lives on the run. This made it so they had a chance to get away without looking over their shoulders."
"You helped them," she whispered, stunned.
He didn't just know—he helped make it so.
"Of course I did," he said.
Gabriella couldn't believe it. Well, okay, she could. She suspected it, she thought it, but she figured she must be wrong. She wasn't, though.
"Dante," she whispered, her chest aching. She'd tried to tell him what she suspected a few times, but she'd been afraid to give him false hope.
"Galante?" Gavin asked. "What about him?"
"He'll want to know."
"Doesn't matter. He can't find out."
"But—" Gavin moved, like he was about to cover her mouth to silence her, but Gabriella held her hands up to block him. "It's not fair. It's not right. He's grieving. He deserves to know."
Gavin stared at her. Hard. "Were you and Enzo Barsanti close?"
She hesitated at the topic switch. "Not really. Only saw him a few times growing up. He started working for his father, and well…"
Unless you were a Barsanti, you meant nothing.
"But you and Matty were, right?"
"Close-ish. I saw him a lot more."
"So you care about what happens to him?"
"Of course."
"If Dante finds out they're alive, I'm telling you right now, Matty will end up just like Enzo."
She shook her head adamantly. "You're wrong."
"Look, I like the guy. He's not vindictive, he's not cold-blooded, but he's not innocent, either. When it comes to the people he loves, the guy has no limits. He did it before, and he'll probably do it again."
"Do what?"
"Kill."
Coldness ran through Gabriella. "Who did he kill?"
Gavin shifted in his seat, looking away from her. He wasn't going to answer that question. She'd asked too much. She knew how those things went. Don't ask; don't tell.
"Why does it matter to you, anyway? Have you ever met him?"
Gabriella didn't know what to say, so she just shrugged.
Gavin's eyes narrowed. "How do you know him?"
"Who says I know him?"
"Your face," he said. "Your face says you know him."
She scoffed.
Wrong response.
"Jesus Christ, Gabriella, don't…" Gavin ran his hands down his face, growling. "Don't tell me you know him personally."
"Is there another way to know a person?"
"Intimately," he elaborated. "Tell me you haven't seen the guy naked. Tell me you haven't touched his dick."
A smile cracked her face at that. She wiped it away as quickly as it happened, but Gavin caught it.
"You have got to be kidding me." Gavin threw his pen down on the table. "What is it with people in this family planting shit in gardens that don't belong to them?"
Her brow furrowed. What? "We're not planting—"
"Does he know who you are? Has he figured out you're connected?"
"No, but I don't think it matters."
"You don't think so, Gabby? You're just a step removed from being a Barsanti."
She scoffed. Again. "I am not."
"You went to the man's birthday party."
"I didn't want to."
"Proves my point. The only people they force to do that shit are family. Doesn't matter how you feel about him. Matty was never a fan, either, but that didn't stop Dante from going after him."
Gabriella didn't know what to say about that. The Dante he spoke of sounded a lot like the one from the scary stories, the tales of the big bad wolf out to devour his enemies. But that wasn't the Dante she'd come to know. He was like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times. He'd bare his teeth and he might even bite, but with enough patience, with enough understanding, he'd warm up to you in no time.
"He just could really use some good news," Gabriella said. "He's drowning in so much bad. He gets in fights and goes places he shouldn't go… I heard he went to some place that Bobby owns, some bar in Soho, knowing he didn't belong there."
"Jesus Christ," Gavin grumbled.
"And I just don't see what the point of keeping it from him is when he'll find out eventually," Gabriella said. "They all will. Sooner or later, they'll put the pieces together. I'm surprised they already haven't, if there's no trace of them in the car."
"That's not my problem. They can riddle it out, but I won't be responsible for the truth getting out. I don't want their blood on my hands, and you won't want it, either. Trust me."
Gabriella's gaze headed to the window across the room, at the city outside. Instead of relieving the pressure on her chest, instead of purging her secret, she gained a bigger one.