“Mr. Dante, your dog is very naughty, and I think you should punish him.” No one had spoken to Dante Moretti like that in years…
Dante’s throat tightened.
Sophie looked confused.
“He brings chocolate.”
Luke laughed from the other side of the table.
“That is apparently my strongest qualification.”
Sophie picked up a green crayon.
“He should be family too.”
Dante looked at Luke.
Luke looked back at him.
For one second, something passed across his brother’s face.
Not fear.
Pain.
Then it vanished.
“Yes,” Dante said quietly. “Put him in.”
Sophie drew Luke holding her hand.
Dante took the picture to his study later.
He placed it beside the memory card.
One was evidence of betrayal.
The other was evidence of love.
For the first time, Dante understood how two truths could destroy a man simply by existing beside each other.
Part 2
Dante ordered Luke watched.
No violence.
No confrontation.
Just truth.
Two nights later, Luke met one of Victor Kane’s men at a freight yard.
Money changed hands.
An envelope changed hands.
The investigators recorded one sentence from Luke before he left.
“Tell Victor my brother knows nothing.”
When Dante heard the recording, he felt something inside him go cold.
His lieutenant expected an order.
Instead Dante asked, “Did Luke look afraid?”
The man hesitated.
“No.”
“Happy?”
“No.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tired.”
Dante dismissed him.
The next afternoon, he followed Luke himself.
Luke stopped at a tailor.
A flower shop.
A coffee shop.
Then a small church on the Near West Side.
Dante entered one minute later.
He stayed behind a stone column.
Luke lit a candle and knelt.
For several minutes he said nothing.
Then he whispered one name.
“Marcus.”
Dante’s hand moved beneath his coat.
Luke bowed his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Dante stopped breathing.
“I didn’t know they would kill you.”
Luke’s voice broke.
“I told myself I was selling schedules. Numbers. Empty buildings. Things that could be replaced.”
He wiped his face.
“I owed money. Victor owned the debt. I thought I could work it off.”
Dante closed his eyes.
“I didn’t know you had copied everything. I didn’t know you had hidden it. And I did not know they would run your car off that highway.”
Luke stared at the candle.
“Then Anna came to work in Dante’s house.”
A broken laugh.
“And Sophie started calling me Uncle Luke.”
He pressed both hands against his eyes.
“She draws me in her family pictures, Marcus.”
Dante’s fingers loosened around the gun beneath his coat.
“I bring her chocolate every Thursday like chocolate can balance a dead father.”
Luke began to cry.
Quietly.
Without dignity.
Without knowing his brother was listening.
“I’m going to tell him.”
His voice shook.
“I swear I’m going to tell Dante everything.”
Dante left before Luke finished praying.
He drove home along Lake Shore Drive with the window open despite the cold.
He had entered the church ready to kill a traitor.
He left unsure whether he had seen a traitor, a coward, a murderer, a victim, or simply his little brother who had made one terrible decision and spent two years drowning inside it.
When he returned, Sophie was chasing Rex through the hallway.
The dog had stolen another ribbon from Mr. Buttons.
“Mr. Dante!”
Sophie pointed at Rex.
“Your dog is doing it again!”
For the second time that week, Dante laughed.
A real laugh this time.
Anna appeared in the doorway and stared at him.
Dante saw something unexpected in her expression.
Hope.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
The laughter died.
Dante answered.
Victor Kane’s voice was smooth.
“Dante. It has been too long.”
“What do you want?”
“A small object that recently arrived in your house.”
Dante looked toward Sophie.
She was trying to negotiate with Rex.
“What object?”
Victor chuckled.
“Your father always said you were stubborn.”
“Describe it.”
“A careful man’s insurance policy.”
Dante said nothing.
Victor continued.
“Marcus Carter was very careful.”
The temperature in Dante’s blood seemed to fall.
“And his little girl,” Victor added gently, “is very sweet.”
Dante’s grip tightened on the phone.
“If you say her name again—”
“Then what?”
Victor’s voice lost its amusement.
“You are not your father, Dante.”
“No.”
Dante watched Sophie finally grab the ribbon while Rex pretended not to notice.
“I’m much more patient.”
Victor invited him to dinner.
Dante went alone.
They sat behind a velvet curtain in a small restaurant near River North.
