The Tower of Tears
The tower stood at the edge of the Langley estate like a rotting tooth, its stone face weeping moss and lichen. From the outside, it looked abandoned—a relic from a century past, deemed too expensive to demolish and too insignificant to restore. But Dante knew better now. Grant Langley didn’t keep relics. He kept prisons.
Dante’s boots struck the gravel drive as he sprinted across the lawn, the rolled decree clutched in his left hand, sweat and gunpowder still clinging to his skin. Behind him, the main house burned with a dull orange glow, the fire already consuming the study where Reid had screamed his confession. The King’s Guard would contain the blaze—that wasn’t Dante’s concern. Nothing was his concern except the tower and the two people inside it.
Owen met him at the base of the hill, a fresh bandage wrapped around his left forearm, dark with seeped blood. Three men flanked him—former soldiers, judging by the set of their shoulders and the way they scanned the tree line without being told.
“The tower has two entrances,” Owen said, voice low and flat. “Main door at ground level, bolted from the outside. A service door in the back, half-hidden by brambles. Four guards I’ve confirmed. Could be more inside.”
“Reid said he took them the moment I left the estate,” Dante replied, eyes fixed on the narrow windows high above. “That was twenty minutes ago. They’re in there, Owen. Both of them.”
Owen didn’t waste time with reassurances. He simply nodded and gestured to his men, splitting them into two pairs. The flanking team would take the service entrance. Owen and Dante would take the front.
The door was oak, reinforced with iron straps, and it groaned when Dante pressed his shoulder against it. Locked. He stepped back, scanned the frame, and found the weak point—a rusted hinge pin that had worked itself loose over decades of neglect. He drew his knife, wedged the blade beneath the pin’s head, and hammered the pommel with the heel of his hand. Once. Twice. The pin sheared with a sound like a snapped bone.
The door swung inward on a single hinge, listing to one side.
Dante went through first.
—
The ground floor was a circular chamber, empty except for a overturned table and the remnants of a fire that had long since gone cold. Stone stairs spiraled upward, hugging the curved wall, each step worn smooth by generations of boots. The air smelled of damp ash and something else—something metallic. Blood, recent.
A guard appeared at the top of the stairs, silhouetted against a torch’s flicker. “Who’s there?”
Dante didn’t answer. He climbed.
The guard reached for his sidearm, but the stairs were narrow and the angle was wrong—he had to turn his body, shift his weight, and that half-second of adjustment was all Dante needed. He closed the distance, grabbed the guard’s wrist before the pistol cleared the holster, and twisted. The guard’s fingers splayed open, empty. Dante drove his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose and felt cartilage give way.
The guard crumpled backward onto the landing. Dante stepped over him without slowing.
Above, a child’s voice cut through the heavy air. “Let go of me!”
Jace.
Dante’s chest tightened, but he forced his breathing steady. Panic was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He climbed faster, taking the steps two at a time, counting each turn of the spiral.
Three floors up, he found the cell.
—
Isabella had heard the commotion below and knew exactly what it meant. She’d pressed herself against the cold stone wall, Jace tucked behind her, her eyes fixed on the iron door that separated them from freedom. The guard posted outside their cell—a heavyset man with a lazy eye and a pistol tucked into his belt—had shifted his weight at the sound of the scuffle, but he hadn’t left his post. He was waiting. Watching.
She needed him to open the door.
“Please,” she said, her voice thin and trembling. “I’m going to be sick. The fumes from the fire—I can’t breathe. I need air.”
The guard glanced at her, then away. “Stay back from the door.”
She dropped to her knees, coughing, retching. Jace started to cry—real tears, born of fear and confusion—and the sound cut through the guard’s indifference. He stepped closer, peering through the narrow slat in the iron door.
“Get the boy away from her,” he muttered, fumbling with the keys.
The lock turned. The door swung open.
Isabella lunged upward, not with grace or training, but with the raw desperation of a mother who had run out of options. The chamber pot was in her hand—she’d palmed it while pretending to collapse, the ceramic vessel cold and heavy. She swung it with both hands, catching the guard across the temple. The impact vibrated up her arms, and the pot shattered. The guard’s eyes rolled white, and he went down in a heap.
Isabella stood over him, shaking, shards of ceramic scattered across the stone floor. She dropped the broken handle. “Jace. Come.”
He ran to her, and she grabbed his hand, pulling him past the fallen guard and onto the spiral stairs. They descended one flight, then two, the torchlight casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to reach for them.
Then Reid Langley stepped out from an alcove, and the world stopped.
