Page 206 of Untamed

He wants her away from me. Hidden behind distance and titles and a ring that belongs to someone else.

“You gonna go through with it?” Dante presses, quieter this time.

I turn my head, finally meeting his eyes.

“I’ll do what needs to be done.”

He watches me for a beat. “That a yes?”

“It’s a placeholder,” I murmur flatly. “I give them what they want long enough to dismantle everything from the inside. And when the timing’s right…”

I trail off.

Because if I say it out loud, it becomes real. But Dante finishes it for me anyway. “You burn it down.”

I don’t nod. I don’t have to, because he already knows.

Dante doesn’t speak for a while after that. He knows when to shut up, which is more than I can say for most people.

But then, just as the skyline of Messina creeps into view through the tinted glass, he speaks again.

Quieter this time. “And her?”

I don’t look at him. I don’t need to ask who he means. “Jordyn.”

Her name lands like a hard blow under my ribs.

Dante leans forward, elbows on his knees, voice low. “What happens to her if you go through with this?”

I stare out the window, the weight of her warmth still ghosting against my skin from this morning. Her laugh. Her kiss. The way she whisperedstaylike it was a promise I had no business accepting.

“She’s not part of this,” I tell him.

He scoffs. “Bullshit. She’s the only part of this that actually matters to you.”

I cut him a look, sharp enough to kill.

He holds up a hand. “I’m not judging. Just trying to figure out how the hell you’re gonna walk two lines without falling off both.”

My hands curl in a fist against my thigh. Because I’ve been asking myself the same question.

How do I protect her… without losing her?

How do I tear apart the world I was raised to rule without dragging her down with me? How do I keep her close, without giving Luciano another excuse to tear her from me? Or worse, make her the price of my defiance.

“She stays out of it,” I say again, quieter this time.

But even as I say it, I know it’s a fucking lie.

Because if she was everoutof it, I wouldn’t be this afraid.

And I wouldn’t already be planning how to destroy the marriage before it even begins.

Silence settles between us again, but it doesn’t last.

Dante exhales, tapping his fingers against his knee, then speaks like he’s thinking out loud, but every word lands with purpose.

“You know Giana’s not the type of woman who shares, right?”

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