Chapter 8
“You want me to bring my family into this?”
“I want you to stop standing alone while everyone else gathers teams.”
The words landed with unexpected force.
For months, I had been alone because it was easier than needing people who might disappoint me. Because debt was embarrassing. Because grief made every conversation feel too heavy to carry into someone else’s day.
But Sarah had squeezed my hand at the party.
You’re family.
I called her.
She answered on the first ring.
“Emma? Thank goodness. Aunt Linda thinks you married a crime lord in secret and forgot to invite us.”
Despite everything, a laugh slipped out.
“I need help.”
Sarah went quiet immediately.
“What do you need?”
I looked at the opened wall, the letter in my hand, the man beside me who was both stranger and not.
“I need Daniel to stop the closing on Dad’s house.”
“Done.”
“You don’t even know why.”
“You said you need help. That’s the why.”
My eyes filled.
“Sarah—”
“We’re on our way.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“We’re on our way,” she repeated. “Send the address, though I obviously know where your childhood home is because I was there when you hid peas in my purse during Thanksgiving.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Dante watched me with an expression I could not quite read.
After I hung up, I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand.
“She’s coming.”
“Good.”
“You look pleased with yourself.”
“I prefer allies.”
“I thought you preferred control.”
“They are often mistaken for each other.”
That was the most Dante answer he could have given.
Sarah and Daniel arrived twenty minutes later with coffee, a laptop, and the kind of determined energy that made me understand why she had organized her entire engagement party without crying once.
She took one look at the basement wall and said, “Okay, so not a normal paperwork issue.”
Daniel, tall and thoughtful with glasses slipping down his nose, crouched near the cut drywall.
“Someone entered before legal transfer,” he said. “That may be enough to pause things, especially if personal property or concealed documents were involved.”
“Can you stop the closing?” I asked.
“I can file an emergency notice before morning and make several people extremely annoyed.”
Sarah handed me coffee.
“That’s his love language.”
Daniel smiled faintly without looking up from his laptop.
For the first time that night, the pressure inside my chest eased.
Not because the mystery was solved.
Because I was not the only one holding it.
Sarah sat beside me on the basement steps while Daniel worked at the old laundry table and Dante spoke quietly with his men upstairs.
I showed her the pendant.
She turned it over carefully.
“Your mom wore this,” she said.
“You remember?”
“A little. I remember thinking it was pretty. And I remember my mom saying Claire had old-fashioned taste.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Mom says things.”
“Did you know she wasn’t Claire?”
Sarah’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Her real name was Clara Bellini.”
Sarah went very still.
Then she whispered, “Bellini as in this Dante person’s family?”
“His mother’s family.”
She looked toward the stairs.
“Emma, are you and Dante related?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the thought neither Dante nor I had said aloud.
Bellini cousins. Shared family lines. Hidden names.
The kiss from the night before flashed through my mind, and heat rushed to my face for entirely the wrong reasons.
Sarah noticed.
“Oh.”
“Don’t say oh.”
“I didn’t say it judgmentally. I said it because your face did a thing.”
“My face did not do a thing.”
“It absolutely did.”
“Sarah.”
She lifted both hands.
“Fine. No thing.”
Despite the fear, despite the basement, despite the fact that my entire family history had turned into a puzzle with missing pieces, I laughed.
It felt like opening a window.
Dante returned a few minutes later. His gaze moved between us, registering the change in my expression.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
Sarah stood and faced him.
“So you’re not actually married to my cousin.”
“No.”
“And you kissed her in front of our entire family.”
Dante looked at me, then back at Sarah.
“Yes.”
Sarah folded her arms.
“Do you make a habit of that?”
“No.”
“Good. Because Emma has a soft heart and a very stubborn brain, and I love both, so be careful with her.”
I wanted the floor to swallow me.
Dante did not smile. He did not dismiss her.
He nodded.
“I will.”
Sarah seemed satisfied, which somehow embarrassed me more.
Daniel looked up from his laptop.
“I filed the notice. The closing cannot proceed cleanly without addressing the reported unauthorized entry and potential concealed estate property.”
I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
“Thank you.”
He pushed his glasses up.
“Also, the purchasing company is odd.”
Dante turned.
“How odd?”
“It’s a shell company. Formed eight months ago. No visible assets beyond this transaction. Registered agent in Delaware.”
“Name?” Dante asked.
Daniel glanced at his screen.
“Green Coat Holdings.”
The basement went silent.
I felt the letter in my pocket like it had warmed suddenly against my skin.
Find the woman in the green coat.
Sarah looked from me to Dante.
“Why does everyone look like I just said something terrifying?”
I pulled out my mother’s letter and handed it to her.
She read quickly, then slowly again.
“Oh,” she whispered.
This time, I did not tell her not to say it.
Dante moved closer to Daniel’s laptop.
“Can you trace the beneficial owner?”
“Not immediately. But I can request documents through the title company. If they panic, that tells us something too.”
“Do it,” Dante said.
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“I take instructions from Emma.”
For one startling second, Dante looked surprised.
Then he glanced at me.
A small smile tugged at my mouth.
“Do it,” I said.
Daniel nodded. “On it.”
That one simple exchange changed something.
Not the mystery.
Not the danger.
Us.
Dante had walked into my life acting as if he could arrange the world around me for my own good. But standing in my basement, with my cousin and her fiancé beside me, he accepted that the choices were mine.
It mattered more than any protective gesture could have.
May you like
Near midnight, Sarah insisted I was not sleeping alone.
“I have a couch,” she said.
