Chapter 21 Dante
DANTE
I don’t look out the window as the convoy heads for Carlo’s estate. I don’t need to see it to know what waits for us. Looking would only invite distraction.
The car rocks as we take another turn too fast. The suspension groans while the tires screech briefly before they’re against the pavement again. I welcome the jolt despite the unpredictability of it. Motion keeps my mind from drifting toward outcomes and contingencies that don’t matter yet.
There will be time for chaos.
Just not now.
I remove the empty magazine and let it settle into my palm.
I roll it between my fingers, grounding myself in the weight—or lack of it—before I start loading bullets into the chamber one round at a time.
The resistance is familiar, even comforting, every movement exact, rehearsed so many times, it borders on instinct.
This ritual isn’t about the weapon. The gun will function whether I treat it gently or not.
This is about shrinking the world down into something manageable.
With each round, the noise inside my head recedes.
The endless questions of what comes next, the fears that I’ll be walking into a gravesite, all of it fades into something distant and theoretical.
By the time the magazine is full, my thoughts have gone quiet.
I slide it back into place and check the chamber.
No one inside the car speaks.
They know better.
We reach the Palermo syndicate’s estate just after midnight.
The compound squats against the hills like a concrete animal, severe angles and fortified lines that jut out into the dark night sky.
Floodlights rake the perimeter in uneven arcs, their movements just slightly out of sync, one sweeping a half-second too late while another stutters before correcting itself.
Someone inside knows something is wrong.
They just don’t know what yet.
It’s funny how anxiety always betrays itself. Men can train their faces, their voices, even their heart rates, but knee-jerk reactions never lie. Fear always leaves a fingerprint, whether you want it to or not.
The convoy slows long before we reach the gates, engines dropping to a near-silent crawl. Our headlights have been dead for miles now, darkness swallowing us whole as we roll forward on GPS navigation alone.
In the front seat, Bianchi cuts the engine completely. The sudden silence feels more absolute than the click of the magazine sliding back into my weapon. He lifts the radio to his mouth, his movements careful as he flips to the live channel.
“First units, head out,” he murmurs into it.
I lean forward in my seat as my men melt out of the vehicles. They move like shadows breaking free from the dark. I don’t need night vision to know exactly where they are. I’ve trained with them. I can picture the choreography of their movement without seeing it.
The two guards stationed at the gate barely have time to register their silhouettes moving toward them.
One of them turns, mouth opening as if to speak, and then his body jerks as a bullet hits him right between the eyes.
He slumps forward, his weight crashing into the control box hard enough to rattle the metal frame.
The sound is brief, swallowed immediately by the night.
The second drops where he stands right as he’s mid-turn. Blood blooms right over his head, his eyes blown wide in naked surprise, the expression frozen permanently on his face before his body even hits the ground.
One of my men is already stepping over the bodies, boot nudging the first guard aside to get better access to the control panel. His silhouette is barely visible inside the security box, swallowed by shadows and the flickering monitor. Seconds later, the mechanical groan of the gate hums to life.
The iron bars shudder, hesitating for a fraction of a second before they begin to part. When the gate finally settles wide enough for passage, it does so with an almost reluctant clank. Bianchi turns the ignition over immediately.
The engine hums back to life beneath us and he eases the car forward through the opening.
The drive up the long, winding S-turn road feels painfully long.
The estate looms ahead with every curve, its lights cutting jagged shapes through the trees lining the drive.
The road coils back on itself again and again, forcing us to slow at every turn.
My fingers flex once around my weapon.
When the tree line finally breaks, the front of the estate rises up before us.
It’s a palace built to intimidate and impress, never once considering how easily that grandeur can become its downfall.
Lights glow across the courtyard, illuminating a large fountain and the wide stone steps leading up to front doors.
The car slows, barely coming to a full stop before the ones behind us pull up in formation. Doors are thrown open and my men spill out in disciplined chaos with their weapons already raised. The convoy fans out, positions taken in seconds.
A group of them slams into the front doors with a breaching charge, the explosion shattering the glass panel next to it and folding the doors inward. My men surge forward, disappearing into the estate like a tide that cannot be held back.
I step out last along with Bianchi.
“Ready?” he murmurs.
My eyes glance back toward the convoy, fixating my attention on the surveillance van that traveled with us. Even without seeing the inside of it, I already know Leo and Romano are hunched over their equipment, working quickly to get into the Palermo’s security system to access the CCTV inside.
The night air is cool against my skin. I adjust my grip on my weapon and start forward, nodding back to Bianchi.
“Let’s go.”
Inside the estate, the marble floors gleam beneath our boots, pristine for only half a second more before the first body hits the hard surface and blood spills out in a dark, slick arc.
Gunfire erupts down the hall from where we are in short, controlled bursts that echo loudly off the walls and vaulted ceilings.
The sound is deafening in an enclosed space like this, ricocheting until it’s impossible to tell exactly where the shots are coming from unless you’re trained to hear the difference.
I move forward without slowing, stepping over the first fallen enforcers as my grip on my weapon tightens.
I pull it up just as a Bellanti enforcer rounds the corner, wasting no time before pulling the trigger and hitting him square in the chest. He drops before he can squeeze off a shot of his own, his blood splattering across a marble column behind him that I vaguely recognize as imported Carrara.
So much money spent on aesthetics.
What a shame.
Bianchi leaves my side exactly as planned, splitting off down another branching hallway to follow the first set of our soldiers. Romano’s voice crackles once over the comms in my ear with a confirmation that he and Leo have successfully gained access to the CCTV.
“They’re being held in the east wing’s lounge room. Follow the hallway on your left and take the next turn on your right. It’s the last door at the end.”
I follow the directions without hesitation.
