Chapter 12
DANTE
The blood on my shirt has dried to a stiff, uncomfortable crust by the time I reach my office. But I don’t bother changing.
Viktor and the rest of my inner circle are already waiting, and right now appearances don’t matter. Results do.
I walk through the door and five faces turn toward me. Viktor stands near my desk with his arms crossed. While Marco is leaning against the wall by the window. The other three—Santos, Dmitri, and Roy—occupy the chairs facing my desk.
“Talk,” I say, moving behind my desk and dropping into my chair.
Viktor speaks first. “There were six men in total. All dead except the one you interrogated. Professional contractors, former military by the looks of their mode of operation. I’m guessing someone paid serious money for this.”
“How’d they find us so fast?” Marco asks, looking flabbergasted. “She just landed a few hours ago.”
“They were already watching her in Portland.” I pull open my desk drawer and grab a bottle of whiskey, pouring into a glass. “Had PIs tracking her movements. The second she made contact with me, they mobilized.”
“That’s a lot of resources just to kill one witness,” Santos says.
“It’s not just about her.” I take a drink and let the burning feeling saturate my chest. “It’s about what she might know.”
The room goes quiet. They’re waiting for me to explain, but I take my time. Let them sit with the tension while I organize my thoughts.
“The Marchetti ledger,” I finally say. “That’s what this is about.”
Viktor straightens. “Boss, that ledger burned with the mansion six years ago. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone assumed that.” I pour another drink.
“But Antonio Marchetti wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have kept his insurance policy somewhere it could be destroyed in a fire.
That ledger contained blackmail material on all five families—financial records, compromising photos, details of illegal operations.
Whoever controlled it controlled the entire power structure in New York. ”
“So you think it still exists?” Troy asks.
“I think someone believes it exists. And they’re willing to wage war to find it.
” I lean back in my chair. “Five witnesses from that night. All dead in the last six months. Car crashes, overdoses, falls, fires—all staged to look like accidents. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a well thought out elimination.”
“They think the trafficking victims know where the ledger is hidden,” Marco says slowly.
“Exactly.” I drain my glass. “Which means whoever’s behind this believes Antonio told someone something before he died. Or that someone saw something. Someone like Scarlett.”
Viktor shifts on one foot. “Does she actually have information? Or was she bluffing to get protection?”
The question I’ve been asking myself since she called.
“I don’t know yet. But either way, she’s staying under this roof where I can keep her safe and find out the truth.”
“And if she doesn’t know anything?” Dimitri asks.
“Then they’ll figure that out eventually and move on to the next lead.
But until then, she’s a target.” I set my glass down now.
“Which means this house is now a fortress. Double the guards on every entrance. Motion sensors in the woods. Cameras covering every angle. Nobody gets within a hundred yards of this property without us knowing.”
“That’s going to strain our resources,” Viktor points out. “We’ve got operations across three boroughs that need attention.”
“Then delegate. This is priority one until the threat is neutralized.”
“What about finding the ledger ourselves?” Santos asks. “If we get to it first—”
“Then we control everything,” I finish. “That’s exactly what I’m planning. But first I need to know what Scarlett actually remembers from that night.”
The meeting continues for another hour. We discuss security protocols, assign rotating shifts, and map out potential vulnerabilities in the estate’s defenses. By the time everyone files out, it’s past midnight and my head is pounding.
I pour one more drink and stare at the clear liquid.
Six years of fighting and clawing my way to the top of New York’s underworld. And now it all comes back to one night. One job that went sideways. One girl I should have killed but didn’t. And a son I never knew existed.
That thought still makes my chest tight with rage so intense I want to put my fist through the wall.
I down the whiskey and stand. The house is quiet now, with everyone either asleep or on patrol. I should sleep too. Should get a few hours before tomorrow starts. But instead I find myself walking through the halls toward the guest wing.
Toward her.
I tell myself it’s business. That I need to question her about that night, and to extract whatever information she’s been holding for six years. Need to figure out if she actually knows something or if she’s just another dead end.
But part of me knows that’s bullshit. Part of me just needs to see her again.
I find her in the library on the second floor. She’s standing by the window, arms wrapped around herself, staring out at the darkened grounds. The moonlight catches her profile and for a second I’m transported back six years to that club.
She must hear me approach because she stiffens but doesn’t turn around.
“Is Luca asleep?” I ask.
“Finally.” Her voice is tight. “He cried for an hour. Kept saying he wanted to go home. That the scary man was going to hurt us.”
The words hit harder than they should. “I’m not going to hurt him.”
“He’s five years old, Dante. He just watched armed men attack this house. Watched you covered in blood. What did you expect?”
“I expected his mother to prepare him better for the reality of my world.”
