Chapter 5 Dante
Chapter five
Dante
Dante rolled his neck as he stepped into the house and reached up to tug the necktie away from his collar.
It was an odd time of day to be coming home, so he didn’t begrudge his men the flashes of surprise in their eyes.
In truth, even he wasn’t sure why he was there.
He only knew that his baby brother had insisted on meeting somewhere they could speak in private, safely, and there was always a degree of risk having that kind of conversation at the work site.
He found Iris curled up on the sofa, a book in her hand and the baby monitor practically at her shoulder on the side table.
Her fiery hair was still piled atop her head as it had been when he’d left that morning, but a bit messier, more of it having fallen free to frame her perfect face.
A portion of the tension in his chest eased as he watched her, just for a second, before striding around the back of the sofa and bending forward until he was leaning over her.
A grin tipped his lips. “Good book?”
Iris startled, her head snapping up and an adorable squeak escaping her. Her face flushed pink and she narrowed her eyes at him in attempt at a glare. “You startled me!” She swatted at his arm before sitting upright and setting the book face down on the arm of the couch.
Dante chuckled, moved a hand to cup her cheek, and pressed an upside-down kiss to her temple. “I enjoy seeing you so relaxed,” he murmured into her hair.
She blew out a breath, watching as he straightened. “To what do I owe the gift of your company this afternoon?”
“Mikey,” he replied. “Something’s come up we apparently can’t discuss in the office.”
The amusement drained from her face.
Dante reached over the sofa again and laid a hand on her shoulder. “This is just a discussion, Snapdragon. Nothing to worry over.” He gave a squeeze and flicked his gaze to the monitor for just a beat. “How’s Vitto today?”
Iris’s smile returned. “Sleeping off his lunch like a champ. He’ll probably be out for another half an hour, at least as long as no one starts yelling or shooting.”
Then probably Dante should leave him be.
Getting that baby on a sleep schedule had taken so much effort, effort that still seemed so easily unraveled.
And as much as he loved his son, he also hated seeing how tired his wife had been—and sometimes still was.
It was why he pushed her to take so much time away from her own business.
He walked around the couch and pulled Iris to her feet, trailing his hands up her sides until he had her face between his palms. “You’re doing a fantastic job, honey.
If anyone around here starts making it too difficult, I’ll silence them myself.
” He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips and softened his tone. “I’m so proud of you.”
She beamed, her eyes damn near sparkling, and her hands came to rest on his chest. “It’s not like you’re not doing what you can.”
Dante grunted. “I don’t have another human literally feeding off of my body. Helping with diapers and baths when I’m home is nothing.”
Iris rolled her lips between her teeth like she so often did before saying something that compelled him to react in visceral ways, but it was not her voice that filled the air next.
“If that’s your idea of dirty talk, I’m amazed you ever managed to make a baby.”
Iris turned crimson and ducked her head.
Dante lowered his arms to encircle her around the waist and turned his head to scowl at his sibling. “And if my son weren’t sleeping, I might shoot you.”
Mikey grinned back shamelessly. “I do appreciate your mercy.”
Dante stared him down for another beat before pressing one more kiss to the side of Iris’s head. “I’ll be in my office for a bit if you need me.”
Iris took a deep breath and straightened, having found her composure. She nodded, then offered a smile to the other man in the room. “Hi, Mikey.”
Mikey inclined his head. “Hey, Sis. You look good. Vitto napping?”
She bobbed her head. “Yes.”
“I’ll keep it down, then.”
Dante gave her hips one final squeeze before stepping back and striding over to his brother. “Let’s talk in my office.”
Mikey only nodded and followed behind him down the hall.
They didn’t speak until the door was shut and they were settled in their usual positions, Dante in his leather chair and Mikey in the corner seat of the matching sofa.
Dante’s home office was a combination of moody professional and cigar lounge, and while much of the house around it had changed little by little with Iris’s welcome influence, she had refused to change this room.
