Chapter 37
37
DANTE
I knew something was wrong the second I opened my eyes.
The bed was cold.
Not just empty—cold.
Emilia always ran warm. She’d curl into me in her sleep like a cat, her limbs tangled with mine, her breath soft against my throat. Even when she woke before me, the sheets held her heat for a while. But this?
This was ice.
I sat up slowly, scanning the room. The curtains were still drawn, the early morning light bleeding through the edges. Her clothes were gone from the chair. Her robe was missing from the hook on the door.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand.
No messages.
No missed calls.
No Emilia.
My chest tightened.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, grabbing the gun from the drawer and tucking it into the waistband of my sweats. I didn’t bother with a shirt. I didn’t need one.
I moved through the estate like a shadow, silent and fast.
“Luca!” I barked as I passed the east corridor. “Where the fuck is she?”
He stepped out of the guest room, shirtless and half-asleep, blinking like I’d just dragged him out of a coma. “Who?”
“Emilia.”
He frowned. “I thought she was with you.”
“She’s not.”
His expression changed. “Shit.”
I didn’t wait.
I was already moving.
I checked the security room next. The guard on duty jumped when I slammed the door open.
“Pull the footage,” I snapped. “Every camera. From midnight to now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The screens flickered to life, one by one. The estate grounds. The front gate. The chapel.
My blood turned to ice.
“Stop,” I barked, leaning forward. “Rewind that.”
The guard clicked back through the footage. My eyes locked on the grainy black-and-white image of the chapel. The timestamp read 2:14 AM.
There she was.
Emilia.
Dressed in black, her hair pulled back tight, slipping through the chapel doors like a ghost. My chest tightened, my pulse hammering in my ears as I watched her disappear behind the altar.
And then… nothing.
She didn’t come back out.
I stared at the screen, my mind racing. Behind the altar. Why the hell would she go there?
And then it hit me.
A memory, sharp and sudden, like a blade slicing through the fog.
I was eight, maybe nine, sneaking into the chapel with my brothers. We weren’t supposed to be there—my father had made that clear—but that only made it more tempting. The altar had always fascinated us, its heavy stone base carved with intricate designs. One day, we’d dared each other to see what was behind it.
I could still remember the way my heart had pounded as we pushed aside the old wooden panel at the back. The tunnel beneath had been dark and narrow, the air damp and heavy. We’d crawled through it on our hands and knees, laughing and shoving, our voices echoing off the stone walls. It had felt like a secret world, one that belonged only to us.
But my father had found out.
I could still hear his voice, sharp and furious, as he ordered the tunnel sealed. “It’s dangerous,” he’d said. “You’re never to go near it again.”
And we hadn’t. Not after that.
But it was still there.
It had to be.
My stomach twisted as the memory faded, replaced by the cold, hard reality of the screen in front of me. She’d gone behind the altar. She’d found the tunnel.
And she never came back out.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, the word sharp and venomous. I straightened, my entire body thrumming with tension.
“There’s a tunnel under the altar,” I said, my voice cold and clipped.
The guard blinked at me. “A tunnel?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “It leads into the woods. Switch to the exterior cams.”
He fumbled with the controls, clicking through the feeds. The woods behind the estate. The old tree line.
There.
Movement.
Figures in black.
A flash of her face.
Then gone.
I stared at the screen, my hands clenched into fists.
The Russians had her.
They’d taken my wife.
And I hadn’t even heard her leave.
I turned to the guard. “Get me every man we have. Now.”
He nodded, pale. “Yes, sir.”
I stormed out of the room, my pulse a roar in my ears. My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down.
A message.
Unknown number.
A video file.
I tapped it open.
It was her.
Bound.
Gagged.
Terrified.
My Emilia.
My wife.
My fucking heart.
My vision went red.
The man in the video stepped into frame. Russian. Masked. Arrogant. He spoke directly to the camera, his voice low and cold.
“If you want her back, Conti, you’ll listen carefully.”
I didn’t.
I didn’t need to.
Because I was already moving.