Now she turns, and her eyes are blazing hot. “I didn’t want him in your world at all. That’s the whole point.”
“Well, he’s in it now. And he needs to learn that his father isn’t the monster his mother made him out to be.”
“Aren’t you?” She takes a step closer. “You just tortured and executed a man in front of security cameras. You broke his fingers. Shot him in the head. That’s exactly what a monster does.”
“That monster just saved your life and our son’s life. That monster is the only thing standing between you and the people who want you dead.”
She looks away, and I can see her struggling with the truth of that statement.
“We need to talk,” I say, changing the topic. “About that night, and about what you remember.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’ve spent six years trying to forget that night.”
“I don’t care. You need to remember now. Every detail. Everything Antonio said. Everything you saw. Everything that happened before I showed up and after.”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
I move closer until we’re only a few feet apart. “Because you might know where the ledger is. And if you don’t help me find it, those attacks won’t stop. They’ll keep coming until they kill you or until they’re satisfied you don’t know anything. Which means Luca will never be safe.”
That gets through to her quicker than I expected. I can see it in the way her shoulders tense.
“I don’t know anything about any ledger.”
“Maybe not consciously. But your brain probably saw things that night. Heard things. Processed details you might not even realize you remember. Trauma does that—locks memories away. But they’re still there.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then she walks to one of the leather chairs and lowers herself into it. “What do you want to know?”
I pull up a chair across from her and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Start from the beginning. When did Antonio grab you?”
Her hands twist in her lap. “I was returning home from my shift at the hospital when a van stopped and someone grabbed me and covered my mouth with a cloth. That was all I remembered until I woke up in a room with girls.”
“Go on…”
“There were six of us in total. All girls around my age. He kept us locked in the room. I heard from the girls that we were being prepared for buyers.”
Rage flows through me, but I keep my voice neutral. “And the night I showed up?”
“I was just there a few hours before you arrived, and Antonio came for me specifically. He took me to his bedroom. Started touching me. I fought back and then…” She swallows hard. “Then you kicked in the door.”
“What happened next?”
“You and Antonio fought. He had a gun. You had a gun too. It was bloody and you eventually shot him three times. You came toward me and I thought you were going to kill me too.”
“But I didn’t.”
“No. You told me to run. To disappear. So I did.”
I lean back slightly. “Can you remember anything else? Before Antonio died. Any information you may be missing out. Anything.”
She’s quiet, her brow furrowed in thought. “Well I do remember that he was yelling at you. Said you’d never find it. That it would die with him.”
“The ledger.”
“I didn’t know what he meant then. I was too scared to process anything.”
“What else? Think, Scarlett. This is important.”
She closes her eyes, and I watch her face as she goes back to that night in her mind.
“He said something about the families. That they’d all fall without him. That you were making a mistake.”
“That’s all?”
“I—” She stops, then goes very still. “Wait.”
Every muscle in my body tenses, as I lean forward in anticipation. “What?”
“There was something else. Between shots.” Her eyes are still closed, her breathing shallow. “He whispered something.”
“What did he whisper?”
“I couldn’t hear it clearly. The gunshots had made my ears ring and I was panicking. But it sounded like…like he said something about a saint. A saint watching.”
My body instantly goes rigid.
“A saint watching,” I repeat slowly.
“That’s what it sounded like. ‘The saint is watching’ or ‘a saint watches.’ Something like that. I didn’t understand it then and I blocked it out afterward. But now that you’re asking…” She opens her eyes and looks at me. “Does that mean something to you?”
I stand up and pace to the window, my mind racing. This information changes everything.
A saint watching.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
“What? What is it?”
I turn back to her. “You’re not just a witness. You might be the only person alive who knows where Antonio hid the ledger.”
Her face goes pale. “What are you talking about?”
“That memory you just recovered, It’s not random.
Antonio was telling you where to find it.
Or at least giving you a clue.” I move back to her chair and crouch down so we’re eye level.
“We need to work on recovering more of that memory, Scarlett. Every detail you can remember about his bedroom, about what he said, about where he was looking when he died.”
“I can’t—I’ve spent years trying to forget—”
“I know.” I reach out and grip her shoulders, keeping my touch firm but not painful.
“And I’ll help you through it. I’ll be patient.
We’ll take it slow. But you need to try, Scarlett.
You need to tell me immediately if you remember anything else.
Any detail, no matter how small. Because both our lives depend on it. Luca’s life depends on it.”
She stares at me with those green eyes wide and terrified, and I can see her processing everything I’ve just told her. See her realizing that she’s not just running from killers anymore—she’s sitting on information that could change the entire balance of power in this city.
Information that makes her more valuable alive than dead, which also makes her infinitely more dangerous to keep around.
But I’m not letting her go. Not now. Not ever.