Page 38 of The Boss
Leif. Born of Leticia. Recorded by right of blood.
The breath he took hurt, like a door opening inside his ribs. Like something he’d been braced against his whole life had stopped pushing quite sohard.
“It’s true,” he said. It wasn’t relief. It wasn’t victory. It was something older than either.
Mariah’s fingers slid over his, warm skin on colder skin. “You already knew,” she said softly.
“Yes.” He swallowed and set his palm flat to the page like a man swearing a vow. “But I needed it confirmed.”
The lion in his skin warmed, answering a mark that wasn’t ink at all. He closed the book before he could sit here and bleed into memory. He returned it to its hollow and pressed the panelshut.
He turned to Mariah, caged her face in his hands, and kissed her like this place could hold another secret. She rose onto her toes, hands fisting in his shirt. He tasted the last of sleep on her tongue and something lit under his skin and climbed. He pulled her closer until her chest flattened to his and her breath stuttered into his mouth. His thumb stroked along her cheek. Her body answered. So didhis.
“Leif,” she breathed when he brokeaway.
“If I don’t stop now, Iwon’t stop at all,” he murmured, resting his forehead to hers and breathing her in. He stepped back because if he didn’t, the ledger wouldn’t be the only thing they’d lay across the altar and that would just be wrong in every possible sense.
They left the chapel the way they’d come: his hand on her back, hers curled in his. Outside, morning had found the edges of the city. The river ran a dark line in the distance, slate and quiet under the levees.
Leif paused on the steps, drawing her close so the chill couldn’t touch her. The quiet after what they’d seen and confirmed pressed in heavy, but her fingers flexed against his like she was reminding him she was real, present, and his to protect. He dropped a kiss to her hair, afleeting promise, then straightened, already shifting back into the Boss the city needed tosee.
By the time they slid into the car, the burden of what he’d learned had hardened into resolve. The ledger had given him proof. Now it was time to put that proof towork.
And that meant facing his brothers.
The elevator doors opened to a different kind of chapel. Steel and glass. Money and power. Magnus was already there, hands on hips, shoulders tight, the look in his pale green eyes equal parts challenge and dare. Alaric sat in Leif’s chair like it was a chaise at some old villa, one ankle propped on a knee. He was smiling a little. Alaric smiled when knives cameout.
“You pulled us at six,” Magnus said without preamble. “Someone better be dead or crowned.”
Leif didn’t stop moving. “Both.” He let Mariah go only long enough to take the head of the table and then tugged her into the chair at his right. He kept a hand on her knee under the table. “We’re Dantes.”
Silence hit like a bell. Alaric’s brows lifted a fraction. Magnus went very still.
“Say it again,” Magnus said quietly.
Leif met his gaze. “Mother was Leticia Dante. There’s a Dante ledger that confirms it. It also references my birth. She was cut when she married our father. But they didn’t take into consideration that blood doesn’t cut.” He turned his palm upbriefly. The lion had quieted to a dark brand again. “Now you know why this appeared.”
Magnus swore, alow, careful word that sounded like he didn’t want to give it too much air. “So we’re half of something we were raised to hate.”
“By our father,” Leif thought to mention.
“We’re what we are,” Alaric said mildly, eyes sharp anyway. “Information is leverage. This is a lot of it.” He tipped his head at Mariah without looking away from Leif. “And you brought a witness.”
His words were edged with challenge. It wasn’t idle commentary. It was his way of testing his brother, of pressing to see whether Mariah was truly trusted, whether Leif would defend her place at the table or treat her as disposable currency.
Leif’s thumb pressed into the inside of Mariah’s knee. “I brought someone whose presence under my roof is not up for a vote.”
Magnus’s gaze flicked to the faint golden pulse in Mariah’s palm where the Brand lived. He grunted. “Some things vote themselves.”
“Then vote this,” Leif said, shifting the table to what mattered. “The conference room blast wasn’t about buildings or headlines. It was about humiliation. About removing a piece from the board without declaring war.” He leaned forward, forearms braced. “I don’t know yet who ordered it. At first glance, her half-brother might have had the reach. But why would he go after us? Why the Severins, and why now?” He glanced at Mariah, reading the tension that rippled through her body. “You’d know better than me. Is that possible? And if it is, what would his reason be?”
“No,” Mariah said, voice clipped clean.
Leif turned his head slowly to her. “No?”
“My brother didn’t want me dead,” she said, each word careful like she was laying glass. “He wanted me married.”
Alaric’s smile deepened. He liked puzzles right at the moment before they solved themselves. Magnus sat back, the creak of leatherloud.
