Page 91 of Second Chance Daddy

The room smells like him. Cedar, rain, gunpowder. And something darker. Something old. Something dangerous.

I scan the dresser and the nightstand. My heart hammers like it knows I shouldn’t be doing this.

But curiosity’s a nasty thing—it drags you places your fear says to stay away from.

There, on the bedside table, half-hidden under his discarded clothes… I see it.

A ring.

Heavy. Silver. Worn.

The crest etched into the metal stops my lungs cold.

A double-headed eagle. A snarling wolf flanked by blades. And words in Cyrillic that, even with my broken memory of college-level documentaries, I can decipher enough to make my spine lock up.

I’ve seen this before.

A late-night deep dive into a true-crime special about power families. Not just mafia.

Royalty.

Bratva royalty.

The kind of family with their claws in every corner of the world. The kind that doesn’t just survive—they build empires. The kind that buries threats like weeds and leaves no witnesses.

My throat tightens as I stare at the ring, cold realization bleeding down my spine.

Dante’s not just mafia.

He’s legacy.

And I’ve been sleeping in the lion’s den this entire time—without even knowing just how sharp his teeth really are.

28

CASSIE

Idon’t move.

I sit on the edge of Dante’s bed, staring at the ring like it’s radioactive, my pulse pounding in my throat so hard I might choke on it.

Bratva royalty.

The words keep repeating, looping like a sickness in my chest.

When the door creaks open, I nearly drop the damn thing. But I look up straight at him. For once, I’m not the one who has something to hide.

“What were you doing out in the forest?” I ask accusingly.

“Were you… spying on me?”

This time, he’s the one who looks afraid. For once, I’m not the one hesitating under the weight of secrets.

Dante steps inside, the smell of rain, blood, and dirt still clinging to him like a warning. He looks like he already knows I’ve seen too much.

I hold up the ring and stand, walking closer so he can see what I hold. “What the hell is this?”

Dante stops cold, eyes dropping to the ring in my hand.