I called Rafe.
“Get to the estate,” I said. “Now. They have her.”
“Who?” he asked, already alert.
“The Russians. They took Emilia.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then: “I’m on my way.”
I ended the call and grabbed my gun from the safe, checked the clip, and shoved it into the holster at my back.
I’d warned them.
I’d told them what would happen if they touched her.
I was going to make good on that promise.
An hour later, the war room was full.
Rafe. Luca. Leo. My top men. All of them standing around the table as I paced like a caged animal.
“She used the tunnel,” I said, pointing to the map. “The old one beneath the chapel. She found it. She got out.”
“Alone?” Luca asked.
I nodded. “She needed air. She didn’t tell me.”
Luca swore under his breath. “And they were waiting?”
“They knew,” I said. “They knew she’d come out. They knew she’d be alone. This wasn’t random. This was planned.”
“Inside job?” Rafe asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they’ve been watching longer than we thought.”
I turned to the tech at the far end of the room.
“Trace the phone that sent the video,” I said. “I want a location. I want names.”
“Yes, sir.”
I looked at Rafe. “Get me Valentina.”
“She’s in Milan.”
“Then get her on the phone.”
Rafe nodded and stepped out to make the call, already barking orders into his phone. The room buzzed with tension, a low hum of voices, rustling papers, and the occasional clink of metal as weapons were checked and rechecked. But I couldn’t hear any of it.
All I could hear was the echo of her voice in my head.
Except there was no voice. Just silence.
Because they’d gagged her.
Because they’d taken her.
Because I’d let her slip through my fingers.
I gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. My mind was already moving at a thousand miles an hour, calculating, planning, killing.
They had my wife.
And I was going to make them regret it.
Luca was the first to break the silence.
“We need to check the perimeter footage again,” he said, pacing like he was trying to keep himself from punching a wall. “If they had a car waiting in the woods, they didn’t just stumble onto her. They knew exactly where she’d come out.”
I nodded. “They knew about the tunnel.”
Rafe leaned forward, arms braced on the table. “Which means someone told them.”
“Yeah,” I said coldly. “And when I find out who, I’ll make them wish they’d never been born.”
The tech at the far end of the room raised a hand. “Sir. We traced the number.”
I was already moving, crossing the room in three long strides. “Where?”
He tapped a few keys, and a map appeared on the screen. A red dot blinked in the middle of an industrial district on the outskirts of the city. “Abandoned warehouse. Used to be a textile factory. No activity for the last five years—until tonight.”
I stared at the screen, my pulse pounding.
“Get eyes on it,” I said. “Drones, cameras, whatever you’ve got. I want to see inside before we go in.”
The tech nodded and got to work.
Rafe stepped back into the room, phone still pressed to his ear. “Valentina’s on the line.”
I took the phone from him and walked to the corner of the room, my voice low and sharp. “Tell me what you know.”
“I heard,” she said, her voice tight. “I’m sorry, Dante.”
“Don’t waste time apologizing. Just tell me who did this.”
There was a pause.
“Nikolai knows,” Valentina said, her voice calm, calculated.
I ground my teeth, my grip tightening on the phone. “Then why the fuck are you wasting my time?”
“Because…” She hesitated, and my patience snapped.
“Get to the fucking point, Valentina,” I barked, my voice low, lethal.
There was a pause, heavy enough to make my chest tighten, and then she said it—quietly, reluctantly, like she already knew the damage it would do.
“It was Aleksander.”
The words hit me like a bullet to the chest.
I went still. Too still.
The war room fell silent around me, the tension so thick it felt like breathing smoke. My brothers watched me from across the room, their expressions unreadable, but I could feel it—uncertainty, caution, fear. Not of the Russians.
Of me.
Valentina’s voice came again, tighter now. “Do you know what I had to do to get that information? What I had to promise?”
“I don’t fucking care,” I growled, pacing like a caged animal. “My wife is gone. They took her. They gagged her. They filmed her. And now you’re telling me Aleksander Romanov signed off on it?”
