25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Alina
The mansion’s atmosphere had shifted. Every expanse of marble and velvet was always so starved of sound that even the drip of coffee into a mug seemed criminal—but into something brittle and electric.
Like the house itself had caught wind of the coming violence and was holding its breath.
The corridors, all that pale stone, seemed to arch their backs.
The tall windows, even with the sun spilling in, looked less like an invitation and more like a siege point.
Somewhere, someone was vacuuming, but the whine came in staccato bursts—on, off, on, off—then vanished altogether.
Alina walked the length of the east gallery and back three times, arms cinched tight across her chest. Her mug was abandoned on the windowsill, the coffee inside left to film over with a skin of cooling cream.
She caught the gaze of a guard by the double doors, who dipped his chin in a deferent little nod as though she were some sort of visiting royalty.
She smiled back, practiced and bland, but the only honest thing about it was how it underlined her current role: the civilian variable, the guest-shaped liability.
You’re a regular asset to the team, her own mind observed, deadpan. Maybe today you’ll take up needlepoint.
She muttered “Shut up,” to herself, not quietly, and was rewarded by the faintest twitch at the corner of the guard’s mouth before he snapped his attention back to the empty air.
She checked her phone for the third time in five minutes. No new messages. No updates. No “Hey, don’t worry if they start shooting at us before dinner.” Nothing to do except circulate, restless as a goldfish in a bowl designed by a particularly repressed mafia billionaire.
Her perambulation eventually deposited her outside the library, its doors thrown invitingly open.
She drifted in, pretending she was drawn by an urge for learning and not by the instinct to avoid thinking too hard—or to be closer to the one room where Dante seemed most like a person and least like a force of nature.
The library was a cathedral of books, multiplaned windows letting in cold sunlight that limned the ladders in gold.
She plucked a volume haphazardly from a shelf—Russian, of course.
She replaced it, grabbed the next one. Also Cyrillic.
She turned the spine toward herself, squinting at the unfamiliar alphabet, then muttered, “Does this man own anything in English?” She gave the shelves a look designed to shame an inanimate object, then prowled the aisles for something she could actually decipher.
It was almost comforting, the hunt. Not for literature, but for proof that she could carve out some small territory here that belonged to her.
She found a battered paperback crammed between leather-bound sets, the kind of book that would get you fined if you returned it to the library in her hometown.
She ran her finger down the dog-eared cover.
He owns you, said the voice in her head. Not the sarcastic one, the other one. The one that sounded like a bruise.
“No,” she said, closing the book and bracing herself against the shelf. Her voice was a little too loud in that padded hush. “He does not.”
Not yet, the inner voice hissed. She pressed the book tight against her chest until the feeling passed.
She was standing there, not reading, not moving, just breathing and listening to the ache in her hands, when she heard it: the sound of heavy, deliberate boots on polished stone.
She recognized it instantly, the measured cadence, the certainty.
Dante. His presence arrived before he physically did, like the temperature in the room changed a half degree in anticipation.
He stepped through the entrance, and his silhouette was so exactly what she’d conjured—black tactical gear, sleeves rolled, veins and sinew mapped in his forearms, jaw hard enough to cut glass—that for a second she wondered if this was her imagination.
The real difference was his eyes. They weren’t dead, like so many of the men who shadowed these halls. They were live wire.
He stopped, just inside the door, and scanned her. She saw his expression register: You’re up, you’re moving, you’re not under a pile of blankets. He seemed almost disappointed to catch her vertical.
“You should be resting,” he said, voice pitched low so it wouldn’t echo.
She shrugged. “Tried that. My anxiety disagreed.”
He allowed himself a partial smile—fleeting, but not false. He walked to the table, surveyed her choice of reading material with a brow raised in judgment. “Romance?” he asked, and the way he said it made the word sound dangerous.
She looked at the cover. It was, technically, a bodice ripper. “At least it’s in English,” she said. “I’ll take what I can get.”
