CHAPTER 14
DANTE
The air conditioning in the SUV struggled against the oppressive, swampy heat of the Florida Everglades. The neon lights of Miami had faded twenty minutes ago, replaced by a pitch-black stretch of two-lane highway flanked by dense sawgrass and dark water.
I kept my left hand laced with Sienna’s. Her skin was cold, her fingers gripping mine with a silent, desperate strength. She hadn't looked at her father since she condemned him. She kept her eyes fixed on the dark window, her profile illuminated only by the faint glow of the dashboard instruments.
In the corner of the back seat, Antonio Rossi was quietly weeping.
It was a pathetic, wet sound that grated against my nerves. He was clutching his knees, rocking slightly, muttering prayers or excuses under his breath. I tuned him out. He was already a ghost. He just didn't realize it yet.
My right bicep throbbed with a dull, persistent burn. The bullet had only grazed the muscle, tearing through the fabric of my shirt and leaving a shallow trench in the flesh, but the blood was still seeping steadily, making the fabric sticky and uncomfortable.
"Turn left at the next marker," I told Fridge, breaking the silence in the cabin. "The access road is unpaved."
Fridge nodded, slowing the massive vehicle. We turned off the highway, the tires crunching loudly against the crushed limestone of the hidden driveway.
The secondary safe house wasn't a mansion. It was a utilitarian, single-story concrete structure built on reinforced pilings over the swamp water. It was designed for one purpose: to hold people who didn't want to be held, in a place where nobody could hear them scream.
Silas’s SUV was already parked out front, the headlights cut. Two of my men were standing on the wooden dock leading to the front door, their rifles slung across their chests.
Fridge brought the car to a stop.
I let go of Sienna’s hand. The immediate loss of her touch left a cold void in the center of my palm.
"Silas is going to take you inside," I told her, keeping my voice low so only she could hear. "He will take you to the back room. You stay there until I come for you."
Sienna finally turned away from the window. She looked at my face, then down at the dark stain covering the sleeve of my shirt.
"You need to clean that," she said, her voice completely steady, refusing to acknowledge the man weeping in the corner.
"I will." I reached up, brushing my knuckles against her cheek. "Go inside."
I opened the heavy armored door and stepped out into the suffocating humidity. Silas was waiting by the bumper. He offered a quick nod, moving past me to open Sienna’s door. She climbed out, not looking back into the vehicle, and followed Silas up the wooden ramp toward the safe house.
I watched her until the heavy steel door closed behind her.
Then, I turned back to the SUV.
I reached inside, grabbed Antonio Rossi by the lapels of his ruined linen suit, and hauled him out of the car. He hit the limestone driveway hard, scraping his hands, but I didn't give him time to recover. I dragged him up the ramp and into the main room of the safe house.
The room was bare concrete. A single metal table and two folding chairs sat in the center under a harsh fluorescent bulb.
I threw him into one of the chairs. He scrambled to right himself, his breathing ragged.
"Dante, listen to me," Antonio pleaded, holding his bleeding hands up. "I can fix this. I have accounts in Panama. I can wire you another five million by morning. Just let me walk."
I pulled the heavy wooden chair out and sat across from him. I rested my forearms on the metal table, ignoring the sharp sting in my right arm.
"You don't have five million dollars, Antonio," I said, my voice quiet and absolute. "You have a briefcase full of bearer bonds that currently belongs to me. You have nothing left to trade."
"I’m your father-in-law!" he cried, his voice cracking. "Sienna is my blood. You can't kill me. She’ll never forgive you."
A dark, humorless laugh scraped the back of my throat. "Sienna is the one who gave me your accountant. She is the one who told me you would run to Valerie’s house. She is the one who sat in my car ten minutes ago and told me you were a liability."
Antonio stared at me, the color completely draining from his face as the reality of his daughter’s betrayal finally sank in.
"She wouldn't," he whispered.
"She did." I leaned forward, the metal table cold against my skin. "Because unlike you, Sienna understands loyalty. Now, you are going to tell me exactly what you promised the Petrovs before you stole their money. Did you give them the shipping manifests for the Brooklyn docks?"
Antonio hesitated, his eyes darting toward the door.
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't pull my weapon. I simply looked at Luca, who was leaning against the concrete wall near the entrance.
Luca pulled his switchblade, the silver blade snapping open with a loud, sharp click.
"Yes!" Antonio screamed, pressing his back against the folding chair. "Yes, I gave them the manifests. I told them which containers were clean and which ones were moving the syndicate’s weapons. I had to, Dante. They were going to kill me."
"They are going to kill you anyway," I pointed out. "Did you give them the security codes for the warehouse?"
"Only the exterior gates," he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. "I swear to God, that’s all I gave them. Just the exterior gates and the manifests."
