Part 4 — Dante Declared Before His Enemies That I Was His, but After My Answer, the Smile Disappeared from His Face

After the woman’s final words, such silence descended in the room that it was as though all the machines had stopped working at once.

Dante took the phone from me.

“Who are you?”

Only breathing could be heard on the other side.

Then the call ended.

Dante immediately called the guards.

“Lock every exit. Start looking for Luka. I want him alive.”

“And what if he comes to us?” one of the guards asked.

“Then he won’t get to me.”

There was anger in his voice, but for the first time I heard something else there too—fear.

I stopped Dante’s hand.

“I can’t leave Eli here anymore.”

“I’ll move him to a safe place.”

“Your safe places turned out to be right at the center of all this.”

He could not find an answer.

The old doctor opened the door.

“Titan survived. But the night will be difficult.”

I entered his ward. The dog had stitches on his shoulder, his eyes were closed, and his paw was still placed in the direction where I stood.

Dante remained in the doorway.

“Come inside,” I told him.

“I don’t know whether you still have a reason to let me stay beside you.”

“I don’t. But Titan does.”

He lowered his head.

That same night, after returning to the Castellano house, we found a metal box hidden beneath a foundation stone. The box was small, but it contained enough to destroy the entire family.

There were documents signed by Luka, records of transfers, receipts proving the money received by my former boss, and the most terrible document—the agreement drawn up in Dante’s name, which supposedly confirmed in his own handwriting that Titan’s attack had been intentional.

“This signature is forged,” Dante said.

“But it will look real to law enforcement.”

“Luka used my seal.”

“Then he wants to bring you down.”

Dante looked at the dark yard through the window.

“He always wanted my place.”

“And now he plans to use my brother against your enemies.”

“No. Now he is trying to use you.”

I looked at the documents lying on the table.

“I will no longer be anyone’s weapon.”

Dante turned toward me.

“Then don’t use my name anymore.”

“You yourself called me your woman.”

“Because at that moment I had no other way.”

“There is always a way not to treat a person as property.”

Pain passed across his face.

“I know.”

It was the first time he apologized without saying the word.

The next morning Luka called himself. Dante turned on the speaker.

“You always learn the truth too late, little brother,” Luka said.

“Where is Eli?” Dante asked.

“With Rosie. For now.”

I felt my blood freeze.

“My brother is not with you,” I said.

“Now I know that you are more dangerous than me. The dog obeyed you. So did Dante.”

“You can’t dictate anything to me.”

“Then listen to your own voice.”

Luka played a recording. It was a video filmed in the laundry room that night by an unknown camera. It could be heard how I said: “If you want him to survive, he needs a veterinarian.” Then Dante’s voice came: “Rosalind Whitaker is my woman.”

The recording played several times.

Dante stood frozen.

For the first time he had to hear his own words through someone else’s ears. At first they sounded like a command. Then like a threat. Finally, like a chain placed on himself.

“Do you see?” Luka chuckled. “You yourself said that she was yours. Now you will prove to everyone that you can even kill for her.”

Dante ended the call.

“This recording of my voice is not enough,” he said.

“It is enough if they process it properly.”

“The lawyer will come.”

The lawyer called ten minutes later.

“Dante, with these documents and the recording, I can no longer sign onto your case. First you must ensure the safety of that woman and her brother, and then surrender yourself.”

“You’re telling me to turn myself in?”

“I’m telling you that if you do not do this, Luka will convince everyone in your place that you are guilty.”

Dante put the phone down.

“Go, Rosie.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere I cannot reach you.”

“I don’t need to run from you. I need the truth from you.”

He looked into my eyes.

“I protected Luka for years. Every time I suspected something, I told myself that this was how family worked. The dog was trained. The price of the work. Death? ‘The price of the case.’ Now I understand that I gave everything a name so that I would not see the crime.”

“And me?”

“You were not my biggest mistake. You are the person who forced me for the first time to look my mistakes in the eyes.”

That evening Dante went to the law-enforcement authorities. He handed over all the documents, surrendered his own seal, and testified against Luka.

Luka was found at the port that same night. He had not tried to escape. Perhaps he thought Dante would remain silent instead of him again.

But Dante was silent no longer.

On the day of the trial I sat in the last row of the courtroom. Dante heard his own words there when the recording was played.

“Rosalind Whitaker is my woman.”

A whisper ran through the courtroom.

Dante did not raise his head.

Then I went to the witness stand and said that I had never been anyone’s property. That he had protected me that night, but at the same time thrown me into the middle of his world. That the truth could be both things at once.

Luka’s lawyer asked me mockingly:

“So, do you still believe this man?”

I looked at Dante.

“I believe in what he did after this. Not in what he hid from me before.”

The case continued for several months. Luka was found guilty of extortion, forgery, attempted kidnapping, and organizing a murder. My former boss was also arrested. Dante’s sentence was reduced because of his testimony about all the illegal activities, and the dismantling of his organization began.

I did not ask for revenge for him.

I simply no longer saved from him the person whose rescue he himself was not trying to achieve.

The hardest day came after the trial. I went upstairs in Dante’s house, where his private office had once been. I found the room empty. The bookshelves had been removed, and only one object remained on the desk—Titan’s old leather collar, with a long scratch on its side.

Dante picked it up.

“He was wearing this when he saved me for the first time.”

“And now?”

“Now he no longer needs my protection.”

I took the collar from him.

“You can still keep it.”

“He will be calmer with you.”

A few weeks later Eli and I moved to a small apartment in another part of the city. In the mornings I worked at a veterinary clinic, and in the evenings I checked Eli’s homework. Titan no longer lived with us—by law he was moved to a special shelter, but I visited him three times a week.

One morning Eli sat in the kitchen and drew on a sheet of paper.

“Who is this?” I asked.

He handed me the paper. In the drawing stood a large black dog, and beside him a small woman with a red scarf behind her ear.

“That’s you,” he told me. “And Titan is the one who no longer lets anyone frighten us.”

I smiled.

The first snow came at the beginning of December. From the clinic window I watched the white snowflakes cover the yard. My right ear caught the doctor’s voice, while the left was still silent. I used to consider that silence a flaw. Now I knew that not every voice was worth listening to.

That evening I received a message from Dante.

“Titan is well. I came to the place where the laundry room used to be. If you want, I will talk to you calmly at least once.”

A second message came a few minutes later.

“This time I will ask you for nothing.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Eli stood at the door.

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes a person’s return to your life is not an apology, but an inspection of an old door.”

I turned off the phone.

The next day I went to see Titan. A shelter employee told me that he had sat by the door all morning.

When he saw me, he stood up and pressed his head against my right side.

I fastened around his neck the old leather collar left by Dante. The scratch was still visible, but the leather was no longer fragile. I repaired it with a new clasp.

Titan looked ahead.

And for the first time I felt that I no longer needed to look back.

The collar closed quietly.

And for the first time my life belonged to no one anymore.