Bodies fall in waves as they come. Guards scramble, some trying to retreat before my bullet reaches them while others are foolish enough to charge forward. The air fills with the sharp tang of spilled blood and gunpowder, the smell sticking to the back of my throat.
I take the next corner sharply, firing twice without breaking stride. Another one of Bellanti’s men crumples at my feet, his weapon skidding uselessly across the floor. Up ahead is a set of double doors.
I head for it.
A scream cuts down the hallway, high-pitched and soaked in terror, familiar in its cadence.
Luca.
The sound rips straight through my chest. I take the east wing at a full sprint, my boots pounding against marble slick with blood, my shoulder clipping the side of the wall enough to bruise, but I barely feel it.
The corridor stretches impossibly long and my vision narrows at that door as my pulse roars so loudly in my ears that it drowns out everything except that scream replaying over and over in my head.
Too late. Too slow.
Luca screams again, though this time, it's only with a single word.
“Mama!”
It breaks something in me.
I throw myself at the door so hard, it causes my teeth to rattle. It bursts open with barely a fight, forcing me to catch myself on my feet before I tumble to the ground.
Carlo Toselli stands near the terrace doors across the room, his back half-turned toward me as one hand grips the side of the doorframe.
The curtains whip violently as the night air pours in.
Moonlight spills across the floor in a pale, unforgiving wash, illuminating the scene in front of me like a macabre spotlight meant only to punish me.
Enzo is beside him.
He’s got a gun in his hand, his arm extended out with a familiar curve to his mouth already forming. Well, until his eyes lift and land on me, then it dies instantly. Shock flashes across his face for only a few seconds before quickly masking with cool indifference.
My body freezes when I finally follow the muzzle of where his gun is pointed.
Luca is on the floor, sobbing at his feet, while his small hands grab at his mother. His body curls protectively over her, half covering her back and head with his arms. Under him, Elena is on her hands and knees, gasping for air.
Blood pours through her fingers as she clutches her side. It drips in thick, steady drops, each one hitting the floor with a sound I know I will hear for the rest of my life. Her face is ashen, jaw clenched tightly as she fights to stay upright and conscious.
She’s been shot.
The realization lands with a brutal force, knocking the air from my lungs.
No.
No. No, no, no.
Horror floods me so fast, it’s disorienting.
It crashes through my body in a wave so violent, I have to plant my feet firmly on the ground to keep from falling to my knees.
For a split second, I am not the Don of the Cosenza family.
I am not a commander or an executioner or a man who knows how to survive moments like this.
I am only a man watching the woman I love bleed out on the marble floor while our son screams for her.
My vision tunnels.
Enzo lifts the gun higher, his finger tightening on the trigger as he points it directly to the back of Luca’s head.
Time fractures.
I see everything at once as I vault forward—Toselli’s pale face slick with sweat as he turns and sprints for the balcony, the way Luca’s cheeks are tear-stained as he pleads with his mother to get up, Enzo’s finger flexing on the trigger, a slow smile creeping across his face again, Elena’s eyes slowly finding mine, relief softening her pained features.
I see my future splintering apart in real time.
I don’t think.
I don’t hesitate.
I raise my weapon and fire.
Enzo jerks back as the first bullet hits him square in the chest, his body slamming into the terrace door behind him hard enough to rattle the glass.
The second takes him through the throat before he can even fall, the force snapping his head back as he crumples to the floor, lifeless before he hits it.
Toselli screams. I put him down before he takes a single step over the balcony’s edge. His body topples over the side of it. The sickening sound of it landing seconds later on the ground outside echoes through the room.
I cross the room in seconds and drop hard to my knees beside them. Luca looks up at me, his eyes wild with terror and bloodshot. For a heartbeat he just stares, not quite believing that I’m real. It takes a few tries of him blinking at me for recognition to finally hit.
“Mama. She’s—she… She—” His voice breaks completely.
I scoop him up with one arm and crush him against me, hauling him tight to my chest like I can shield him from what’s already happened. My hand cradles the back of his head, fingers pressing into his curls as I press a firm kiss to the top of his head.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
He heaves in a heavy breath, clinging desperately to me.
When I turn fully to Elena, she sways forward like the strength holding her upright has finally given up. She slumps, and I barely catch her before she collapses completely. I ease Luca back just enough to free my other arm and gently lower Elena onto the floor, guiding her onto her back.
Blood immediately blooms dark beneath her, warm and slick against my palms. I press my hand hard against her side, applying pressure the way I’ve done a hundred times before with my own men in the aftermath of a shootout.
But unlike all those times before, this time, my hands shake uncontrollably.
“Stay with me. You hear me? Don’t you dare leave me now,” I command softly, desperately, leaning over her.
Luca crawls closer, his small body trembling violently as he presses into my side.
“Mama…” he whimpers.
I tilt my head sharply toward my shoulder, grinding it down just enough to activate the comms tucked in my ear. My voice comes out hoarse, stripped of any pretense of authority.
“Elena’s down, I need medical here now!” I bark into it. “East wing. Lounge room. Now.”
The comm crackles with overlapping voices, confirmations, orders to send a team my way, but I can’t make sense of any of it over the thunder of blood roaring in my ears.
Elena coughs hard. It’s wet and when she does, blood bubbles at the corner of her mouth. She tries to speak, lips trembling while she tries to form the words, her breath coming in and out of her in shallow and uneven pulls.
I shake my head even as my hand presses harder into her wound. “Don’t talk. Don’t, just… breathe. That’s all I need from you. Just breathe and stay with me.”
Her eyes drift away from me, unfocused now, staring past me up at the ceiling like she’s already slipping somewhere I can’t follow.
Panic claws up my spine. “Elena,” I demand, my voice breaking as I swallow around the knot tightening in my throat. “Elena, look at me.”
She mouths something at me, and then her eyes flutter shut.