CHAPTER 12
DANTE
I sat in the leather captain’s chair near the front of the cabin, a tablet resting on my knee.
The screen displayed the satellite layout of the private marina in Miami where Antonio Rossi was currently hiding.
It was a sprawling, high-end facility, heavily guarded by private security that Rossi had undoubtedly bribed.
I wasn't looking at the screen.
My attention was fixed on the woman sleeping on the small sofa across the aisle.
Sienna was curled onto her side, completely buried under a thick cashmere blanket.
The flight attendant had offered her champagne when we boarded; Sienna had asked for a double espresso, drank it in one shot, and promptly passed out three minutes after takeoff. The adrenaline crash had hit her hard.
"She’s going to be a problem on the ground, boss."
Luca dropped into the seat across from me, keeping his voice low. He was cleaning the barrel of a customized Sig Sauer, his eyes flicking between the weapon and my sleeping wife.
"She is not a problem," I replied, my tone flat enough to serve as a warning. "She is my wife."
"I know she’s your wife. I was at the wedding," Luca pointed out, snapping the slide of the gun back into place.
"But taking her into an active combat zone?
The Petrovs sent a six-man hit squad. They aren't going to Miami to talk.
If bullets start flying on those docks, I can't guarantee I can cover her and hit the target. "
"You don't cover her," I told him, locking the tablet screen and setting it on the small table between us. "I cover her."
Luca paused, the gun resting on his thigh. He looked at me, really looked at me, his dark eyes analyzing the shift in my posture.
"You left her at the estate when you went to Switzerland," Luca noted quietly. "The estate is a fortress. Fifty men. Dogs. Cameras. It’s the safest place in the country. Why didn't you leave her there this time?"
I looked away from him, my gaze drifting back to Sienna.
The soft rise and fall of her breathing was the only thing keeping the violent, chaotic energy in my chest tethered to reality.
I couldn't explain it to Luca because I barely understood it myself. When the phone rang in the bedroom, when I realized the Petrovs were moving on her father, the logical, tactical part of my brain had screamed to leave her in New York. The estate was secure.
But the memory of the black box at the front gate had paralyzed that logic.
The Petrovs had bypassed my perimeter once to drop a message. If they realized Rossi was out of reach, they would pivot back to the leverage. They would come for Sienna. And if I was a thousand miles away when they did, fifty armed men wouldn't be enough to stop the panic that would tear me apart.
I couldn't leave her. The physical distance was no longer an acceptable tactical risk.
"Because Rossi is her father," I said, offering Luca the only excuse he would accept without questioning my sanity. "She gave us the ledger. She gave us the accountant. She earned the right to see this finish."
Luca didn't look entirely convinced, but he knew better than to push. He holstered his weapon and stood up. "We land in forty minutes. Silas has two armored SUVs waiting on the tarmac. The marina is a twenty-minute drive from the airstrip."
"Have Silas pull the blueprints for the harbormaster’s office," I instructed. "Rossi won't be sitting on the boat. He’s too paranoid. He’ll be in a secure room waiting for the tide to turn."
Luca nodded and walked toward the back of the cabin to brief the rest of the strike team.
I stood up, crossing the narrow aisle, and crouched down next to the sofa.
Sienna shifted slightly, her brow furrowing in her sleep.
The heavy platinum ring on her left hand caught the dim cabin lighting.
Less than three hours ago, that hand had been tangled in my hair, her nails digging into my skin as she shattered underneath me.
The memory sent a sharp, heavy spike of heat straight to my groin, completely inappropriate for the current situation.
I reached out, gently resting my hand over her shoulder.
"Sienna," I murmured.
She woke up instantly. There was no groggy transition. Her brown eyes snapped open, clear and entirely focused. She pushed herself up on one elbow, the blanket falling away to reveal the dark sweater she was still wearing.
"Are we there?" she asked, her voice slightly raspy.
"Almost." I stayed crouched beside her, keeping my voice low. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."
She sat up fully, pulling her knees to her chest. "I’m listening."
"The marina is private. Rossi paid off the local security, which means we will have to breach the main gate," I explained, watching her face for any sign of panic. There was none. "The Petrov hit squad is likely already in the city. If they beat us to the docks, it will be a three-way firefight."
"Okay," Sienna said, nodding slowly. "What do you want me to do?"
"You stay in the SUV with Fridge," I told her. "The glass is Level 4 ballistic. The doors will be locked from the inside. You do not roll down the window. You do not open the door. Even if you see me bleeding on the pavement, you do not get out of that car."
Sienna’s jaw tightened. "If you are bleeding on the pavement, Dante, I am not going to sit in a car."
"Yes, you are." I moved my hand, gripping the back of her neck, my thumb resting against the erratic pulse jumping beneath her skin.
"I brought you with me because I trust my own eyes more than I trust a perimeter wall in New York.
But if you step out of that vehicle, you become a liability. You become the target."
She stared at me, the stubborn defiance fighting against the logic of my words.
"If they get to him first..." she started, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If the Russians get to my father..."
