Chapter 14 Dante
DANTE
After strong intel came in regarding Antonelli Gerard and his storage and communications site near the port, I knew we had to move.
The safehouse sits sheltered in darkness far from the reach of most sources, but the guy I have assured me this was where to hit next.
I'm not sure if Gerard is in the house, but I intend to demolish it and leave no survivors.
I drive with Enzo in the passenger seat and Rico following behind with Marco and two others.
The streets are dark and quiet at this hour. Most of the port closes down after sunset, leaving only the overnight crews and the occasional patrol.
That makes it easier to do the job I need to do, though without knowing what we're walking into,
I can't judge the wisdom of this trip yet.
All I know is this place is owned by Gerard and is a likely hiding spot.
We park a few blocks away for anonymity and approach on foot.
With only two entrances, I figure the four of us can cover it.
The place is small, not large enough for a full army, and with the element of surprise, we're likely to take most of the men out before they even reach for their weapons. As long as we keep one to milk for intel.
"Marco, head around back, take Rico with you. Enzo and I will go in the front. Don't breach until you hear gunshots or my shout." I look him dead in the eye before he nods and gestures for Rico to follow in, and we creep closer.
Slipping into the house is simple.
They haven't even locked the doors, and when we stalk in, it's almost dead silent.
The interior is dark too, except for a light coming from a room at the end of the hallway out of which voices drift toward us.
There are at least three men, maybe more.
I signal to Enzo with two fingers over my shoulder curling slowly, and we move forward stealthily.
The floorboards creak despite our attempts to stay quiet, but it doesn't seem to draw any unwanted attention.
We reach the doorway and I peek inside.
Four men sit around a table playing cards.
Weapons rest on the table within easy reach.
Crates are stacked against the far wall, marked with shipping codes that mean nothing to anyone who doesn’t know what they contain.
I step into the room with my weapon raised and Enzo follows me in pattern. "Nobody move," I grunt, but they're stupid men. Foolish and impulsive.
Two of them react instantly, reaching for their guns.
I fire twice and drop them both before they can aim, and the third man flips the table and uses it for cover.
The fourth runs toward the back door, but Enzo fires and catches him in the leg.
He goes down hard and lies there writhing while my boys break down the back door and burst through.
The man behind the table returns fire and bullets tear through the air and slam into the wall behind me.
I move to the side and return fire.
My shots hit the table and splinter the wood but don't penetrate.
The man's well protected.
Then I hear a click, a sound I recognize immediately—an explosive device being triggered.
"Get out," I shout to Enzo, but it's too late.
We turn and run back down the hallway, but the explosion detonates before we're even a few steps away.
The blast tears through the building and sends debris flying in every direction.
I hit the ground and cover my head as the heat washes over me and the noise deafens me temporarily.
I don’t know where Marco or Rico are, and I can't see Enzo in all the smoke, but I'm coughing and gasping for air as debris rains down on me.
When the ringing in my ears subsides, I push myself to my feet and cover my mouth with the front of my shirt.
The building's on fire and flames lick up the walls and consume everything they touch.
Enzo's on the ground a few feet away with blood running down his arm where shrapnel clipped him.
"Can you move?" I ask, noting the beam lying across one of his feet.
Luckily, I can move it easily, and he pushes himself to his feet.
We stumble out of the building and into the street.
Rico and Marco are already there.
Marco's injured too, holding his side where blood seeps through his shirt.
"We need to leave," Rico says. "That's gonna bring attention."
He's not wrong.
Something that loud will have authorities here in under ten minutes.
And we can't stick around to explain what went wrong.
I drag my injured men toward the cars, limping because my knee feels twisted from that fall.
We get back to the cars and drive away, and I watch the building burn in the rearview mirror until it disappears from view.
The raid was supposed to be quick and clean.
Instead, it turned into a disaster that nearly got my men killed.
Once again, I believe Gerard knew we were coming, which means he has more informants keeping tabs on me than I knew about.
I drive back to the villa with my hands tight on the wheel.
My mind replays the explosion over and over.
The sound of the click.
The heat of the blast.
The way Enzo went down.
We were lucky. A few seconds slower and we'd all be dead.
This is what my life has become—a series of close calls and narrow escapes.
A constant battle to stay one step ahead of my enemies while everything around me falls apart.
My father died in an explosion, a car bomb planted by a rival faction when I was nineteen.
I found out about it through a phone call while I was in Milan closing a deal.
By the time I got back to Rome, his body was already in the morgue.
I never got to say goodbye or tell him that I’d take care of his legacy.
He raised me to be hard and emotionless.
To survive at any cost.
He taught me that caring about people made you weak and that love was a liability.
That the only things that mattered were power and control.
I believed him.
I lived that way for years and built walls around myself so high, nobody could climb them.
I told myself I didn't need family or connection or anything that resembled weakness
Then Angelica walked back into my life with a daughter I didn't know existed, and those walls started crumbling.
Sofia makes me want to be a better man, one who can find a spot in his heart for the more normal things and not just the violence.
She makes me want to be a father.
A real father who reads bedtime stories and buys Christmas gifts and teaches her about the world.
I'm not in a very personable mood when we get back to the villa.
It's late, everyone should be in bed, but I still see lights on.
Still, I have no choice but to go inside.
I park and walk in.
My clothes are covered in soot and my ears are still ringing from the explosion.
I head toward my den to clean up, but before I reach the hallway, Sofia comes running toward me from the living area.
She's holding something in her hands and her face is lit up with excitement.