Victor was sixty-one, silver-haired, soft-spoken, and dangerous precisely because he never needed to raise his voice.
“I want the card,” he said.
Dante lifted his water glass.
“And if I refuse?”
“I would hate for innocent people to become involved.”
“Too late.”
Victor smiled.
“Children should be protected.”
Dante leaned across the table.
“Listen carefully. If Sophie loses one minute of sleep because of you, there will not be a city far enough away to hide your name.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“I have known more frightening men than you.”
“Where are they?”
For the first time, Victor had no answer.
Dante left.
That night he doubled security at the estate.
He assigned Rex to sleep outside Sophie’s room.
Anna noticed.
She confronted Dante in the kitchen.
“You are frightening me.”
“That is not my intention.”
“There are men outside my window.”
“They are there to protect you.”
“From what?”
He looked at her.
Anna was thirty-one.
She had worked in his house for nine months.
She had never complained, never flirted, never asked for favors.
And she had somehow made the enormous estate feel less empty simply by humming while she cooked breakfast for her daughter.
“From a mistake made before you came here.”
Her face changed.
“Marcus?”
Dante did not answer.
Anna’s hand went to the counter.
“You know something about his death.”
“I know it may not have been an accident.”
Her eyes filled.
“You let me live here all this time without telling me?”
“I learned yesterday.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know enough yet.”
“That is not the same as not knowing.”
“No.”
Anna stepped backward.
She looked hurt.
Dante could tolerate hatred.
Fear.
Even disgust.
But the disappointment in Anna’s eyes cut differently.
“I promised myself,” she whispered, “that Sophie would never grow up around secrets.”
Dante glanced toward the ceiling.
“Neither did I.”
The next morning Anna drove Sophie to kindergarten.
A security car followed.
They never reached the school.
A delivery truck blocked an intersection.
Two black vans appeared.
The attack lasted less than a minute.
By the time police arrived, Anna and Sophie were gone.
Mr. Buttons lay in the street.
Dante received the call while shaving.
He reached the foyer before the razor had stopped vibrating on the bathroom counter upstairs.
Rex was howling.
The sound went through the mansion like an alarm from hell.
Dante picked up Mr. Buttons at the scene.
The bear’s black stitches were dirty from the pavement.
His phone rang.
Victor.
“Midnight,” he said. “Old freight warehouse beneath Lower Wacker. Bring the card alone.”
Dante’s voice was almost calm.
“I want to hear Sophie.”
A pause.
Then a small voice.
“Mr. Dante?”
Dante closed his eyes.
“I’m here.”
“Rex is going to be in so much trouble.”
His heart nearly broke.
“Why?”
“He was supposed to protect us.”
“He tried, sweetheart.”
“Mama is hurt.”
Anna’s voice came faintly.
“Sophie, don’t—”
The line changed hands.
Victor returned.
“Midnight.”
The call ended.
Dante did not go home.
He drove to Luke’s apartment.
He kicked open the door.
Luke turned.
Dante pressed a gun to his chest.
“They took Sophie.”
All the color left Luke’s face.
“No.”
“Victor took Anna and Sophie.”
“No.”
“The card. Your meetings. Your money. Marcus. Say it now.”
Luke’s knees weakened.
Dante pushed him down.
“Say it.”
Luke looked up at his brother.
“I betrayed you.”
Dante’s jaw clenched.
“I sold Victor information.”
“Marcus?”
“I gave Victor the schedule that let his men identify Marcus’s route.”
“You killed him.”
“I did not know they were going to kill him.”
“You killed him.”
Luke closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
“Yes.”
Dante pressed the gun harder against his chest.
Luke did not move away.
“If you shoot me,” he whispered, “I will not blame you.”
Dante’s finger rested on the trigger.
Then Luke slowly reached inside his jacket.
Dante almost fired.
“Easy.”
Luke removed his wallet.
From it, he took a folded piece of paper.
Sophie’s family drawing.
Dante stared at it.
“She gave me a copy,” Luke said.
His voice cracked.
“She told me not to show you because you might be jealous.”
Dante looked at the little figure holding Sophie’s hand.
“She shouldn’t have put me there.”
“No.”
“I didn’t deserve it.”
“No.”
Luke swallowed.
“But she did.”
