Chapter 24
DANTE
I haven’t slept since Luca was taken.
The ceiling above the bed has a thin crack running through the corner, one that I don’t remember being there, but I’ve been staring at it for so long it now feels sewn into my skull.
I keep counting the crooked lines, and memorizing the patterns, anything to keep me from going berserk.
Scarlett finally fell asleep a while ago, and that alone brought me little relief as I feared she’d end up with a fever from all that crying. Her breathing is slow and even against my chest.
I barely breathe, as if staying perfectly still might somehow keep the world from taking anything else from me.
My son is out there. With Viktor.
My chest tightens painfully whenever I think of it. This is the man I trusted above almost everyone—except Marco.
Fifteen years at my side. Fifteen years of blood, of gunfire, of bodies buried and secrets shared. I gave him my back in every fight, and I gave him my family.
When did he change? How come I didn’t get even the slightest inkling?
How did I not notice him spinning his web strand by strand while I walked straight into it, blind and arrogant enough to believe loyalty was unbreakable?
Now my son is paying for that mistake.
The thought makes me want to bury my fist into another wall. I’ve already destroyed my office. Already shattered everything within reach. But the rage is still there, burning under my skin like acid, and there’s nowhere for it to go.
Scarlett shifts against me, murmuring something in her sleep. Probably another nightmare. She’s had three already, each one pulling her awake with Luca’s name on her lips before exhaustion drags her back under.
I press my mouth to her hair and breathe her in, my arm tightens around her automatically, some primitive instinct trying to protect what’s left even though I already failed at protecting what mattered most.
She still blames herself.
I should have told her it wasn’t her fault, said something to ease that guilt crushing her from the inside out. But I couldn’t find the words because all I could think was that I had fifteen years of warning signs and I missed every single one.
Viktor always asked too many questions about the families’ movements. Had always positioned himself close to sensitive information. Always had an excuse ready when something went wrong on his watch.
And I dismissed every red flag because I didn’t want to see them. He is my second-in-command after all and has protected me from death a couple of times.
Dawn soon arrives, and I realize we don’t have much time left.
I ease myself gently out from under Scarlett, carefully tucking the blanket around her shoulders before I stand. She needs rest more than I do, and one of us has to be functional when we get Luca back.
The hallway outside is quiet, but I can hear activity downstairs.
Marco’s voice giving orders. The familiar rhythm of men preparing for war.
The sounds should comfort me, but they just remind me how badly I failed.
All these resources, all this power, and I couldn’t keep one five-year-old boy safe in his own bed.
I take the back stairs down to the basement where most of my people don’t even know there’s a door. The security panel recognizes my palm print and retinal scan, and the reinforced steel slides open with a creak.
The operations room spreads out before me, full of screens and servers and enough firepower to level a city block. I built this over six years, piece by piece, while everyone thought I was just my father’s attack dog.
I started with a single server and a handful of contacts. Now it’s an intelligence network that rivals government agencies, weapons stockpiles hidden in warehouses across three states, offshore accounts fat enough to fund a small army.
They had no idea. My father, the council, the other families. They looked at me and saw muscle, an enforcer, and a weapon to be pointed at their enemies.
What they never saw was the empire I was building right under their noses.
I cross to the main console and pull up the cathedral blueprints for the hundredth time.
St. Sebastian’s is old, built in 1892 with stone walls three feet thick and a basement that used to hide bootleggers during Prohibition.
Viktor chose it because he knows I can’t just storm the place without risking Luca.
The ledger is hidden there somewhere, probably in one of the old smuggling compartments, and Viktor wants both prizes in one location.
Smart. I always knew he was smart.
I just never thought he’d use it against me.
“Boss.”
Marco appears in the doorway, looking almost as wrecked as I am. There are dark circles under his eyes from hours of no sleep. He’s been running search teams all night while I held Scarlett together.
“Anything?”
“We found one of Viktor’s cousins. Third cousin, who lives in Queens.” Marco moves to stand beside me, studying the blueprints. “He doesn’t know where Viktor is, but he confirmed something interesting. Viktor’s been moving money for the past eight months. Offshore accounts in Cyprus.”
“How much?”
“Enough to disappear permanently. Him and about a dozen men.”
So this isn’t just about the ledger. It’s about Viktor building his own empire with stolen funds and the secrets in that book as leverage. He’s not trying to take over the families. He’s trying to escape them entirely, and he needs the ledger to guarantee his safety once he’s gone.
I file that information away and focus on the screens. “The cathedral has four entry points. Main doors, side chapel, sacristy, and the basement access through the old bootlegger tunnel.”
“Viktor will have them all covered.”
“Viktor has maybe twenty men left after we took out his backup team last month. I have sixty ready to move. Loyal soldiers who answer to me personally, not the families, not my father. Men I’ve been cultivating for years.”
“He has Luca.”
The words hit me like a hammer on the chest. I grip the edge of the console so hard until my knuckles turn white.
“I know what he has.”
Marco doesn’t flinch. He’s known me too long to be scared of my anger. “I’m saying we need to be smart about this. Viktor’s expecting you to come in guns blazing. That’s what he’s planning for. He knows you, knows how you react when someone threatens what’s yours.”
“Then we give him something he’s not planning for.”
I pull up another screen, this one showing the full extent of what I’ve built over the past six years.
Safe houses in seven states. Offshore accounts that make Viktor’s look like pocket change.
Weapons caches hidden in locations only I know about.
