I took belonged to him. And when I didn’t obey? When I wasn’t perfect?”

I yank up my sleeve, revealing the faint scar near my wrist. “Glass from a broken wine bottle. Because I talked to a male server for too long.” I turn and pull down the collar of my shirt to show another mark on my shoulder. “Cigarette burn. Because I came home late one night.”

Dante’s face has gone completely blank.

“I finally got away from him. Got the divorce papers signed. But it wasn’t over. It’s never over with men like that.” My voicecracks. “So when I found out I was pregnant... God, Dante. What was I supposed to do? Tell him the baby wasn’t his? Watch him hunt you down? Hunt us down?”

“Cassie—” A flash of pain crosses his face.

“You left,” I interrupt. “You left without a word, Dante. And I—I panicked. Gino was still lurking, still watching everything I did. If he thought the baby wasn’t his…”

I shake my head, tears burning hot as they slip down my cheeks.

“You don’t know how cruel he is,” I whisper. “The way he twisted my life until I couldn’t breathe.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, guilt clawing up my throat, ripping me apart. “I hadn’t slept with him after you. Not once. But we’d been together a month before that night… and I lied.”

The confession spills like broken glass, ready to cut through us both.

“I lied about the timing. Lied about that night. About… everything.”

Dante doesn’t move, and I can’t breathe.

“I was scared,” I sob. “Scared for Aria and myself. I didn’t know how to protect my daughter and tell the truth at the same time.”

The silence cracks like a gunshot between us.

“And me?” Dante asks with a disappointing sigh, at last. “What about my right to know my own child?”

“Like I said, you were gone!”I cry out. “You disappeared without a word, just like before! I had no idea where you were,if you were coming back, if you even wanted—” I choke on the words. “And then more time passed, and the lie got bigger, and I didn’t know how to fix it without putting Aria in danger.”

My hands are shaking uncontrollably now. “Every time I thought about telling the truth, I’d get another threatening call from Gino. Another message. Another reminder that he was watching. And I just... I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t.”

I look up at him, pleading. “I was trying to protect her. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”

His stare stays locked on mine, a hundred emotions swimming under the surface, but none of them rise. None of them show.

Finally, his voice scrapes the quiet clean apart.

“You should’ve trusted me.”

It’s not a question.

It’s a verdict.

My heart caves in on itself as he steps back, the distance between us stretching wide and unforgiving.

He turns, hand on the doorknob.

“Dante—” I croak, but the words disintegrate in my throat.

The door slams behind him, the sound splitting the night apart, and I crumble in the wreckage of everything I’ve tried to keep buried.

21

DANTE