Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Dante
The bass from the club floor vibrates through the walls. But back here, in the storage room that doubles as my office when I need privacy, the only sound is Adrian Morelli's ragged breathing.
I adjust my cufflinks—platinum, understated—and take my time crossing the concrete floor.
My three-piece Tom Ford fits like it was painted on, because it was made for me, and the slight give of Italian leather beneath my feet reminds me that everything in my world has its place. Order. Control. Precision.
And if I know one thing it’s that Adrian doesn't fit anymore.
He's zip-tied to a metal chair, flanked by two of my men who know better than to speak unless I ask them a direct question.
I can see the sweat that darkens his collar.
His usually slicked hair hangs limp across his forehead, and his breath—Christ, his breath carries that sour-sweet stink of bottom-shelf whiskey that makes my jaw lock.
I hate drunks.
The smell alone drags me back to places I've spent a decade burying, but I shove it down and let the cold settle in my chest where it belongs. Emotion is a liability. Sentiment gets you killed. My father taught me that, even if he learned it too late.
"Adrian." I stop three feet away, hands in my pockets, my voice even. "Do you know why you're here?"
His head jerks up, bloodshot eyes struggling to focus. "Dante, listen, I can explain—"
"I didn't ask for an explanation. I asked if you know why you're here."
He swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "The money. I know. I just need a little more time—"
"You had time." I pull out my phone, scroll through the ledger Rafe sent me this morning. "March nineteenth. We forgave fifty-three thousand because you'd worked with us for six years. You cried. You promised it would never happen again and that you would return them. Do you remember?"
"Yes, but—"
"April twenty-second. You were back at the tables. May eleventh, you borrowed from a loan shark in Brooklyn. June third, you missed a payment to us. And last week—" I look up, let him see the flatness in my stare, "—you placed a thirty-thousand-dollar bet on a basketball game. With our money."
"I was going to win it back—"
"But you didn't."
The silence stretches and one of my men shifts his weight. I don't look at him, but I know he's wondering if I'm going to draw this out or end it quickly. Even they can't always predict me, and I like it that way.
Predictability gets you killed in my world.
It's why I vary my methods deliberately.
Sometimes I'm surgical and quick. Other times I let fear do the heavy lifting, let a man's imagination run wild with what I might do.
Sometimes I'm generous when they expect violence.
Sometimes I'm brutal when they expect mercy.
A man who can't anticipate your next move can't prepare a defense, can't plot against you, can't find your weaknesses.
My men respect me more because they never know which Dante they'll get when they walk into a room.
It's not cruelty for cruelty's sake—it's strategy.
And that respect, that uncertainty, keeps them sharp.
Keeps them loyal. Keeps them alive. And most importantly—keeps me alive.
Adrian's breathing picks up. "Please. I'll get it. I swear to God, I'll get every cent—"
"You have nothing left to get it with." I slide my phone back into my pocket, then smooth my jacket. "I've seen your accounts. Your credit's torched. Your car's leased. Your apartment's two months behind. You're a financial corpse, Adrian. You just haven't stopped moving yet."
His face crumples. For a second I think he might cry, and the disgust rises sharp in my throat.
"One day," I say, my tone unchanged. "You have twenty-four hours to bring me eighty-seven thousand dollars, or you die. No extensions. No negotiations."
"I don't have it!" His voice cracks, desperation bleeding through. "Dante, please, I've been loyal—"
"Loyal?" The word tastes bitter. "You stole from me. You lied. You gambled with money that wasn't yours and lost. That's not loyalty, that's suicide."
I nod to Marco, the man on Adrian's left. He steps forward, produces a pair of pliers from his jacket, and Adrian's eyes go wide.
"Wait—wait, no, please—"
"You want more time?" I ask, almost conversational. "Then you need to understand what happens when you waste mine."
Marco grabs Adrian's hand, wrenches it flat against the armrest. Adrian thrashes, but the zip ties hold, and my other guy—Sal, built like a fridge—clamps a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
"Please don't—"
The pliers close around his left pinky nail.
Adrian screams before Marco even pulls. The sound is shrill and ugly, and when the nail tears free, blood wells up fast, dripping onto the chair, onto the floor. The stench of copper mixes with the whiskey on his breath and I take a step back, keeping my expression neutral even as my stomach turns.
Not from the blood, I've seen worse than that. Done worse.
It's the drunk, pathetic whimpering that gets under my skin.
"Stop—stop, please, I'll do anything—"
"Anything?" I arch a brow, pulling a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe a fleck of blood from my shoe. "You just told me you have nothing."
"I'll work! I'll do jobs, I'll—whatever you need, just give me two weeks, please—"
"Two weeks." I laugh, low and humorless, wondering if this idiot actually understands the trouble he’s in. "What are you going to do in two weeks, Adrian? Win the lottery?"
