The Conti Heir's Bargain Chapter 3

The Interrogation

Silence.

For hours after Dante stormed out, the only sound was the frantic thrumming of my own heart. He had taken the untouched tray of food with him, leaving me with nothing but the chilling aftermath of my words and the oppressive, waiting quiet.

The crack I had seen in his armor was a victory, but a dangerous one. I had poked a bear, a bear that held me captive in its den. Now, I had to wait for its reaction.

It came sooner than I expected.

The door flew open without warning, crashing against the stone wall. Dante stood there, backlit by the hallway's harsh light, his frame taut with barely leashed fury. He wasn't alone. Carlo stood behind him, his expression grim.

"Out," Dante commanded, his voice a whip-crack.

I didn't move. "Or what? You'll drag me? That seems to be your specialty."

His eyes narrowed. In two strides, he was across the room, his hand closing around my upper arm. His grip was like iron, bruising in its intensity. He hauled me to my feet and propelled me out of the cellar, up the narrow stairs, and into the main part of the house.

He didn't take me to some opulent study. He marched me into a stark, windowless room that smelled of disinfectant and cold fear. A single metal table stood in the center, bolted to the floor. Two chairs. A high-intensity lamp on a stand was pointed at one of them. An interrogation room. This was his territory, his domain of control.

He shoved me into the chair under the light. I winced as the bright beam hit my eyes, blinding me. He circled the table, a predator assessing his prey, while Carlo remained by the door, a silent, disapproving sentinel.

"Sicily," Dante spat the word like a curse. He placed his palms flat on the metal table, leaning into the light until his face was all I could see, his features hardened into a mask of cold rage. "A convenient story. A desperate lie from a cornered animal."

"It's not a story. It's a fact." I forced my voice to remain level, though my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. "You're so sure of your truth. So sure you know what happened that night. Do you even know what weapon was used? Or are you just repeating the lies you were fed?"

The air left his lungs in a sharp hiss. I had struck a nerve. A deep one.

"It was a 9mm," he said, but there was a fractional hesitation in his voice. "A common hitman's tool. Your father's preferred method for messy work."

"Was it?" I pressed, leaning forward slightly, the heat from the lamp burning my skin. "Or was it a .45? A shotgun? Did you ever see the ballistic report? Or did they just hand you a body and a name and tell you who to hate?"

His knuckles were white where he gripped the table. "I saw my father's body. That was all the report I needed."

"And I'm telling you the man you blame was on another continent." I held his gaze, refusing to blink in the searing light. "Revenge built on a lie isn't justice, Dante. It's just another form of suicide. You're destroying yourself for a ghost."

"Shut up!" he roared, slamming his fist down on the table. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small room. Carlo flinched by the door.

I didn't. I sat perfectly still, my composure a weapon in itself. The more he raged, the more I saw the little boy Carlo had spoken of, the one who had found his father's body. The raw, unhealed wound beneath the layers of power and violence.

He straightened up, his breath coming in controlled, angry puffs. He was trying to recompose his mask, but the cracks were showing. I had introduced a seed of doubt, and it was taking root in the fertile ground of his obsession.

"You think you're clever," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You think you can manipulate your way out of this with pretty words and fabricated alibis."

"I don't need to fabricate anything. The truth is my alibi." I gestured around the sterile, terrifying room. "This? The chains? The threats? This is what you do when you're afraid of the truth. Because if I'm right, then your entire world, everything you've built your life on, is a lie. And that's a more terrifying prison than any cellar."

For a long, charged moment, we stared at each other across the metal table—the avenger and the heir, locked in a battle not of fists or guns, but of foundational truths. The hum of the lamp was the only sound.

He was the first to look away. He turned to Carlo, his movements stiff. "Get her out of my sight."

Carlo moved forward, his hand less rough than Dante's as he guided me from the chair. As he led me back toward the cellar, I glanced over my shoulder.

Dante hadn't moved. He stood alone in the interrogation room, his head bowed, one hand still braced on the table, his shoulders slumped under the weight of a crown that was suddenly, terrifyingly, made of thorns.

He was still holding onto his vengeance. But for the first time, I saw the effort it was costing him.

And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the real war between us had just begun. It was no longer about my freedom or his revenge.

It was about which version of the past would survive.

And I held the key to destroying his.