"They won't," I promised, my thumb stroking her skin once. "I will bring him out. Alive."
The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom, announcing our final descent into Miami.
I let go of her neck and stood up, walking back to my seat to strap in.
The heat of Miami hit us the second the cabin doors opened. It was a wet, suffocating humidity, thick with the smell of salt and impending rain.
Silas was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, holding the door to a massive, matte-black armored SUV.
"Boss," Silas nodded as I approached. "The Petrovs touched down at a private strip ten miles south of here about twenty minutes ago. They are moving toward the marina now."
"Then we move faster," I said.
I put my hand on the small of Sienna’s back, guiding her into the back seat of the SUV. I slid in next to her, pulling the heavy door shut. The sound of the armor sealing us inside was absolute. Fridge climbed into the driver’s seat, and Luca took the passenger side.
The drive through the dark streets of Miami was tense. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the heavy hum of the V8 engine and the occasional crackle of the tactical radio Silas was monitoring in the lead car.
Sienna sat perfectly still beside me, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She was staring out the tinted window, watching the neon lights of the city blur past.
I reached across the leather seat and covered her hands with mine.
She didn't look at me, but she turned her hands over, lacing her fingers through mine. Her grip was tight, a silent anchor in the dark.
"Approaching the target," Fridge announced from the front seat.
I looked out the windshield. The private marina was surrounded by a high, white stucco wall. The iron gates were closed. Two private security guards were standing inside the guardhouse, drinking coffee.
"Silas," I said into the comms. "Take the gate."
The lead SUV didn't slow down.
Silas hit the accelerator. The massive, armored front grill of the vehicle slammed into the iron gates with a deafening crash, tearing the metal off its hinges and sending it screeching across the pavement.
The two guards in the booth dropped their coffee, scrambling backward in absolute shock. They didn't even reach for their weapons. They knew exactly what kind of men drove through iron gates.
Fridge pulled our SUV through the wreckage, stopping in the shadows between two massive, dry-docked yachts.
"Stay here," I ordered Sienna, letting go of her hand.
I grabbed my rifle from the floorboard, popped the door open, and stepped out into the humid night air. Luca was right behind me, his switchblade replaced by a compact submachine gun.
The marina was quiet. The water lapped gently against the concrete piers. Dozens of luxury yachts bobbed in the dark water, but only one had its running lights on. A sleek, sixty-foot cruiser docked at the very end of the pier.
"That’s his boat," Luca murmured, falling into step beside me.
"He isn't on it," I said, scanning the shadows. "The harbormaster’s office is the concrete building to the left. It has reinforced doors. He’s hiding."
We moved silently across the pavement, using the dry-docked boats as cover.
We were fifty yards from the office when the first shot rang out.
It didn't come from the office. It came from the roof of a nearby storage shed.
The bullet sparked against the concrete exactly where I had been standing a second before.
"Sniper!" Luca yelled, diving behind a stack of wooden crates.
"The Petrovs are already here," I gritted out, pressing my back against the hull of a yacht.
The silence of the marina shattered. Automatic gunfire erupted from the shadows near the water, tearing into the wooden crates hiding my men. The Russians hadn't just beaten us here; they had set an ambush.
I raised my rifle, catching the muzzle flash from the roof of the shed in my thermal scope. I squeezed the trigger twice. The shooter slumped forward, his weapon clattering off the tin roof and hitting the pavement.
"Move up!" I ordered over the comms. "Suppressing fire on the docks!"
My men opened up, a deafening roar of coordinated violence that forced the Russians behind cover.
I broke from the yacht, sprinting across the open pavement toward the harbormaster’s office. A bullet clipped the sleeve of my shirt, burning a hot line across my bicep, but I didn't stop.
I hit the concrete wall of the office, pressing my back flat against it. Luca slid in beside me a second later, breathing heavily.
"There are at least eight of them," Luca panted, slapping a fresh magazine into his weapon. "They brought heavy artillery."
"Keep them pinned," I told him. "I’m going inside."
I spun around the corner of the doorframe. The reinforced glass of the door was already shattered, likely from the Russians trying to breach it earlier. I kicked the remaining shards out of the way and stepped into the dark office.
The room was a mess of overturned desks and scattered paperwork.
"Rossi!" I barked, keeping my rifle raised.
A pathetic, whimpering sound came from behind a heavy metal filing cabinet in the back corner.
I walked over, my boots crunching on broken glass.
Antonio Rossi was curled into a ball on the floor. He was wearing a wrinkled linen suit, clutching a leather briefcase to his chest like a child holding a blanket. He looked up at me, his face pale and slick with sweat.
"Dante," he gasped, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and desperate relief. "Thank God. The Russians... they’re outside. They’re trying to kill me."
I stared down at the man who had sold my wife to start a war.
"I know," I said, my voice stripped of emotion.
I lowered my rifle, letting it hang by the strap, and reached for the collar of his expensive linen suit.
"Get up, Antonio," I ordered, hauling him to his feet with one hand. "We are going for a walk."