His phone buzzes on the table beside me, screen lighting up. The vibration cuts through his sobs, and I glance down.
The name Bianca flashes across the display, accompanied by a photo.
I pick it up.
She's smiling in the picture—really smiling, the kind that reaches her eyes.
Hazel-green, I think, though the lighting makes it hard to tell.
Long chestnut hair pulled over one shoulder, a simple blouse, nothing flashy.
She looks warm. Genuine. The kind of woman who probably bakes cookies for her neighbors and remembers birthdays.
The kind of woman who has no business being anywhere near a man like Adrian Morelli.
"Who's this?" I ask, turning the phone toward him.
His face goes pale. "That's—that's my girlfriend. Please don't—"
"How long have you been together?"
"Three years. Dante, she has nothing to do with this—"
"Three years." I study the photo again, something cold and calculating clicking into place in the back of my mind. "And you've been gambling the whole time?"
He doesn't answer.
"Does she know what you do? Who you work for?"
"No." His voice drops to a whisper. "She thinks I'm just an accountant."
Of course, she does.
I set the phone down, cross my arms. Marco sets the pliers down, waiting for orders. Adrian's hand is still bleeding, but he's stopped screaming, reduced to pathetic whimpering and shaking.
"I can settle this another way," Adrian blurts out suddenly, voice cracking. "I can repay you. Just not with money."
I raise an eyebrow. "You just told me you have nothing left, boy, don’t fucking play with me."
"I have something." He's talking fast now, desperate. "Something valuable. My girlfriend."
The room goes quiet.
I tilt my head, studying him. "Your girlfriend."
"Yes. Bianca. You can have her. As collateral. She's—she's worth more than the debt, I swear."
No hesitation. The offer comes out smooth, rehearsed almost, like he's been holding it in reserve this whole time. No stumbling over the words. No visible guilt.
I wait for the backtrack. The moment where he realizes what he just said and tries to take it back. Because his offer is mad. Ridiculous.
But it doesn't come.
I set the phone down carefully, adjust my cufflinks. "You're telling me that instead of bringing me my money, you want to give me a living and breathing woman."
"She's not just any woman," Adrian says quickly, desperately. "She's loyal. She'll listen. And she's—" He swallows. "She's almost a virgin. Never been with anyone but me. That's worth something, right?"
Marco makes a sound low in his throat, and I don't have to look to know he's disgusted.
I am too.
But I'm also intrigued.
Not because of what Adrian's offering—I'm not some trafficking animal who trades in women like currency. But because this pathetic waste of oxygen just showed me exactly who he is, and in doing so, made me very, very curious about the woman he's throwing away.
"And how exactly do you plan to deliver her?" I ask, circling back to the practical. "What's stopping her from running the moment you bring her to me?"
Adrian's face goes even paler, if that's possible. "She won't run."
"You seem very confident about that."
"I am." He's talking faster now, desperate to close this deal. "I've been paying her mother's medical bills. Cancer. Stage four. Expensive treatment at St. Catherine's. Without me, her mother loses everything—the care, the medication, all of it."
There it is. The leverage.
"So, she's tied to you," I say slowly.
"Exactly. She won't run because she can't afford to. Her mother's life depends on those payments." He's almost smiling now, thinking he's made a brilliant play. "Bring her here, tell her the situation, and she'll cooperate. She has no choice."
I study him for a long moment. The casual way he's using a dying woman as collateral. The ease with which he's manipulating someone who presumably loves him.
He's even more worthless than I thought.
But he's also handed me exactly what I need.
"Here's what's going to happen," I say, my voice flat. "You're going to walk out of here. You're going to go home, pack a bag, and disappear for a while. Maybe leave the state. I don't care. But your debt doesn't disappear with you."
"I know, I—"
"It transfers to her."
His face pales. "What?"
"You heard me. Bianca now owes me eighty-seven thousand dollars. And since I'm betting she doesn't have that kind of money, she'll be working it off. However, I see fit."
"But—"
"You offered her, Adrian. I'm accepting." I lean forward, let him see the flatness in my stare. "And if you ever come near her again, if you so much as text her, I'll cut off more than a fingernail. We clear?"
He stares at me, mouth opening and closing, the full weight of what he's done finally sinking in.
Too late.
"Sal, cut him loose."
The zip ties snap. Adrian stumbles to his feet, cradling his bleeding hand against his chest. He looks at me, then at the phone still sitting on the table, and for half a second, I think he might actually try to take it back.
"Go," I say quietly.
He goes.
The door slams behind him, and the room feels cleaner without him in it.
Marco picks up a rag, starts wiping blood off the pliers. "You really taking his girl, boss?"
"I am."
"You think she knows what she's walking into?"
I look at the phone again. At Bianca's smiling face, frozen in a moment of happiness that's about to shatter.
"No," I say. "But she will."
Because Adrian Morelli just sold her to the devil, and I always collect what I'm owed.