CHAPTER 6
DANTE
The rain in Geneva was freezing, slicking the tarmac in a sheet of black ice as I stepped off the private jet.
I didn't feel the cold. I hadn't felt much of anything for the last eight hours except a slow, methodical rage that burned steady in the center of my chest.
A line of three black Mercedes SUVs was waiting on the runway.
The Swiss contact I kept on retainer—a banker who dealt in blood money and discrete logistics—stood by the first car, holding an umbrella.
He looked nervous. People usually did when I showed up unannounced with a strike team of twelve heavily armed men.
I ignored the banker and climbed into the back of the lead SUV. My lead enforcer, a man named Silas, slid into the driver’s seat.
My phone vibrated in the inner pocket of my coat. I pulled it out. The encrypted screen displayed Luca’s ID.
"Status," I answered, keeping my voice low.
"The estate is locked down tight," Luca reported, the background noise indicating he was walking the perimeter. "Fifty men on the wall. Dogs are out. The Petrovs haven't made a move in New York."
"And my wife?"
The words tasted strange on my tongue. My wife. Twenty-four hours ago, she was a signature on a contract. Now, she was the reason I was sitting in a car in Switzerland with a suppressed Heckler & Koch MP5 resting across my knees.
Luca hesitated for a fraction of a second. "She’s secure in the guest wing. Elena gave her the encrypted phone, like you asked."
"Is she crying?"
"No." I could practically hear the smirk in Luca’s voice. "She pushed a leather armchair in front of the door and barricaded herself in with a brass fireplace iron. Then she stood under the security camera and demanded a cup of tea."
I closed my eyes, pressing two fingers against the bridge of my nose.
A bizarre, entirely inappropriate knot of amusement tightened in my throat. I had left her in a house full of killers, handed her a crisis that would break most grown men, and her response was to build a fort and order room service from the surveillance equipment.
"Did you give her the tea?" I asked.
"Elena left a tray outside the door. Sienna dragged it in using the iron poker like a grappling hook. She’s fine, Dante. She’s tougher than her father."
"Keep her in that room," I ordered. "I’ll call you when it’s done."
I ended the call and looked up. Silas was watching me through the rearview mirror.
"We have the location," Silas said, putting the SUV in drive. "The Petrovs didn't take her far from the Geneva campus. There’s a private chalet on the edge of Lake Geneva. Registered to a shell company tied to their bratva. Local scouts confirm four armed guards outside, maybe six inside."
"Ten men for a nineteen-year-old girl," I muttered, checking the magazine of my weapon. "They are expecting me to negotiate."
"Are we negotiating?" Silas asked, though he already knew the answer.
"We are leaving a message." I snapped the magazine back into place. "Nobody touches what belongs to my family. Leave one alive to tell the story. The rest are target practice."
The drive took forty minutes. The Swiss countryside blurred past the tinted windows, dark and indifferent.
When we reached the access road leading to the chalet, the SUVs cut their headlights, rolling to a silent stop in the dense pine forest. The rain had turned into a steady, freezing drizzle.
I stepped out of the car, the gravel crunching softly beneath my boots.
The chalet was a massive structure of dark wood and glass, sitting isolated on the edge of the black water. Through the thermal scope of my rifle, I counted the heat signatures. Two men smoking on the back deck. Two at the front gate. Five inside the main living area.
And one small, isolated heat signature in a room on the second floor.
Clara.
I lowered the rifle and looked at my men. They were shadows in the trees, waiting for the command.
"Silas, take the back. Drop the smokers," I instructed, my voice barely a whisper over the wind. "I’ll take the front door. We breach on three."
I moved through the trees, my boots finding the soft earth to mask my approach. The two guards at the front gate were speaking Russian, complaining about the cold. They were sloppy. They thought they were untouchable because they had leverage.
They forgot that leverage only works if the other side is willing to play the game.
I raised my weapon.
One.
I lined up the sight with the center of the taller guard’s chest.
Two.
Three.
I pulled the trigger twice. The suppressed shots sounded like heavy staples driven into wood. The taller guard dropped instantly. The second guard barely had time to register the blood on his face before my third shot caught him in the throat.
He collapsed against the iron gate.
I stepped over his body, pushing the gate open. From the back of the house, the faint sound of breaking glass signaled Silas’s entry.
I didn't bother with stealth anymore. I walked up to the heavy oak front door, lifted my boot, and kicked the lock mechanism with enough force to splinter the wood. The door flew open, slamming against the interior wall.
The three men in the living room scrambled for their weapons.
They were too slow.
I moved through the room with the cold, mechanical precision I had perfected over fifteen years in the syndicate. I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel adrenaline. I calculated angles, trajectories, and threats.
Two shots to the chest of the man on the left. He went down over the coffee table.
The man on the right managed to raise a pistol, getting off a wild shot that shattered a vase two feet from my head. I didn't flinch. I pivoted, putting a bullet through his kneecap. He screamed, dropping the gun, and I finished it with a second shot to his head.
The third man threw his hands up, dropping his weapon to the floor. He was young, his eyes wide with raw terror.
"Please," he choked out in broken English.
"You’re the messenger," I told him, stepping past him toward the stairs. "Tell your boss that Dante Morretti collects his own debts."
I took the stairs two at a time. The second floor was quiet. Silas and the rest of the team were securing the ground level, the brief, brutal violence already over.
I walked down the hallway toward the room where I had seen the isolated heat signature. The door was locked. I shot the hinges off, kicking the heavy wood inward.
The room was dark, smelling of dust and fear.
In the corner, sitting on the floor with her knees pulled tightly to her chest, was a girl.
