18. DANTE #2
I remember a meeting room in Prague, years ago.
A deal with the Chinese triad that was souring.
I was calm, with a trained smile and a voice of polished steel.
But Dmitry saw it. He saw the way my thumb pressed against the whiskey glass, the tension in my jaw.
He saw the violence accumulating beneath the surface.
Later that night, three members of the triad disappeared, and Dmitry just handed me a handkerchief to wipe the blood from my knuckles, without a word. He already knew.
He sees the same pattern now. The same disproportionate fury.
The same readiness to burn the world down for an affront that, on paper, is just a business problem.
There is no logic. There is no protection to be offered.
There is only the boy. Dmitry knows. He can't categorize this, and that's why his gaze is so dangerous right now.
He's trying to solve a problem that has no solution.
And the only answer I have is a lie I know he won't buy.
"This is about them breaking into my house," I lie.
The house is just concrete and marble. What they took has no walls. It breathes. And, for some sick reason, I need it back more than I need air.
It is about the boy. It has always been about the boy. From the moment I saw him on his knees in that warehouse, hard from his own abduction. The whole world has become a blur since then.
Svetlana sighs. She pinches the bridge of her nose as if that would rid her of this headache.
"I warned you, Dante," she says, bitterly. "I warned you not to get too involved."
"Don't start, Svetlana."
She approaches. That combative stance. I hate it.
"I saw how you looked at him. I saw the marks you left. He told me he lives for you, Dante," she says through gritted teeth, her hands pushing my shoulders in a barely contained fury. "This stopped being about an 'asset' a long time ago."
"Coming into my house and killing my men is personal!" I retort, raising my voice unintentionally. I need to drag the conversation back to the only territory that makes sense. "This is a fucking declaration of war. They spat in our faces and they need a response."
"And they'll get one," Svetlana agrees. And pauses.
The acidity and harshness slowly fade, dissolving until only a fearful vulnerability remains on her face—an expression I haven't seen in a long time.
"But I know that look, Dante," she whispers, and Dmitry, quiet, stiffens beside her.
"Seeing not business, but an affront ...
And retaliating like he did... You know . "
The comparison is worse than a blow. It's dirty .
My fucking father. The bastard who raised us surrounded by fear and hatred. A man who turned everything into a debt , everything into a punishment . And now she looks at me as if she sees his face in mine. As if I were... him .
My stomach turns. I fight it. Every fucking day, I fight to purge any remnant of him from me, and he creeps in closer with every moment.
Maybe he's getting too close.
"Don't compare me to him," I growl. The words come out low, through clenched teeth.
Svetlana doesn't back down. She and Dmitry have a shared understanding of old fear. They see it. They see our father's ghost in me.
Nyx, in some sick way, brought this monster to the surface. From day one.
"Dante." Dmitry's voice is low. An attempt to anchor the conversation, to pull us away from the precipice of this shitty legacy. "She didn't mean that."
"It doesn't matter now," Svetlana interrupts. She did mean every word she said. "What matters is that they have our most valuable and dangerous resource."
I force myself to breathe. Control . The Don needs to be in control.
I point at Svetlana. "I want the financial analysis.
Every Malakov asset. Accounts, shell companies, investments.
" My gaze shifts to Dmitry. "And you, intelligence.
If there are names we don't know yet, I want them.
I want to know what time they take their trash out and the name of their children's pet dog. I want leverage."
They don't argue. They nod, back in their roles as Volkovs.
"And you?" Dmitry asks. With concern .
I walk towards the exit of the room, passing them, feeling their gazes on my back. I need air. I need something to break .
"I'll handle the street."
The rain beats against the Escalade's armored glass. The city lights are just that: lights, blurs of color on the wet asphalt. Beside me, Grigory is quiet. In the front seat, two more men; in the back, three.
It's a procedure. A calculated response to a breach of protocol. The part of me that feels the loss of Nyx like a phantom limb is ignored—I force everything not relevant to the operation down.
The target is Il Cigno Nero . An Italian restaurant. One of the nodes in their money-laundering network. The architecture is neoclassical, a pretentious facade to hide the rot.
Other men are already in position nearby. I give the signal over the radio as soon as we arrive. One click.