Dante lowered the gun.
For several seconds, neither brother moved.
Then Dante said, “Get up.”
Luke stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because killing you will not bring her home.”
Luke stood.
“What do you need?”
“Everything you know about Victor.”
Luke wiped his face.
And for the first time in two years, he told his brother the complete truth.
Victor’s habits.
His people.
His fear of police evidence.
His obsession with the memory card.
Most importantly, the likely location where Anna and Sophie would be kept.
Dante listened.
When Luke finished, Dante said, “You go in first.”
Luke nodded.
“I know.”
“You may not come out.”
“I know.”
Dante studied his face.
Luke looked strangely peaceful.
“If Sophie survives,” Luke said, “tell her something.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“If I cannot.”
Dante said nothing.
Luke continued.
“Tell her I was in the picture because she put me there. Not because I earned it.”
Dante looked away.
At eleven forty-eight that night, Luke entered the warehouse carrying a duplicate memory card.
Victor’s men searched him.
Victor remained somewhere inside.
Luke walked to the center of the warehouse.
“I have the card.”
One of Victor’s men took it.
Luke raised both hands.
“I want the girl and her mother.”
A laugh came from the darkness.
Victor stepped into the light.
“You still think you are negotiating.”
Luke stared at him.
“No.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
Luke looked toward a shadowed hallway.
“I think I am buying time.”
Rex hit the first guard like a moving wall.
Everything exploded at once.
Lights died.
Men shouted.
Dante and his people entered through two separate doors.
Rex disappeared down a hallway, following Sophie’s scent.
Dante saw Luke tackle one of Victor’s men.
A gun went off.
Then another.
Dante kept moving.
He found Anna tied inside a small office.
Her forehead was bruised, but she was conscious.
“Sophie?”
Anna pointed desperately.
“They moved her ten minutes ago.”
Rex barked from the warehouse floor.
Not his normal bark.
The sharp, urgent sound Dante knew from years of training.
Dante ran.
Victor stood near an old forklift.
One hand gripped Sophie’s shoulder.
The other held a pistol.
Sophie’s face was wet with tears.
But she was standing.
Dante stopped twenty feet away.
Victor smiled.
“End of the road.”
“Let her go.”
“Throw down your weapon.”
Dante lowered his gun.
Sophie looked at him.
“Mr. Dante.”
“It’s okay.”
Victor laughed.
“No, child. It is not.”
Luke emerged from behind a steel support.
Victor saw him.
“You.”
Luke stepped forward.
“Let her go.”
Victor raised the gun slightly.
“You sold me out.”
“Yes.”
“You weak little fool.”
“Yes.”
Luke kept walking.
“You killed Marcus because I was weak. You took his daughter because I stayed weak too long.”
Victor pushed Sophie forward.
“Then perhaps you should finally do something useful and watch what happens to her.”
Sophie screamed.
Victor raised the pistol.
Luke ran.
He did not reach for Victor.
He reached for Sophie.
Three shots cracked through the warehouse.
Luke’s body jerked.
He fell between Victor and the child.
Dante fired.
Victor dropped beside the forklift.
Then there was silence.
Sophie stood frozen.
Dante crossed the warehouse.
Luke was on the floor.
Dante dropped beside him.
“No.”
Luke looked up.
“Did she get away?”
“She’s here.”
Sophie came closer.
Her entire body was shaking.
She knelt.
Luke tried to smile.
“Hey, kid.”
Sophie placed her small hand over his.
“You got hurt.”
“Looks that way.”
“You are supposed to come to dinner Thursday.”
Luke’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You promised chocolate.”
“I know.”
Dante pressed his hands against Luke’s wounds.
Luke looked at him.
“Big brother.”
“Stay with me.”
“Listen.”
“No.”
“Dante.”
It had been years since Luke had used his name that way.
Like they were boys again.
“Tell Marcus I’m sorry,” Luke whispered.
Dante’s face twisted.
“You tell him yourself when you are ninety.”
Luke gave the faintest laugh.
Then he looked at Sophie.
“No.”
His fingers curled weakly around hers.
“I think I’ll carry the message.”
Sophie began crying.
Luke took one final breath.
“Tell your dad you were loved.”
Then his hand became still.
Dante bowed his head.
