Chapter 7 - THE TRUTH ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO
Dante pulled Claire behind a concrete pillar.
Bullets struck metal.
Mia screamed.
“Stay down!” Dante shouted.
Security teams swarmed the terminal from hidden entrances.
The trap had been reversed.
Luca had expected Dante to arrive alone.
Instead, Dante had brought his entire trusted team.
Within minutes, the shooting stopped.
Luca was gone.
But Mia was still there.
Claire ran to her.
“Mia!”
Her daughter threw herself into her arms.
“I knew Daddy would come.”
Claire froze.
“Daddy?”
Mia looked toward Dante.
“You told me he was my father.”
Claire's eyes widened.
Dante crouched.
“I am.”
Mia hugged him.
Dante's face broke.
He held her as if she were the only thing keeping him alive.
Then a shot cracked.
Luca appeared behind them.
Claire shoved Mia down.
Dante turned.
The bullet struck him in the shoulder.
He fell.
“DANTE!”
Claire grabbed him.
Luca escaped again.
But this time, he left something behind.
A folder.
Inside was the truth.
Six years earlier, Luca had arranged the attack that killed Dante's father.
He had then manipulated Dante into believing Claire was in danger.
But there was something worse.
Claire's pregnancy had been discovered.
Luca had ordered Dante to disappear.
If Dante stayed, Claire and the baby would die.
Dante had obeyed.
But Luca had never intended to let them live peacefully.
The surveillance began when Mia was born.
Claire looked at Dante.
“You really left to protect us.”
Dante nodded.
“I thought it would work.”
“It didn't.”
“No.”
She touched his face.
“But you came back.”
“I'll never leave again.”
She kissed him.
Behind them, Mia groaned.
“Can you two stop kissing?”
Claire laughed through tears.
Dante smiled.
For the first time in six years, they looked like a family.
Then Claire saw the final page.
Her smile disappeared.
A bank transfer.
Luca hadn't been working alone.
Someone had financed him.
Someone inside Claire's own professional circle.
The name belonged to a senior administrator at Harbor Ridge Medical Center.
Dr. Elena Voss.
Claire's stomach dropped.
“She was at the hospital.”
Dante's expression hardened.
“She knew you.”
“She knew Mia.”
Then Claire understood.
The attack hadn't started six years ago.
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It had started much earlier.
And Elena had been watching them from the beginning.