She looked so much like Sienna it felt like a physical blow to my ribs.
She had the same dark hair, the same brown eyes, but where Sienna was sharp edges and sarcasm, this girl was soft and completely terrified.
Her wrists were bound with zip ties, and a dark bruise was blooming along her left cheekbone.
She pressed herself harder into the corner, letting out a muffled sob.
I lowered my weapon immediately, letting it hang by the strap. I held my hands up, palms open, and stopped in the center of the room.
"Clara Rossi," I said quietly.
She flinched at her name, her eyes darting to the gun hanging against my chest.
"My name is Dante Morretti," I continued, keeping my voice as steady and calm as I could manage. It wasn't a tone I used often. "I am your sister’s husband. Sienna sent me to bring you home."
The mention of Sienna’s name made her freeze. She stared at me, her breathing ragged. "Sienna... Sienna isn't married."
"She is as of noon today." I slowly reached into my pocket.
Clara tensed, but I only pulled out the heavy platinum band on my left hand, holding it up so the dim light caught the metal.
"Your father made a deal. I took his territory, and I took your sister.
The men who brought you here were trying to send me a message. "
I crouched down, staying far enough away that she didn't feel crowded.
"They took your silver cross," I said softly. "The one with your initials on the back. They sent it to my house in a black box. Sienna saw it. She demanded I come get you."
Tears spilled over Clara’s eyelashes, tracking through the dirt on her face. The specific detail of the necklace broke through her panic. She let out a shaky breath, nodding once.
I pulled a small combat knife from my belt, offering it handle-first toward her. "I’m going to cut the ties. Hold still."
She held her hands out. I sliced through the thick plastic with one clean motion. Clara rubbed her raw wrists, her shoulders shaking.
"Why did my father do this?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why did he let them take me?"
I stood up, offering her my hand. "Your father is a coward. But you don't have to worry about him anymore. You are under my protection now."
She looked at my hand, then up at my face. She didn't have Sienna’s fire, but she had the same survival instinct. She took my hand, letting me pull her to her feet.
"Silas," I called out over the comms.
"Clear downstairs, boss," Silas replied instantly. "We have the perimeter. The messenger is running into the woods, just like you wanted."
"Get the cars ready. We’re heading back to the jet."
I guided Clara out of the room and down the stairs. She kept her eyes squeezed shut as we passed the bodies in the living room, her fingers gripping the sleeve of my coat like a lifeline.
When we stepped out into the freezing rain, Silas was waiting by the SUV. He opened the back door, and Clara climbed in, wrapping her arms around herself.
I closed the door, blocking her from the sight of the carnage.
"Boss," Silas said, his voice tight. He stepped closer, keeping his back to the car. "Before the guy in the kitchen died, he started talking. Trying to buy his life."
I wiped a drop of rain from my jaw. "What did he say?"
"He said they didn't take the girl to stop the wedding.
" Silas looked at me, his expression grim.
"He said Rossi owes the Petrovs ten million dollars, not three.
Rossi stole a shipment of weapons from them last month.
He knew they were coming to kill him, so he sold Sienna to you to trigger a war between our syndicate and the Russians.
He used us as a shield so he could run with the money. "
My blood turned to absolute ice.
Rossi hadn't just sold his daughter to clear a debt. He had planted a bomb in my house, knowing the Petrovs would come for her to get to him. He had turned Sienna into a target.
I looked at the SUV. Clara was safe. But Sienna was sitting in New York, entirely unaware that her own father had painted a target on her back.
I pulled the encrypted phone from my pocket.
I dialed the number Elena had given her. It rang twice.
"Hello?"
Her voice was small, defensive, and completely exhausted. Hearing it sent a violent, possessive shockwave straight through my chest.
"It’s me," I said, turning away from the car, staring out at the black water of the lake.
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Then, the sound of something heavy scraping across a wooden floor. The armchair. She was moving her barricade.
"Dante." She said my name like it was a question she was afraid to ask. "Did you..."
"I have her," I interrupted, needing to erase the terror in her voice immediately. "She is in the car with me. She is bruised, but she is safe. We are heading back to the jet now."
A broken, wet sound came through the speaker. A sob she tried to swallow and failed.
"Thank you," Sienna whispered, the words trembling. "God, Dante, thank you."
I closed my eyes, the freezing rain soaking my hair. I had killed four men in the last ten minutes. I was standing in a pool of blood, holding a weapon that was still warm. But all I could focus on was the sound of her breathing on the other end of the line.
"Sienna, listen to me," I said, my voice dropping to a low, urgent register. "Do not leave that room. Do not let anyone in except Luca or Elena. Do you understand?"
"Why? What’s wrong?" The panic was back, sharp and fast.
"Your father lied about the debt," I told her, refusing to sugarcoat it. She needed to be sharp. She needed to be ready. "He stole from the Petrovs. He used our marriage to force me to fight his war. They aren't just trying to send a message anymore. They are going to come for you."
Silence stretched over the line. I could almost see her standing in the dark bedroom, the reality of her father’s ultimate betrayal sinking in.
"I have the fire iron," she said finally. Her voice wasn't shaking anymore. It was dead calm.
A dark, dangerous smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.
"Keep it close, mia sposa," I murmured. "I’ll be home in eight hours. If anyone tries to open that door before I get there... you swing for the head."
"I know how to aim, Dante," she replied.
I hung up the phone.
I looked at the burning lights of the chalet, the bodies scattered inside, the war that had just been dropped on my doorstep.
Antonio Rossi thought he could use me. He thought he could sacrifice his daughters and walk away rich.
He was about to learn why they called me the Ghost.