The first sound is the shattering of the facade's glass. Chaos is a useful tool to mask the precision of the infiltration. They go in with crowbars and sledgehammers, with orders not to touch the customers, to target things. Tables, bottles, and the infrastructure of their luxury.
I get out of the car. Grigory and two of my best men follow.
We cross the street under the flashing red lights and enter through the front door—or what's left of it.
The wood is splintered, the hinges hanging like broken bones.
The noise is deafening. Screams. Alarms. The sound of expensive wood splitting apart.
The customers are cowering on the floor; the cooks have been dragged out of the kitchen and into the main dining room.
In the midst of the pandemonium, I see Vinny, the youngest of us, grabbing a civilian's arm—a man in a suit, trying to shield his wife with his body. Vinny yells at him, gripping the man's arm as if securing a target.
I don't slow my pace. I extend my arm as I pass him. I force Vinny's wrist down with a sharp twist.
The snap is clean. Cartilage giving way. His scream comes first from shock, then pain.
"If I have to correct you again, you won't have another hand left to use."
I release him. He stumbles back, swallowing a sob, trying to hide the tremor in his breath as he clutches his arm to his chest. He doesn't even try to talk back. Smart of him.
The civilian retreats with his wife still in his arms, unsure of what to do. He wasn't supposed to experience this. Neither of them.
I move on. I don't have time to babysit.
As I cross the room, our target Viktor Orlov's security guards finally appear. Too late. My men, who came in from the flanks, neutralize them with silent efficiency. The sound of the suppressors is almost lost in the noise of the destruction.
I head for the back kitchen. The smell of garlic and pork is suffocating. Viktor, member of the Malakovs, is there, held in a chair by two of my men, a chair he surely never even managed to get out of. Sweat is pouring down his face.
"Dante," Viktor says, his voice trying to be firm. "This is a mistake. We can talk."
Talk . We have done business together in the distant past. Peaceful business with a white facade, waiting for the moment to stab each other again.
I study him. The same arrogance I remember.
This time, with fear underneath. For a second, a dirty, familiar thought crosses my mind: the urge to see that arrogance shatter, to hear the sound his bones would make.
My father's voice, a rotten echo in the back of my mind, whispering about how pain is the only universal language.
"Where is he?" I ask.
Viktor swallows hard. "I don't know what you're talking about."
I sigh. I grab a steak knife from the table. Polished steel. I pull a chair up in front of him and sit, with Grigory at my back. "Let's talk like men, Viktor. I'll ask again: where is he ?"
Viktor stays quiet. He looks at my men, notes that we're surrounded. He lets out a sound that betrays his desperation.
"I-It was an order from above, Dante. I… I had nothing to do with it," he stammers.
"Nobody ever has."
With a nod, my men grab him, forcing him against the table, knocking over glasses and plates.
Porcelain shatters on the floor as one of them presses the barrel of a gun against Viktor's temple.
I spin the steak knife between my fingers.
Viktor breathes heavily. He spits out pleas in our native tongue.
"Dante. Dante. Radi Boga, pozhaluysta, ya prosto rabotal, ya nichego ne znayu, Dante, pozhaluysta, umolyayu ? — "
"It's always an order from above, isn't it, Viktor?" I interrupt his pathetic pleas.
He glares at me from the table, red from exertion and panic. "This is different, Dante. I'm a businessman. An accountant. I don't deal with… with this kind of field operation."
I lean in, the tip of the knife now lightly touching the skin of his cheek. He flinches. He can't go anywhere.
"Your family…" I say. "Your daughter, the one studying art in Florence… she has your smile. It would be a shame if her tuition funding were to dry up. Or if something were to happen to her. Florence is beautiful, but it can be a dangerous place for a girl living alone."
There it is. The pure, absolute terror blooms in his eyes. The businessman facade crumbles, and all that's left is a cornered animal. Family is something we all fear losing, no matter who is considered as such. If he knows anything about my asset's state, it's now he sings.
He starts to cry, spitting out more Russian words, begging for the love of God.
" Ne nado, radi Boga, ne trogay yeyo ? — "
I grab his swollen cheeks. I dig my fingers into the flesh until it hurts.
"I have a friend there," I say, leaning closer to that rancid breath. "Near her building. She likes to walk home late with her earbuds in, never looking up. And Florence is full of alleys."