A network of informants in every major family, every law enforcement agency, every corner of this city that matters.
Marco stares at the screen for a long moment. “So what’s the play?”
I turn away from the screens and face him directly.
“We go in through all four entry points simultaneously. Viktor can’t cover them all with twenty men, not effectively.
Main force hits the front doors, draws attention and firepower.
Smaller teams breach the side chapel and sacristy.
And the extraction team goes through the tunnel. ”
“You want to lead the tunnel team yourself.”
“No.” It costs me something to say it. Every instinct screams at me to be the one who reaches my son first. To be the face Luca sees when he’s finally safe.
“Viktor will expect me to come for Luca personally. He’ll be watching for me, positioned to intercept.
That’s why you’ll be leading the tunnel team.
I’ll take the sacristy entrance and make sure he sees me.
Draw his attention while you get Luca out. ”
Marco nods slowly, understanding the logic even if he doesn’t like it. “What about Scarlett?”
“She stays here with Elena. The panic room on the third floor is reinforced steel and concrete. She’ll be safe there until it’s over.”
“Boss.” Marco’s voice is careful, the way it gets when he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. “She’s not going to accept that.”
“She doesn’t get a choice.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. Scarlett stopped being someone I could control the moment she walked back into my life with our son. She’s fierce and stubborn and absolutely unwilling to sit on the sidelines when Luca is in danger.
“Get the teams ready,” I tell him. “Full briefing in two hours. I want everyone armed and in position by noon. Anyone who isn’t ready gets left behind.”
Marco leaves and I stay in the operations room, running scenarios through my head until they blur together.
Every plan has their loopholes. Every approach carries risk.
There’s no way to guarantee Luca’s safety, and that’s the thing that keeps eating at me, the uncertainty, the knowledge that I can’t control this no matter how hard I try.
I’ve spent my whole life being the one in control. The one who sees every angle, plans for anything and eliminates every threat before it materializes. And now my son’s life depends on me being perfect, and I’ve already proven I’m not.
I don’t hear Scarlett come in until it’s too late. One second I’m alone with the screens and the next she’s standing in the doorway wearing one of my shirts and looking at me like she’s seeing something new. How the hell did she even find here?
“Marco said you were down here.”
“You should be resting.”
“So should you.” She crosses the room slowly, taking in the screens and servers and weapons lockers lining the walls.
Her eyes move across the displays showing troop positions, financial records, intelligence reports.
I watch her face as she processes what she’s seeing and wait for the fear or the disgust or the realization that I’m something darker than she thought.
But I wait for nothing because it doesn’t come.
She stops in front of the main console, studying the cathedral blueprints with an intensity that surprises me. “This is a lot, like you’re planning a world war.”
“Tough times calls for tough measures. Viktor’s holding Luca at St. Sebastian’s.
He wants the exchange there because it’s defensible and he knows the layout.
” I move to stand beside her, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin.
“We’re going in through four entry points with sixty men.
Marco will lead the extraction team through the basement tunnel while I draw Viktor’s attention from the sacristy. ”
“And where will I be during all this?”
Here it comes. “Upstairs with Elena. There’s a panic room on the third floor that can withstand anything short of a missile strike. You’ll be safe there until—”
“No.”
“Scarlett.”
“I said no.” She turns to face me and her eyes are harder than I’ve ever seen them. Steel wrapped in green. “Luca will be terrified. He’s been with Viktor for over twenty-four hours now and he’s five years old. He needs his mother there when you get him out.”
“He needs you alive.”
“He needs me there.” She doesn’t back down. “I’m a nurse. I can help if people get hurt during the assault. I can stabilize wounds, keep people alive long enough to get real medical attention. And I will not sit in a bunker while my son is in danger.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“You’re right. It’s not.” Her voice is steady but final. “I’m done being protected. I’m done being left behind while other people risk their lives for my child. Either I go with you or I find my own way to that cathedral and you can’t watch me every second between now and then.”
The thing is, I believe her. This isn’t an empty threat or desperate emotion. This is Scarlett telling me exactly what she’s going to do and daring me to stop her.
I could. I could have Marco lock her in the panic room and post guards at every door. I could sedate her and make sure she sleeps through the whole operation. I have the power to keep her safe whether she wants it or not.
But a lot has changed since she walked back into my life. My perspective of her person has evolved, and I no longer see her as some ornament to protect but the mother of my son. And now, my partner, no matter how I tried to deny it.
“You stay with the medical team,” I hear myself say instead. “Two blocks back from the cathedral until we have Luca secured. Then and only then do you come in.”
“Deal.”
“I mean it, Scarlett. If you try to go in early, my men have orders to physically restrain you. I won’t lose you both.”
“I understand.” She holds out her hand and I take it without thinking. Her fingers are cold and trembling slightly, but her grip is strong. “Show me everything. I want to understand what you’ve planned.”
So I do. I walk her through the blueprints and explain each team’s role, the timing of the breach, and the extraction protocols.
She asks questions that surprise me with their intelligence, points out a gap in our coverage near the side chapel that I actually missed, and suggests positioning the medical team closer so they can respond faster if things go wrong.
By the time Marco returns for the full briefing, Scarlett knows the operation as well as any of my men.
“Teams are assembled,” Marco says from the doorway. “Weapons distributed. Everyone knows their positions.”
Scarlett stands beside me, shoulder touching mine, and I feel something I haven’t felt since I found Luca’s empty bed.
We’re going to get him back. Whatever it takes. Whoever we have to kill.
My son is coming home.