I stared at the broken man sitting across from me. He had sold his daughters, betrayed his syndicate, and started a war that would cost me millions to clean up, all because he was too weak to handle his own debts.
I stood up, pushing the metal chair back.
"Luca," I said.
"Boss." Luca stepped forward, his eyes locked on Rossi.
"Take him out to the swamp," I ordered, my voice dead flat. "Make sure he doesn't float."
Antonio let out a raw, guttural scream, throwing himself out of the chair and grabbing for my legs. "No! Dante, please! Sienna! Let me talk to Sienna!"
I stepped back, easily avoiding his grasp. Luca moved in, grabbing Antonio by the back of his suit collar and dragging him toward the heavy steel door at the back of the room. The door opened to a small wooden pier that led directly into the black, alligator-infested water of the Everglades.
I didn't watch them go.
I turned my back on the screaming man and walked down the short, narrow hallway toward the back room where Silas had taken my wife.
I opened the door.
The room was small, containing only a twin bed, a sink, and a small first-aid station mounted on the wall. Sienna was standing by the sink. She had taken off the oversized sweater. She was wearing only a thin white tank top and her gray sweatpants.
She had the first-aid kit open on the counter.
She looked up when I walked in. She didn't ask where her father was. She didn't ask what the screaming was about. She looked at the blood soaking the sleeve of my shirt.
"Take it off," she instructed, her voice completely steady.
I closed the door behind me, locking it.
I unbuckled my shoulder holster, setting the rig on the small bed, and began unbuttoning my shirt with my left hand.
The fabric was stuck to the wound on my right bicep.
I gritted my teeth, ripping it free in one sharp motion, and tossed the ruined shirt onto the floor.
I walked over to the sink and sat on the edge of the mattress.
Sienna stepped between my knees. She didn't hesitate. She took a bottle of saline solution and a stack of sterile gauze from the kit.
"This is going to burn," she warned quietly.
"I’ve had worse," I replied, looking up at her face.
She poured the saline over the gauze and pressed it directly against the bullet graze. The sting was sharp, a hot flare of pain that made the muscles in my arm twitch, but I didn't pull away. I kept my eyes on her.
Her brow was furrowed in concentration. Her hands were incredibly gentle as she wiped away the dried blood, cleaning the edges of the torn flesh. The scent of vanilla and the faint, lingering smell of the ocean clung to her skin.
"He gave them the shipping manifests," I told her, the quiet words filling the small space between us. "He compromised the Brooklyn warehouse."
Sienna’s hand paused for a fraction of a second before she continued cleaning the wound. "Can you change the codes?"
"I already sent the order," I said. "The Petrovs will hit a brick wall if they try to breach it tonight."
She picked up a tube of antiseptic ointment and a fresh bandage. She applied the ointment carefully, her fingertips brushing against my skin.
"Is it done?" she asked, not looking at my eyes.
"Yes."
She let out a slow, shaky breath. The rigid control she had maintained since we left the marina finally cracked. A single tear slipped down her cheek, dropping onto my bare chest.
She wasn't crying for the man he was today. She was crying for the father he was supposed to be.
I reached up with my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the back of her neck, pulling her forward until her forehead rested against my shoulder. She dropped the bandage onto the counter and wrapped her arms around my torso, burying her face in the curve of my neck.
She didn't sob. She just held on to me, her body trembling with the silent, heavy weight of grief and absolute exhaustion.
I wrapped my right arm around her back, ignoring the sharp pull of pain in my bicep, and held her tight against my chest.
"I’ve got you," I murmured, pressing my lips to the top of her head. "It’s over, Sienna. He can't hurt you or your sister ever again."
We stayed like that for a long time. The silence of the safe house was absolute. The screaming outside had stopped minutes ago.
Eventually, Sienna pulled back. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her expression hardening back into the fierce, unbreakable mask I was coming to depend on.
She picked up the bandage and carefully taped it over the wound on my arm.
"There," she said, her voice slightly thick but steady. "It shouldn't bleed anymore."
"Thank you."
I looked down at her. She was standing between my knees, her hands resting lightly on my chest. We were in a concrete bunker in the middle of a swamp. We were surrounded by blood and the echoes of a mafia execution.
And yet, looking at her, I felt a strange, profound sense of peace.
"We fly back to New York in two hours," I told her, my hands sliding down to rest on her hips. "The war with the Petrovs isn't over, but they are blind and bleeding. They will sue for peace by the end of the week."
"And if they don't?" she asked, her brown eyes meeting mine.
"Then I will burn the rest of their organization to the ground," I promised, the words a simple statement of fact.
Sienna nodded slowly. She didn't look afraid of the violence anymore. She looked like she understood it.
She leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of my mouth.
"Let’s go home, Dante," she whispered.
I pulled her into my lap, burying my face in her hair, and for the first time in my life, the word home didn't sound like a fortress.
It sounded like her.