He leaned against the table, half a meter away. “The operation starts soon.”
“I know,” she said, and put the book down. She didn’t want it between them. “You have a plan?”
His eyes flickered to the window as if he could see the city from here. “Always.”
She nodded, resisting the urge to ask if he would be careful, if he would remember he was not immortal, if he would come back. Instead: “You’ll stay out of direct fire?”
He smiled again, more like a wince. “That’s the goal.”
She was suddenly aware, acutely, of how this conversation was a dance of avoidance.
His eyes kept returning to her, like he was storing her up for later.
It made her furious and made her want to scream and made her want to grab his face and tell him to never die, not for anything, especially not for her.
“You’ll stay inside. With guards,” he said, voice gone grave.
She faked a salute. “Sir, yes sir.”
He almost laughed. “And you won’t wander.”
She tilted her head. “Define wander.”
An exhale, both fond and exasperated. “Alina.”
“Fine,” she said, softer, not because she was conceding, but because in this room, with him, she could admit she was scared. “I’ll stay put.”
He looked at her like he was memorizing her. Not just her face, but the way she held her shoulders, the rhythm of her breathing. She hated it—hated how easy it was to let herself be seen. She hated, even more, how much she wanted it.
He stepped closer, slow, almost hesitant, and brushed the back of his hand along her cheekbone, as if her skin was the most volatile thing in the room. “You’re safe here,” he said.
She swallowed. “You keep saying that.”
He didn’t lower his hand. “Because it’s true.”
“No,” she whispered, “because you want it to be true.”
He withdrew his hand, but his eyes didn’t follow. “Both,” he said, quiet and final.
She wanted to reach for him, but the air between them felt like a barricade, not a bridge.
He leaned in—a movement that was charged, but not quite physical, the kind of closeness that set off every warning system she had.
He didn’t try kissing her or touching her.
He just made her want. Then he stepped back, jaw tight, and the fracture of distance made her want to scream.
“Alina,” he murmured, voice like gravel and thunder, “I need you to stay here. I need you safe.”
“And I need you to come back,” she said, and she was shocked by the rawness of her own voice.
He didn’t promise. Not out loud. But his eyes did something dangerous, something she refused to put into words. He turned and left, boots swallowing the hall, not looking back.
She watched the door until he was gone, then sank into the nearest chair. She sat there a long time, listening to the silence that filled up the room after him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dante
Dante’s mind was still in the library when he hit the bottom of the stairs.
The rest of his body operated on autopilot, muscle memory hardwired since childhood.
Luca joined him outside the east wing, boots in sync, and held out a black duffel.
Dante took it without a word. Across the foyer, men in dark layers and heavier scowls were already clustered, their faces set into the blank mask of soldiers who expected ugly work.
Luca gave him a sidelong look. “You’re distracted.”
Dante kept his eyes ahead. “No.”
Luca shook his head. “Your head’s not in the game.”
“It is,” Dante said.
They passed through a security door and into the war room.
The energy here was different—sharp, almost metallic.
Maps were spread across the broad table, satellite images annotated with angry red lines.
Marco, hunched over a laptop, was barking data in a low monotone.
The air smelled like ink, cold sweat, and suppressed violence.
Luca leaned in, murmuring, “It’s in the library, right where you left it.”
Dante stopped walking. “Luca.”
Luca held up his hands, palms not raised in surrender but in a careful, nonthreatening display. “I’m not judging. But you can’t lead a strike team while thinking about the woman you left upstairs.”
“I’m not thinking about her.”
Luca’s eyes flickered, skeptical and knowing. He didn’t bother to argue.
“Fine,” Dante bit out. “I’m thinking about her.”
Luca’s mouth twitched. “
The night air was sharp—cold enough to bite, perfect for a clean strike.
Dante stood beside the SUV. His black tactical gear blended into the shadows while the Moratti vors gathered in a tight semicircle. Engines idled. Radios crackled softly. Every man waited for his word.
