Chapter 31
DANTE
Scarlett is no longer behind the pillar, though there are a few men on the ground with makeshift bandages.
Fucking hell.
My heart sinks violently, terror and panic crashing into me all at once, stealing the air from my lungs. For a second, I am totally disorganized and clueless on what to do.
I’m standing at the doorway to follow Viktor and Luca, but I also need to find Scarlett. I don’t even know which way to turn.
The gunfire and the chaos around me all blur into noise. Inside my head is a total mess. If Viktor gets away with Luca, then all of this means nothing. If Scarlett is hurt, if she’s been taken…
I quickly stop myself, because I begin to see red just by letting myself think of it.
I tap my comm with shaking fingers. “Marco, Scarlett is missing. Find her. Now.”
Then I move, running on pure instinct, and cutting through every obstacle that comes my way while I wait for Marco’s response, and I search every piece of protection she could have moved to hide behind.
Marco’s voice soon comes through two minutes later, and it’s the longest two minutes of my life. “Boss, we’ve got her. She and the boy are safe.”
She got to Luca? Oh, my fierce, fierce woman.
The relief that floods through me is so intense it nearly takes my legs out from under me. Safe. My son is safe. Scarlett found him, and Marco’s team has them both.
“Where?”
“Basement level. We’re holding position there. It’s the only spot clear of hostiles. My men are with them.”
“And Viktor?”
“Not here,” Marco says. “He’s left Luca in a room then ran.”
Goddammit. It means he’s slunk off somewhere.
“Keep them there. Don’t let anyone through.”
“Copy.”
I can breathe again. For the first time since this nightmare started, I can actually breathe. But there’s still work to finish.
Viktor is somewhere in this cathedral, and I’m going to find him. I’m going to end this.
The gunfire has dwindled considerably. Most of Viktor’s men are dead or dying, scattered across the cathedral floor like broken dolls. My own losses are bad, even worse than I hoped, but we’ve won the battle. What’s left now is personal.
I move through the sanctuary, stepping over bodies, scanning every shadow for movement. Blood squelches under my boots. The snow drifting through the broken windows is pink now, melting into pools of red.
I keep scanning the environment like a hawk until I finally see him. Viktor is limping toward the exit at the inner main altar.
Bastard. I groan, moving swiftly as a cat.
“Running already?” I call out. He stiffens and turns sharply.
His face is slick with sweat, pale beneath the grime, and a jagged wound drips blood in slow trickles down his armored cargo pants. It must have cut deep.
He raises his gun and squeezes the trigger.
Nothing.
He tries again.
Nothing.
The bastard isn’t even keeping track of his ammo.
“Out of bullets?” I ask, approaching slowly.
“What do you care?”
I aim at the wounded leg, intending to answer that, but my gun doesn’t respond.
Shit. I’m out of bullets too.
Viktor laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Just exhaustion. “So it comes down to this. Just you and me, like the old days.”
“The old days didn’t involve you kidnapping my son.”
“No.” He straightens himself, wincing slightly at the movement. “The old days involved me saving your life. Repeatedly. Remember Milan? Budapest? That clusterfuck in Jersey when the Colombians tried to take your head?”
“I remember.”
“Fifteen years, Dante. Fifteen years I had your back. And what did I get? Nothing. Not respect, not trust, not even a goddamn thank you.”
“You got paid. You got a position. You got my loyalty.”
“Your loyalty?” He spits blood onto the floor. “You don’t know what that word means. You never did.”
We’re circling each other now, both of us bleeding, both of us exhausted, moving around the altar like wolves sizing each other up before the kill.
“This didn’t have to happen,” Viktor says. “None of it. I was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me? You took my son.”
“To protect you from the truth about your father.” His eyes are intense. “The ledger, Dante. Do you have any idea what’s in it? What it says about your family? About the empire you inherited?”
“I know exactly what’s in it.”
That stops him. For a second, his guard drops.
“You know?”
“My investigators found fragments weeks ago. I know what my father did. The trafficking. The murders. All of it.”
“And you still came here? You still want that poison?”
“I want it destroyed. Or exposed. Either way, I want the truth out.”
Viktor shakes his head. “You’re a fool. That ledger will destroy everything your family built. Your legacy, your reputation, everything. Is that what you want your son to inherit? Shame and ruin?”
“My son deserves better than lies, and betrayal is betrayal,” I add coldly. “Regardless of whatever motive you think you had.”
Then I move first, but Viktor’s good, I’ll give him that. Fifteen years of training and combat experience don’t disappear just because you’re tired and bleeding. He blocks my first punch and counters with a knee aimed at my ribs that I barely dodge.
We trade blows in the shadow of the altar, grunting and bleeding and trying to kill each other with our bare hands. He catches me with an elbow to the jaw that makes me see stars and taste copper. I return the favor with a headbutt that opens a cut above his eye and sends him staggering backward.
We separate for a moment, both of us breathing hard. This is what fifteen years of partnership has come to. Two men who used to trust each other with their lives, now trying to end each other.
Blood is running into both our faces now. My ribs are screaming from that graze I took earlier. Viktor’s favoring his wounded leg, moving slower than he should.
But I’m not fighting for pride, money, or power. I’m fighting for my family, and that makes all the difference.
I catch his arm on the next swing and twist hard, feeling the joint give way with a wet pop. He hollers as his elbow dislocates, his arm bending in a twisted direction.
He tries to kick me with his good leg, but I’m ready for it. I drop low and sweep his feet out from under him, then bring my boot down on his knee before he can recover. The crunch sound is audible even over his screaming.