Anna reached Sophie and wrapped both arms around her.
Rex crawled closer.
The dog pressed his large head against Sophie’s shoulder.
For once, nobody told him he was naughty.
Part 3
Luke Moretti was buried on a rainy Tuesday.
Dante refused the spectacle expected of a man from his family.
No hundred-car procession.
No photographers.
No rows of men pretending loyalty because the dead could no longer test it.
Only eight people stood beside the grave.
Dante.
Anna.
Sophie.
Gordon.
A few relatives.
A priest from the little church where Luke had gone to confess what he could not tell his brother.
Before the coffin was lowered, Dante placed Sophie’s drawing on top.
The paper had been smoothed carefully.
Anna in her apron.
Sophie in blue.
Rex drawn ridiculously large.
Dante in his black suit with no mouth.
And Luke standing at the edge, holding Sophie’s hand.
Dante rested his palm on the drawing.
“You were always my little brother,” he whispered.
His voice nearly failed.
“You idiot.”
Anna slipped her hand into his.
He did not pull away.
After everyone else had walked toward the cars, Sophie stayed beside the grave.
Rain clung to her eyelashes.
“Mr. Dante?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Where did Uncle Luke go?”
Dante crouched.
He thought carefully before answering.
“Do you remember your daddy?”
She nodded.
“I think your father has been waiting a long time to know whether you are okay.”
“But Daddy died.”
“Yes.”
“How can somebody tell him?”
Dante looked at Luke’s grave.
“Maybe somebody had to carry the message.”
Sophie’s eyes followed his.
“Uncle Luke?”
“Yes.”
She thought about that.
“What will he tell Daddy?”
Dante swallowed.
“That you are safe.”
Sophie waited.
“That your mom loves you.”
She waited again.
“And?”
Dante looked at her.
“And that I do too.”
Sophie threw her arms around his neck.
Dante closed his eyes.
He had been hugged by adults before.
Women.
Relatives.
Men after funerals.
But there was nothing cautious in the way a child hugged.
No calculation.
No debt.
Sophie simply held him because she wanted him held.
Dante wrapped both arms around her.
Anna stood a few feet away beneath an umbrella.
She looked at him for a long time.
Three weeks later, Chicago began changing.
An anonymous package arrived at the U.S. Attorney’s Office containing copies of Marcus Carter’s records.
Not simply evidence against Victor.
Everything.
Every compromised official.
Every shell business.
Every corrupt transaction Marcus had documented.
Dante kept nothing that could be used to rebuild Victor’s operation.
Arrests followed.
Businesses closed.
Several men disappeared from Chicago for reasons that did not require explanation.
Then Dante made another decision.
One that shocked Gordon more than any bullet ever had.
“I’m getting out,” Dante said.
They were sitting in the study.
Gordon stared at him.
“Out of what?”
“You know what.”
“You cannot simply resign from being Dante Moretti.”
“I can stop becoming my father.”
Gordon studied him.
“You think Sophie changed you.”
“No.”
Dante looked at Mr. Buttons, who now sat on the corner of the desk because Sophie had decided the bear enjoyed watching adults work.
“She reminded me that I still had choices.”
Gordon leaned back.
“What happens to the businesses?”
“The legal ones stay.”
“And everything else?”
“Ends.”
“You will make enemies.”
“I already have enemies.”
“You may lose money.”
“I have enough.”
“You may lose power.”
Dante smiled without humor.
“That is the idea.”
The transition took months.
Some men accepted it.
Some did not.
Dante sold warehouses.
Closed cash businesses.
Separated legitimate companies from the machinery built by his father and grandfather.
He paid severance to people who had worked for the family for decades.
He retained lawyers whose only instruction was to make every remaining enterprise legal enough to survive sunlight.
For the first time, Dante Moretti began building something he could explain to a child.
Anna did not immediately forgive him.
That surprised him.
Dante was accustomed to money solving inconvenience and fear solving resistance.
Anna accepted neither.
“You brought danger into our lives,” she told him one evening.
They stood on the rear terrace while Sophie played fetch with Rex on the lawn.
“I know.”
“Marcus did too.”
“I know.”
“Luke did.”
“Yes.”
“And you are not going to stand there pretending one heroic night erased everything.”
“No.”
Anna studied him.