“Yes,” she said. “But?—”
“No buts,” I snapped. “They stole from me. They betrayed me. And now they’ve taken her?”
My voice cracked at the end, and I hated that. Hated the way it exposed the raw, bleeding edge of my fury.
“She’s not just some pawn,” I said, quieter now, but no less lethal. “She’s my wife.”
“I know,” Valentina said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring her back,” I said. “Nikolai has five minutes to call me. Five. If I don’t hear from him, there will be war.”
“Dante—”
“Five minutes,” I said, and hung up.
I tossed the phone onto the table, the screen cracking on impact.
The room was dead silent.
I turned to the tech. “Start pulling schematics on the Romanov compound. I want blueprints. I want guard rotations. I want satellite footage from the last forty-eight hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to Rafe. “Get me a list of every Russian asset in the city. I want them watched. I want them followed. If they so much as blink wrong, I want to know.”
He nodded, already pulling out his phone.
Luca leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching me like I might explode. “You’re really going to go to war over this?”
I looked at him. “They took my wife.”
He didn’t argue.
I paced the room, my boots echoing off the stone floor. My blood felt like fire in my veins. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I could still see her face in that video—terrified, gagged, helpless.
And I’d let it happen.
I should’ve known she’d go through the tunnel. I should’ve had men posted at the exit. I should’ve?—
I slammed my fist into the edge of the table, the wood splintering beneath the force. Pain shot up my arm, but I didn’t care.
They took my fucking wife.
They stole my money.
They used my blood.
And now they’d taken the only thing that mattered.
Unacceptable.
Unforgivable.
I would burn Moscow to the ground.
The minutes dragged.
Every second felt like a lifetime, and still, no call.
I started issuing orders—plans for extraction, for retaliation, for complete annihilation. I was already halfway through outlining a full assault on the Romanov estate when my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered on the first ring.
“Nikolai,” I said.
“Dante,” came the smooth, accented voice. “I just heard.”
“Spare me the bullshit,” I said. “Your brother signed off on this.”
There was a pause. “Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“She’s being taken to our family’s compound,” he continued. “Outside the city. Aleksander wants leverage.”
“She’s not leverage,” I said, my voice low and deadly. “She’s my wife.”
“I know,” Nikolai said. “That’s why I’m calling.”
“Then stop it,” I snapped. “Call it off.”
“I can’t,” he said. “Aleksander has… recruited half of Moscow’s underworld. Mercenaries. Ex-military. He’s preparing for something bigger. If you show up, you’ll die.”
I went still.
The silence on the line was deafening.
I picked up the nearest glass and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall, shards raining down like ice.
“Then set up a meeting,” I said through gritted teeth. “Neutral ground. Just you and me.”
Nikolai hesitated. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t try,” I said, my voice low and lethal. “Do it. Because if I don’t have her back by tomorrow night, I’m coming for all of you. Aleksander. His men. His money. His legacy. I will salt the earth he walks on.”
There was a pause. A long one. Then Nikolai exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath.
“I’ll call you back in an hour.”
“You have thirty minutes.”
I ended the call before he could argue.
The room was silent again. The kind of silence that comes before a storm. The kind that tastes like blood and smoke.
I turned to my brothers. “Gear up.”
Rafe nodded, already moving. “We’ll need eyes on the compound.”
“I want a team ready to breach,” I said. “Luca, take point on logistics. Leo, get the safe house prepped. If we get her out, she’s not going back to the estate. Not until this is over.”
Luca cracked his knuckles. “You got it.”
“Dante,” Leo said, stepping closer. “What if she’s already?—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, cutting him off. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
He nodded once. “Understood.”
I turned back to the monitors, watching the red blinking dot that marked the last known location of the SUV. My jaw clenched so tight it felt like it might snap.
I had failed her.
I had promised her safety. Promised her peace.
And now she was in the hands of men who didn’t understand what it meant to touch something that belonged to me.
They would learn.
I would teach them.
With bullets. With blood.
With fire.