He’d offered to let her renovate anything she wanted, with the one exception of removing the panic room, but she hadn’t touched his office.
She’d insisted it needed to be the strongest reflection of him it could be—his power, his aura, his absolute authority.
Her words.
Mikey swung the shoulder bag he always carried on his visits up onto the coffee table and swiftly pulled a laptop from within.
“Let me start with saying that I don’t have all the information yet,” he began, “and yes, of course, I’m working on that.
But I didn’t think it was smart to leave you blind to this until that process was finished, in case whatever the hell this is turns out to be a worst-case scenario. ”
Dante scowled and settled back in his seat, raising one leg to rest his ankle over the opposite knee. “You know I rarely have patience for when you speak in circles, Mikey. Get to it.”
Mikey flexed both hands in an uncharacteristic, visibly anxious gesture, and Dante’s own anxiety spiked a little.
Mikey looked up from his laptop. “A while back, I set up several alerts based on keywords and word combinations in an effort to help keep us ahead of any shit that might be headed our way.” He paused.
“Things like our names in media posts or consistently repeated searches, paired with anything suspicious … like references to death.”
Dante nodded his understanding. This did not feel like a good lead-in, but then, that would be why Mikey was making an issue of it.
“This past weekend, one of those alerts started pinging,” Mikey said, an odd weight overtaking his voice.
He reached for his computer again. “Someone’s gone to good effort to hide the exact source, which is what I’m still working on, but I do have it narrowed down.
” He spun the laptop around so Dante could see the split screen display.
“Even as of this morning, when a bunch of those same searches were repeated on a different browser, it didn’t seem like the source had changed location. That … is the good news.”
Dante narrowed his eyes at the screen, seeing a topographical map swathed in a veritable net of red. But he was close enough, and the map zoomed in enough, that he could make out certain words. The word that mattered. “Chicago.”
Mikey nodded. “I don’t yet know more specifically than that. Right now, it looks like there’s a privacy barrier between the source of the searches and my probes. Brandi and I are working to break it down.”
Dante nodded again. “Good. But I assume you know what they were searching for?” The fact that his brother hadn’t yet volunteered that information had him on edge.
It obviously pertained to family—to blood—and he damn well needed to know.
If there was someone in Chicago looking to learn their secrets, perhaps their weaknesses, Dante needed to know everything.
Chicago wasn’t in their network. It was mostly run by bratva families who liked Italians about as much as Italians cared for the Irish.
Still, Dante made an effort to keep ears in the area.
He never wanted to be caught unaware. And he hadn’t heard a fucking whisper about either clan of note thinking to take a broader swing.
Mikey reached over the top of his screen, swept his finger sideways, and expanded the other half of the display until the document took over the entire thing.
“This is the list of results that returned to me,” he said.
“You’ll see for yourself what they have in common.
” He looked up, and there was something beyond irritation in his eyes. “They’re all focused on Mom.”
Dante reared back.
Mikey continued somberly. “Whoever it is, they’re looking for her … or evidence of her death.” He indicated a section of text on the screen.
Dante dropped his gaze to the words typed beside Mikey’s finger.
Eleonora De Salvo + Death
Death Certificate Eleonora De Salvo
Is Eleonora De Salvo dead?
Dante ripped his glare from the screen, a snarl escaping his chest. “Find this fucker. I’ll get extra security on Mom. Have Miguel double-check her digital security. And I’ll talk to Cris about what he remembers from his last trip to Chicago.”
Mikey exhaled roughly, nodded, and snapped the laptop shut. “Think we’ll be making a trip?”
Fire burned in Dante’s chest as the words from the paper replayed in his mind.
“If it comes to that.” He stood. “First, we beat them at their game. Once we know what we’re really looking at, we’ll know how best to break them.
” He didn’t need to say the rest. No one threatened his family and walked away.
But to target a tiny widow in her sixties, presumably because of her sons?
He’d need to have his torches restocked.