“Good.”
Dante looked toward Sophie.
“What do you want from me?”
“Truth.”
“You have it.”
“No.”
Anna shook her head.
“I want the truth tomorrow too. And next week. And when it makes you look weak. And when you think silence would protect me.”
Dante said nothing.
Anna stepped closer.
“You men keep calling secrets protection.”
Her eyes glistened.
“Marcus protected me until I became a widow without knowing why. Luke protected everybody until a little girl ended up in a warehouse. You protected us until men were following Sophie to school.”
She touched Dante’s chest with one finger.
“If you want us in this house, no more protecting us with lies.”
Dante covered her hand with his.
“All right.”
Anna looked surprised.
“That easily?”
“No.”
He held her gaze.
“It may be the hardest promise I have ever made.”
“Then keep it.”
“I will.”
Rex came charging across the lawn.
Sophie ran behind him.
“Stop!”
The dog was carrying something pink.
Anna groaned.
“That is her scarf.”
Sophie pointed.
“Mr. Dante!”
Dante raised both hands.
“I see him.”
“Your dog is being naughty again!”
“He is becoming a repeat offender.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the judge may be very strict.”
Sophie finally caught Rex beside the terrace.
She grabbed the scarf.
Rex released it immediately and sat.
Sophie stared suspiciously at him.
“You let me win.”
Rex sneezed.
Sophie put both hands on her hips.
“That is rude.”
Dante laughed.
Anna did too.
Months passed.
Winter came.
Then spring.
Sophie turned six.
Her birthday party was the first children’s party ever held at the Moretti estate.
Dante expected ten children.
Twenty-three arrived.
By noon, his formal dining room contained cake frosting, balloons, paper crowns, four abandoned shoes, and a mysterious puddle no adult wanted to investigate.
Gordon sat in Dante’s favorite leather chair wearing a plastic tiara.
“You look dignified,” Dante told him.
“I survived the seventies for this.”
Sophie came running toward Dante.
“Close your eyes.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“That word changes things.”
He closed them.
Something landed on his head.
“Open.”
Sophie had placed a silver paper crown on him.
Across the front, written in purple marker, were the words DOG’S DAD.
Anna laughed so hard she had to turn away.
Dante touched the crown.
“This is my title?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I had other qualifications.”
“No.”
Gordon lifted his coffee.
“She has spoken.”
Dante wore the crown for the rest of the afternoon.
A year earlier, men had lowered their voices when he entered rooms.
Now a six-year-old ordered him to distribute juice boxes.
He discovered he preferred the second kind of authority.
That evening, after the children left, Sophie fell asleep on the couch.
Mr. Buttons lay beneath one arm.
Rex slept on the floor beside her.
Dante stood in the doorway with Anna.
“She trusts you,” Anna whispered.
Dante nodded.
“That frightens me more than anything Victor Kane ever did.”
“Good.”
He looked at Anna.
“Good?”
“It should.”
She stepped closer.
“Trust should be heavy.”
Dante stared at the sleeping child.
“It is.”
Anna rested her head against his shoulder.
For a long time they said nothing.
A year after Luke’s death, they returned to the cemetery.
No rain this time.
October sunlight came through the trees.
Sophie placed a small box of chocolates beside Luke’s headstone.
Anna smiled sadly.
“He would have eaten those himself before you got home.”
“I know.”
Sophie crouched.
She had brought another drawing.
Her spelling had improved.
FAMILY.
There were four people now.
Sophie.
Anna.
Dante.
And a man standing slightly behind them.
Luke.
Rex occupied nearly half the page.
Dante stared.
“You still draw Uncle Luke?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Sophie looked at him as though the question were ridiculous.
“People do not stop being family because they die.”
Dante looked toward Anna.
Her eyes were wet.
Sophie placed the picture against the headstone.
“And Daddy is here too.”
She pointed toward the top corner.
A tiny star had been drawn in yellow.
Dante could not speak.
Sophie noticed.
“You do not have to be sad.”
“I’m not only sad.”
“What else are you?”
He thought about it.
“Grateful.”
“For what?”
“For a naughty dog.”
Sophie smiled.
“And me?”
“Mostly the dog.”
She punched his arm.
Dante laughed.
On the drive home, Rex sat in the back beside Sophie.