"Dante, look what I made," she says.
She crashes into my legs and hugs them tightly.
I look down and see a small clay figure in her hand.
It's roughly shaped like a person with a robe and a staff.
A shepherd for the nativity scene.
"I made it all by myself," she says. "Marta showed me how to mold the clay, but I did all the work. Do you like it?"
I kneel down so I’m at her level.
She holds the figure up for me to inspect.
The details are simple but careful. She put real effort into this.
"It's very good," I say, smiling proudly.
The swelling in my chest is so simple but so profound.
This little girl is my blood, and everything she will ever do every day of her life will be perfect to me.
"Can we add it to the presepe?"
"Of course."
She takes my hand and pulls me toward the living area.
The nativity scene sits on a table near the Christmas tree.
Marta and Angelica have been helping Sofia build it over the past few days.
There are figures of Mary and Joseph and the animals, a small wooden stable, and hay scattered across the base.
Sofia places her shepherd carefully among the other figures and steps back to examine the arrangement with a critical eye.
"He needs to be closer to the baby Jesus," she says. "Because the shepherds were the first ones to see him."
I reach over and adjust the figure slightly. "How's that?" I ask, kneeling beside her.
"Perfect."
She beams at me and then wraps her arms around my neck.
The gesture catches me off guard.
She hugs me like I'm someone she trusts completely and feels safe with.
And I don't take the weight of it lightly.
It's a powerful thing to be trusted by a child.
I hug her back and close my eyes.
This is what I've been missing my entire life.
This is what my father never taught me to value.
Connection, love, the feeling of being needed by someone who depends on you for more than just food and a roof over their head.
When Sofia pulls back, she notices the soot on my clothes. "Why are you so dirty?"
"I had some work to do. I'll clean up in a minute."
"Okay," she announces before running back to the nativity scene to rearrange the figures again.
I stand and turn to find Angelica watching me from the doorway.
Her eyes are on the bruises forming on my knuckles and the cut above my eyebrow.
She doesn't say anything, but her expression speaks volumes.
She walks over and kneels down beside me then pulls a tissue from her pocket to dab at the cut.
Her touch is gentle but firm.
She works quickly to clean away the blood before Sofia notices.
"What happened?" she asks quietly.
"A raid. It didn't go as planned."
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Just bruises. Nothing serious." Shame creeps in like I'm speaking to my mother as a naughty child who broke something precious of hers.
She finishes cleaning the cut and sits back on her heels.
We're close enough that I can see the worry in her eyes, the fear that something worse could've happened.
"You need to be more careful," she says.
"I'm always careful."
"That's not what this looks like." She gestures to my face and arms. "This looks like you're taking unnecessary risks." Having this hushed conversation so close to Sofia feels risky, but Angelica doesn't seem to care.
She's having her crack at me as she well should.
I have a family now and she's right for calling out my risk taking.
"There's no such thing as a safe risk in my line of work."
She's quiet for a moment, then she asks, "Do you want her to have to spend Christmas alone?" Her brow furrows as she narrows her eyes at me.
The question surprises me. "What?"
"If you get yourself killed, your daughter will end up like you." Her use of that term clashes with the way she's spoken to me previously, but her point lands hard.
I think back to those years.
My father was always working.
My mother tried to create holiday traditions, but they felt hollow without my father's presence.
After she and my brother died, the holidays stopped meaning anything at all.
She stands, and I stand with her.
There’s so much conflict on her face, fear warring with her attempt to stay calm.
She's so right.
Sofia needs me to be here for her, not just show up in a body bag one morning.
"Please," she whispers. "Please just let us walk away when this is over. Let us go back to Naples and live our lives. You can visit Sofia. You can be part of her life. But don't make us stay here."
Her words are a punch to the chest.
She's asking me to let them go and give up the family I just found.
I reach out and cup her face in my hands. "I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I need you here. Sofia needs her father, Tesoro. I need you…"
"Dante." Angelica shies away when I try to lean in to kiss her.
She's clearly still not happy with this arrangement and yoyoing between wanting to be with me and being terrified of my world.
I don’t know how to fix that war she's suffering from when I can't even make my own war stop.
"I know you're scared and this life terrifies you. But I'm asking you to trust me."
She opens her mouth to respond, but a knock on the doorframe interrupts us.
Rico stands in the doorway with his arm bandaged.
His expression is grim.
"We have a problem," he says.
I drop my hands from Angelica's face and turn to him. "What kind of problem?"
My question draws a look of concern to his face as he looks down at Angelica and then Sofia who is playing pretend with the Nativity characters, oblivious to my world unraveling.
My shoulders drop and I sigh. "I'll be there in a moment," I tell him.
Rico nods and leaves, and I turn back to Angelica.
She's watching me with an expression I can't read.
She's already made up her mind about leaving.
"I have to go," I say.
"I know."
"We'll finish this conversation later."
"Will we?" she asks dryly and pulls away from me, moving toward Sofia, ripping my heart out as she goes.
I want to promise her that we’ll figure this out together.
But the truth is I don't know if I can win this war and keep my family at the same time.
I don't know if I can be the man she needs me to be and the man I have to be to survive at the same time.
I turn to walk out, but as the door shuts behind me, all I can think is how bad it will hurt if she really wants to leave.
I can't make her stay.
And I could take Sofia.
I have enough power, money, and resources to do it, but hurting Angelica to keep Sofia feels just as painful.
And I don't know how to solve that problem without losing one of them.