—
He was bloodied from the fire, his fine coat torn, a gash across his cheek. But his eyes were clear, and his hand held a pistol aimed directly at Isabella’s chest.
“You broke my father’s tower,” he said, voice hoarse. “You burned my home. You think I’ll let you walk out of here with his bastard?”
Isabella pulled Jace behind her, her back pressing against the cold stone wall. She had nothing. No weapon. No escape. Just her voice.
“He’s not a bastard,” she said. “He’s Dante’s son. And you’ve already lost.”
Reid’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The bullet never left the chamber.
Dante came from above, a dark shape plummeting down the final turn of the stairs. He didn’t slow, didn’t announce himself—he simply threw himself at Reid, colliding with the man’s center of mass and driving him backward into the curved wall. The pistol fired, the report deafening in the enclosed space, but the shot went wild, chipping stone from the ceiling above.
They hit the ground together, rolling, limbs tangled. Reid was younger, faster, but Dante had fought in mud and blood and rain, had killed men with his bare hands when ammunition ran dry. He found Reid’s wrist, slammed it against the stone floor once, twice, until the fingers opened and the pistol skittered away.
Reid drove a knee into Dante’s ribs. Dante grunted, absorbed the blow, and answered with a headbutt that split Reid’s brow wide open. Blood poured into Reid’s eyes, blinding him, and Dante used the moment to shift his weight, pinning Reid’s shoulders to the ground.
“You should have stayed dead,” Reid spat, blood leaking between his teeth.
“I did,” Dante said. “But I got better.”
He pulled back his fist, but before he could throw the punch, a voice echoed up from the base of the tower.
“Dante Crane! Stand down!”
The King’s Guard had arrived.
—
Captain Marlow climbed the stairs at the head of a dozen armed men, his boots echoing in the close stone space. He took in the scene with a single, sweeping glance: Reid on the ground, bloodied and pinned. Isabella and Jace pressed against the wall, unharmed but shaken. The shattered chamber pot. The unconscious guard on the landing above.
“Grant Langley is in chains,” Marlow said, his voice carrying the weight of official authority. “The fire is contained. Half the estate staff have already given testimony against him and his son. Embezzlement. Conspiracy. Attempted murder.”
Reid laughed, a wet, broken sound. “You have nothing that will hold.”
“I have this,” Dante said, standing and pulling Reid to his feet by the collar. He shoved the rolled decree into Marlow’s hands. “Grant’s seal. His confession, signed and witnessed, detailing every transaction, every bribe, every murder he ordered to keep his empire intact.”
Marlow unrolled the parchment, his eyes scanning the contents. When he looked up, his face was granite. “Take him.”
Two guards stepped forward and wrenched Reid’s arms behind his back. He struggled, cursed, but they were practiced and efficient, and within seconds he was in irons, being dragged down the stairs.
Marlow nodded at Dante. “The King will want to speak with you. Tomorrow, at first light.”
“I’ll be there.”
Marlow turned and descended, his men following, the sound of their boots fading into the hollow silence of the tower.
—
Dante stood still for a long moment, the adrenaline bleeding out of him in slow, shuddering waves. Then he turned.
Isabella was leaning against the wall, her hair tangled, her dress torn and smudged with ash. Her knuckles were raw and bleeding from where she’d gripped the broken chamber pot. But her eyes were clear, and she was looking at him the way she had looked at him seven years ago, in a quiet garden, before the world had tried to tear them apart.
Jace stood at her side, one hand gripping his mother’s skirt, the other balled into a fist. He was watching Dante with an expression that was too old for his face—calculating, wary, but hopeful.
“Are you hurt?” Dante asked, his voice rough.
Isabella shook her head. “I hit a man with a chamber pot.”
A laugh escaped him, raw and unexpected. “I saw.”
“He deserved it.”
“He did.”
Dante crossed the distance between them, and when he reached Isabella, he didn’t stop. He pulled her into his arms, feeling the tremble in her shoulders, the way she gripped his coat like she was afraid he’d vanish. Jace pressed against them both, small and warm, and for a moment, the tower didn’t feel like a prison anymore.
Dante pulled back, cupping Isabella’s face in his hands, brushing the ash from her cheek with his thumb. She was bloodied, fierce, and alive.
He dropped to one knee, and Jace blinked, confused.
“What are you doing?” Isabella whispered.
Dante looked up at her, and for the first time in seven years, he let himself feel hope.
With Reid pinned beneath his boot, Dante looked at Isabella, bloodied but fierce, clutching Jace. “No more running,” he said. “Tomorrow, we end this. And then, I marry you before the entire court.”