He collapses, writhing on the blood-stained floor, his arm and leg both useless now. I grab him by the collar and drag him up onto the altar, pinning him there with my weight while I pull the combat knife from my boot.
The blade presses against his throat.
“The ledger will destroy your family legacy,” he gasps out. “Your father’s crimes are documented in detail. Everything he did, every person he killed, every child’s life he ruined. You expose that and the Moretti name becomes poison.”
“I already told you. I know what’s in it.”
“Then you know what happens when it gets out. Your empire crumbles. Your allies abandon you. Your enemies smell blood in the water.”
“Good.” I press the knife harder, drawing a thin line of red. “Because I’m going to expose it all anyway. Every dirty secret. Every buried body. All of it.”
“Why? For what?”
“Because my son deserves better than lies. Better than a legacy built on blood and suffering. Better than growing up believing his family was something it never was.”
Viktor’s eyes widen as he sees the determination in my face. I’m not bluffing and I mean every word. His expression morphs into fear, finally. Bold of him to think I’d back down because the ledger contains dirt on my family.
“Dante, wait—”
But I’m done waiting and listening. Done with all of this. I just want to see my son and hug him tight.
I don’t kill him with the knife. That would be too quick. Instead, I slam his head against the altar hard enough to knock him unconscious, then stand up and leave him bleeding on the stone.
He’ll survive, but he’s dead meat. When he wakes up, he’ll answer for everything he’s done. But that’s for later. Right now, I need to find that ledger.
Following Antonio’s clue. “Where the saint watches the sinners.”
I repeat the words in my head and let it lead me to the side chapel.
It is a small and forgotten spot, tucked into a corner of the cathedral that most people would walk right past. There, the statue of St. Sebastian stands in an alcove, the stone saint pierced with arrows, his face turned toward heaven.
Where the saint watches the sinners.
My heart pounds as I approach the statue carefully, searching for anything that might indicate a hidden compartment. The craftsmanship is centuries old, but there’s something off about the base.
Looking more closely, I spot a seam that shouldn’t be there—fresh and new, a stark contrast to the rest of the statue.
I press and push and finally find the spot. The base swings open with a grinding of stone on stone, revealing a hollow interior.
Inside are waterproof cases. Three of them, stacked neatly in the darkness. I pull them out and set them on the floor, my hands shaking slightly as I open the first one.
It contains USB drives. A dozen of them, each labeled with dates and names I recognize. Politicians. Judges. Business leaders. Crime bosses from three different countries.
The second case contains documents. Stacks of them, organized by date and category.
Handwritten ledgers, photographs with timestamps, contracts with signatures I can identify.
Evidence of crimes that dates to decades ago.
Trafficking routes marked on maps. Murder orders with names crossed out after completion.
Bribery payments that reach into the highest levels of government, including three sitting senators and a Supreme Court justice.
My father’s handwriting is on half of these pages. His signature at the bottom of orders that destroyed lives, that ended families, that funded the kind of evil I left behind to stand on my own.
The third case holds a single envelope. Thick cream expensive paper, with a name written on the front in elegant script.
To whoever finds this…
I quickly open it and pull out a letter. Antonio Marchetti’s handwriting, neat and legible.
If you’re reading this, I’m dead. Someone finally worked up the nerve to kill me, and I suppose I had it coming. I made a lot of enemies over the years. The kind that don’t forgive and don’t forget.
This ledger is my insurance policy, but not the kind you might think. I never planned to use it as leverage. I never planned to trade it for my life. I kept it because I wanted someone to know the truth after I was gone.
The families that run this city like to pretend they’re honorable. That there’s some code we live by, some line we don’t cross. But we cross it every day. We’ve been crossing it for generations. The things in this ledger would make the devil himself blush.
I’m not writing this to apologize. I did what I did and I’d do it again. But I want whoever finds this to understand something:
No one wins. Not in this life, not in this world. We take and we kill and we build our little empires, and then someone younger and hungrier comes along and takes it all away. The cycle never ends.
So here’s my gift to whoever put me in the ground. Here’s my revenge from beyond the grave. This ledger will destroy everyone it touches. Families will fall. Governments will tremble. And in the end, nothing will change because there will always be someone waiting to fill the void.
Welcome to the game. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I did.
Antonio Marchetti.”
I read the letter twice, then fold it carefully and slip it back into the envelope.
The old bastard knew exactly what he was doing. Even in death, he’s still playing games. Ensuring no one truly wins. But I’m not interested in playing anymore. I’m handing this over and ending it.
I’m about to gather the cases and leave when I hear it. A sound that doesn’t seem right. Engines revving, like the arrival of multiple vehicles.
I instantly know that something is wrong. That doesn’t belong to my men, and before I can process further, the cathedral doors explode inward.
The blast knocks me off my feet, sending debris flying through the sanctuary, filling the air with dust and smoke. I scramble for cover behind a pillar, gun drawn before I remember it’s empty.
Through the chaos, I see them pouring through the ruined doorway. Figures armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. Moving with expertise that makes Viktor’s men look like amateurs.
This clearly isn’t the police or another family. This is something else entirely, and it doesn’t look good.
I press my back against the pillar and close my eyes for just a second.
My son is safe in the basement with Scarlett. Marco’s team is protecting and keeping them away from whatever fresh hell just walked through that door. Whatever happens next, at least I know that much.
But as I listen to the boots approaching and count the weapons I can’t fight with my empty gun and bloody knife, I understand with sinking dread that this nightmare isn’t over.
It’s just beginning…