He should have felt focused. He should have felt the familiar calm before violence.
Instead, all he could think about was Alina’s face when he left the mansion. Her eyes. Her fear. She whispered, Come back.
He shoved the thought down. There was no room for softness here.
“Listen up,” Dante said, his voice low but carrying. “We hit the Vescari shipment first. Quiet. Fast. No casualties unless necessary.”
Nico nodded. “We’ve got the route covered.”
Rafe checked his weapon. “A distraction team is in place.”
Marco smirked. “Let’s ruin their night.”
Luca stepped closer. “Boss, we’re ready.”
Dante scanned his men—loyal, lethal, waiting. “Move,” he ordered.
The convoy rolled out. The SUVs cut through the dark mountain roads, headlights off, engines humming low. Dante sat in the front passenger seat, his eyes fixed on the map glowing on the tablet. He should have been thinking about the Vescari lieutenant, the timing, the angles, the escape routes.
Instead, his mind kept drifting back to the mansion. To her. To the way she looked at him as if he were both her shield and her downfall.
Luca glanced at him. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About the mission?”
Dante didn’t answer.
Luca sighed. “Boss, you can’t fight a war with your head half in the bedroom.”
Dante shot him a glare. “Watch your mouth.”
“I’m just saying,” Luca muttered. “She’s under your skin.”
Dante didn’t deny it. He couldn’t.
The SUVs stopped at the edge of a forest clearing. The Vescari route was a quarter-mile ahead—a narrow road where their shipment truck would pass any minute. Dante stepped out, his boots crunching on gravel.
“Positions,” he ordered.
The men scattered and were gone. Nico and Marco took the ridge. Rafe and the distraction team moved toward the access road. Luca stayed at Dante’s side.
Dante checked his watch. Two minutes.
He inhaled slowly, letting the cold air steady him. This was where he belonged. This was what he was built for: war, strategy, precision.
Not… whatever Alina was doing to him.
He pushed the thought away again. A crackle came through the radio. Rafe’s voice cut through the static: “Truck approaching. Distraction in three… two…”
A loud metallic bang echoed through the trees—the sound of a staged breakdown. A second later, shouting erupted. Rafe and Rico argued loudly in the middle of the road, shoving each other over the engine of a broken-down delivery van.
The Vescari truck slowed. Perfect.
Dante raised his hand. “Now,” he whispered.
The Moratti men moved like a single organism: silent, precise, deadly. Nico dropped from the ridge, landing behind the truck. Marco cut the engine wires. Rafe yanked the driver out, disarming him before he could blink. Luca secured the passenger.
Dante approached the back of the truck, gun drawn. He swung the doors open to reveal weapons, cash, and crates marked with the Vescari crest. A direct hit to their supply line.
He allowed himself one breath of satisfaction. “One down. Next target.”
The men nodded, but Luca didn’t move. He was watching Dante.
“What?” Dante snapped.
“You’re rushing,” Luca said quietly.
“We don’t have time.”
“You’re rushing because you want to get back to her.”
Dante’s jaw clenched. “This has nothing to do with her.”
Luca raised a brow. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Dante turned away, signaling the men to load the crates, but Luca’s words stuck. Because they were true.
The convoy moved again, deeper into Vescari territory. The lieutenant’s safe house was next—a small cabin hidden in the woods, guarded but not heavily. Dante crouched behind a fallen tree, studying the structure through binoculars.
Two guards at the door. One patrolling the perimeter. Lights on inside.
“Easy,” Marco whispered.
“Too easy,” Dante said. He lowered the binoculars, his chest tightening.
Something felt wrong. Not with the mission. With the mansion. With her. His stomach dropped, and his mouth went dry.
Luca noticed. “Boss?”
Dante stood abruptly. “We finish this fast.”
“Why?”
“Because something’s wrong.”
“With the plan?”
“No.” He holstered his weapon. “With Alina.”