Chapter 30
Dante
Ten fucking minutes.
That’s all it took for my wife to get arrested.
We were ten minutes behind them. By the time we arrived at the club, they were gone, shoved into the back of a police car.
Now I’m standing in this goddamned station, wasting my time, surrounded by people who clearly need to be reminded who runs this city. The bouncer who made the call? I’ll make an example of him so brutal the next man who even thinks of dialling a badge when my wife walks into a room will lose the nerve to breathe.
I should not be here. I should not be filing forms like some common errand boy. But appearances matter. They didn’t realize who she was, not until after they made the arrest, so now they’re playing it by the book. Pretending the rules apply.
They forget who fucking owns them.
I doubled the commissioner’s usual cut just to accelerate this farce, and even that takes time.
It’s nearly dawn when the officer returns. He doesn’t meet my eyes when he speaks.
“This way, Don Salvatore.”
I don’t respond. Leonardo and Enzo fall into step behind me as we follow the bastard down the corridor. Leonardo’s been pacing all night, ready to put someone in the ground. I should’ve let him.
The door unlocks with a sharp click. My jaw clenches and my teeth grind.
Harlow is asleep on a narrow slab of a bed, her body turned to one side, breathing soft and steady. Elena’s on the other bench, unconscious. Sofia is snoring on the floor, limbs sprawled. I don’t care enough to question it.
I glance around the cell once, take in every cracked tile, every exposed bolt, and feel my rage lodge deeper in my chest.
This is where they kept my wife?
The officer swallows hard. He steps back the moment my eyes land on him, as he fucking should.
They’ll pay. Every single one of them.
I say nothing. I step inside, kneel beside the bed, and lift Harlow into my arms. She doesn’t wake, just murmurs some drunken nonsense and buries her face into my chest.
Leonardo takes Elena, as Enzo grabs Sofia. We don’t speak as we exit through the rear, into the silence of early morning.
Outside, Niccolò and Mario are waiting beside the SUV. Mario’s smoking, eyes sharp, his silence promising more violence than words ever could.
We drive out of the city, straight to the house.
Once inside, I carry my wife upstairs, to our room.
I lay her on the bed, remove her heels. She’s a mess. Mascara streaked, hair tangled, skin flushed with heat and alcohol.
I reach for the zipper of her dress. She shifts slightly, one hand brushing mine away with a slurred “No…”
I exhale slowly through my nose, my jaw locked so tightly it aches. The anger hasn’t dulled. Not at the night. Not at what was done. At her. For drinking herself into oblivion. For surrendering control so carelessly. For placing herself in a position where I couldn’t reach her, couldn’t shield her.
And yet, beneath the rage, buried under the instinct to punish, there’s the quiet knowledge that she needed this. One night to pretend the world hadn’t broken her. To slip out from under its weight. To feel something other than guilt, even if it came laced in recklessness.
I pull the blanket over her and remain at the edge of the bed for a moment. Silent. Watching.
Then I cross to the bathroom, retrieve two painkillers, and place them on the nightstand beside a glass of water. I lean down and press a kiss to her forehead. She exhales softly in response, barely stirring.
I turn away, intending to shower and lie beside my woman, if only to steal an hour of rest. But my phone vibrates once. And I already fucking know, I won’t be sleeping today.
As I check the message, my jaw locks instantly.
The Albanians struck again, another shipment hit. And Luan, their coward of a leader, the one who’s spent months hiding like vermin, was seen at the scene.
This ends today.
He dies today.
I glance once more at my wife, her sleeping form undisturbed by the chaos about to unfold, and then turn for the door.
Leonardo and Mario are already at the base of the stairs, no doubt having received the same message. Their eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, their expressions carved from stone. We exchange a single nod before heading out toward the waiting vehicles. My men are already in position.
The sky is pale, the early light of morning stretching across the horizon, but the city hasn’t woken yet.
As the car pulls away from the estate, I sit back and check my phone for any updated from my men. Nothing. My jaw tightens. It’s time I put a fucking end to this farce.
***
It’s been hours.
Hours of violence. Blood smeared across pavement. Bodies dropped and discarded. My men are sweeping what remains, dragging out survivors, executing the worst of them. Some are limping, others crawling, all of them trying to escape what’s coming.
Luan was seen here. Yet he’s nowhere in sight.
His men are present, causing chaos, firing blindly, but the coward himself is absent, as always.
I step over a body still twitching and raise my voice, letting it cut through the gunfire.
“Where is your fucking leader?” I roar.
Silence.
I scan the area, my eyes sharp.
“You send your dogs to strike at my people, and you don’t even show your face? You want war? Then come out and finish what you started.”
Still nothing.
Only the crunch of boots against gravel. Another round discharged in the distance. And the air, soaked in blood, growing heavier with every breath.
Mario appears beside me, his jaw clenched, chest heaving.
“Still no sign of him.”
“No shit,”
I snap.
“He’s not here. He never fucking was.”
He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Then what the fuck was the picture we saw?”
I scan the ground, the bodies, the chaos, the precision with which they struck us.
And it hits me.
“This was a setup,”
I say, my voice low and flat.
“Every part of it.”
My chest tightens, the urge to access the estate’s security feeds clawing at me, I need to see her. I need eyes on my wife.
I’m already reaching for my phone, about to give in, when it buzzes with an incoming message.
I know. Before I even look, I fucking know.
I tap the screen. No name. Just an unfamiliar number. An attachment. I open it and everything inside me goes still.
The image is grainy, low resolution, rushed. The background is irrelevant. It’s what’s in the frame that matters.
Harlow. Mattia. Luka.
They’re tied to chairs, restrained, held in place.
Harlow’s outfit is creased, her face streaked with dried mascara. But it’s the look in her eyes that stops me cold—cold fury, vengeance, the promise of retribution.
Mattia sits beside her, pale. Strapped in tightly. His jaw locked. Terrified, yes, but burning with rage.
And Luka—Luka is too still.
His expression is blank, unblinking. Just… composed. Eerily so.
And behind them, standing with that familiar arrogance, is Luan.
Smiling.
Fucking smiling.
No text. No explanation. Just the image. But the message is crystal clear.
He has them.
My entire fucking life.
If he touches them, if he dares to lay a hand on my wife, on my son, even on Luka, I won’t be responsible for what follows. He dies regardless. But if he harms them, I will carve him apart so slowly he’ll beg for death and never receive it.
I barely register Mario’s voice beside me, muffled under the weight of my pulse thundering in my ears.
“What is it?” he asks.
I turn the screen toward him. His face twists.
“Fuck. No.”
“Yes.”
My pulse is ice. My jaw is steel. And my thoughts are already moving, quick, exact, unflinching.
“Find them,” I order.
I stare at the photo again, this time, specifically at Luka.
Did he give them up?
Did he lead them into this?
He came from their world. Said he needed shelter. He clung to Mattia. Stayed close to Harlow. We let him in. We gave him safety.
And now this.
It fits, doesn’t it?
The betrayal. The setup. The false sense of loyalty. A child’s face. A perfect fucking disguise.
And yet… it doesn’t feel right.
It should.
But it doesn’t.
Against my better judgment, something in me refuses to believe it.
But if I’m wrong, if he had any part in this, I will make him regret it in ways he cannot begin to comprehend.