Mr. Buttons rested between them.
The bear was older now.
One ear leaned sideways.
His black stitches remained visible across his belly.
Anna had offered many times to redo them properly.
Sophie always refused.
“They are Mr. Dante’s stitches,” she said.
“They stay.”
That December, snow covered the estate.
Dante stood in his study looking at two framed drawings on the wall.
The first still contained the misspelled word FAMLI.
The second was from the cemetery.
Between them hung a photograph of Luke when he was fourteen.
No expensive suit.
No meetings.
No secrets.
Just a skinny teenage boy standing on a dock with wet hair, grinning at the camera while holding up a fish smaller than his hand.
Dante had finally opened Luke’s sealed letter.
There were no grand explanations inside.
Only five sentences.
Big brother,
I spent years wishing I could undo one terrible choice.
I cannot.
If I get the chance to make one right choice at the end, let it count for something.
Do not teach Sophie to forgive me.
Teach her not to become me.
Luke.
Dante had read it once.
Then again.
Then folded it and placed it beside Marcus Carter’s memory card.
Forgiveness, he had learned, was not pretending a terrible thing had never happened.
It did not turn guilt into innocence.
It did not resurrect Marcus.
It did not return Luke.
It did not erase the warehouse or Sophie’s nightmares afterward.
Forgiveness simply refused to let the worst moment of a human life become the only moment that mattered.
Luke had betrayed his brother.
Luke had helped create the chain of events that killed Marcus.
Luke had spent two years hiding from the truth.
All of those things were real.
So was the man who stepped between a gun and a little girl.
Both versions were Luke.
That was the unbearable part.
That was also the lesson.
From the hallway came a shriek.
“REX!”
Dante closed his eyes.
Running footsteps.
Four paws thundered across the hardwood.
Sophie appeared in the study doorway wearing Christmas pajamas.
“Mr. Dante!”
“Yes?”
“Your dog stole Mr. Buttons’s new ribbon.”
Behind her, Rex passed the doorway at remarkable speed with a red satin bow hanging from his mouth.
Dante looked at Sophie.
Sophie looked at Dante.
Anna appeared behind her and leaned against the doorframe.
“You should do something,” she said.
Dante considered the matter.
“He is my dog?”
Sophie gasped.
“You know he is!”
“Interesting.”
“Mr. Dante!”
“You have repeatedly called him my dog only when he is in trouble.”
“Because that is when ownership matters.”
Anna covered her mouth.
Dante began laughing.
Sophie tried to remain angry.
She failed.
Within seconds, all three were laughing.
Rex returned to the doorway.
He dropped the ribbon.
He looked at Dante.
Then Sophie.
Then Anna.
Slowly, dramatically, he placed one enormous paw over his nose.
Sophie collapsed against Dante, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
Dante caught her.
Anna leaned against his other shoulder.
Outside, snow fell over Chicago.
Inside, the house that had once been built to intimidate people echoed with the laughter of a child.
Dante looked at Rex.
“You caused all of this.”
The dog’s tail thumped once.
Sophie hugged Mr. Buttons.
“No,” she said.
Dante looked down at her.
“No?”
She shook her head.
“Family caused it.”
Dante’s smile faded into something gentler.
He looked at Anna.
At Sophie.
At the crooked bear.
At Rex waiting hopefully for somebody to drop food.
Then at the old drawing hanging on the study wall.
Luke still stood there.
Holding Sophie’s hand.
Dante had spent most of his life believing a family was something a man defended with fear.
A fortress.
A name.
A debt paid in blood.
A child had taught him otherwise.
Family was who told you when your dog was naughty.
Who demanded the truth when a lie would have been easier.
Who put you in the picture before you believed you deserved to be there.
Who remembered the dead without pretending they had been perfect.
Who stayed.
Who forgave without forgetting.
And sometimes, when life had been cruel enough, family was simply the group of people still standing in a warm room together when the snow began to fall.
Rex suddenly grabbed the ribbon again.
Sophie screamed.
“REX!”
The dog ran.
Sophie chased him.
Anna chased Sophie.
Dante stood alone for exactly two seconds.
Then he went after all of them.
For the first time in his life, the most feared man in the house was not running toward revenge.
He was running toward laughter.
THE END
