His blood was humming, rushing through his veins with a frantic, lethal energy. The agonizing fog of depression that had weighed him down for months evaporated in a single second, replaced by a razor-sharp, terrifying clarity.
His father-in-law was making a move on his docks. The security detail downstairs was compromised. A hit squad was coming to his home tonight.
Normally, a boss in this situation would call a tactical retreat, evacuate through a secure escape route, and regroup his men from a safe house.
But Dante wasn’t just a boss anymore.
He was a husband whose wife had just spent three years walking through hell just to keep him breathing. She had chosen him over her own blood. She had faced down a loaded gun, fully prepared to die in this penthouse just so he wouldn’t be alone.
Dante reached inside his tailored suit jacket and felt the cold, reassuring steel of his Glock 19. He pulled out his encrypted satellite phone, the one device immune to standard signal jammers, which he only used for extreme emergencies.
He dialed a private number.
It rang once.
“Boss!” came the gruff voice of Leo Rossi, his most lethal enforcer, who ran the tactical teams operating outside the city limits.
“Leo!”
Dante’s voice was dangerously calm, the low rumble of a dormant volcano finally waking up.
“Vincent Romano just broke the treaty. He’s making a play for the South Docks with Carlo Esposito tonight, and he bought out the lobby security at my residence.”
There was a split second of silence on the line, followed by the metallic click of a rifle being chambered.
“Orders, boss.”
“Send strike team Alpha to the south docks. Tell them to take no prisoners. Burn the Esposito crew to the ground. And if you see Vincent Romano’s men, make it hurt.”
“Consider it done. What about you? If your lobby is compromised—”
“Send team Bravo to the penthouse,” Dante ordered, his eyes locked on the hallway leading to his wife’s room. “They are to secure the perimeter of my building. Nobody goes in, nobody comes out. Anyone wearing a Romano pin or standing at a security desk gets a bullet between the eyes. But leave the heavy lifting to me.”
“Boss, you’re outnumbered in that building.”
“They are locked in a building with me, Leo,” Dante corrected him softly. “I want this finished by midnight. Tonight, the Romano family ceases to exist in Chicago.”
Dante hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.
He took a deep breath, adjusting his cuffs, transforming from the defeated man who had walked out of his study into the apex predator of the Chicago underworld.
He turned and walked back down the hallway, heading straight for the sunroom.
It was time to finally meet his wife.
The heavy oak doors to the sunroom were still cracked open. Dante pushed them wide, the faint creak of the hinges shattering the heavy silence.
Serena stood near the velvet armchair, her back rigid. She had hurriedly wiped her face, trying to assemble the mask of cold indifference she had worn for three agonizing years.
When she turned to face him, her eyes dropped instantly to his hands, expecting to see the manila envelope. Seeing his empty hands, a flicker of confusion crossed her delicate features.
“Dante,” she whispered, her voice tight, still carrying the raw edge of her recent tears. “Where are the papers? I know Arthur brought them.”
Dante did not stop at the doorway.
He crossed the room with deliberate, measured steps, closing the physical distance that had defined their marriage. He stopped mere inches from her.
Up close, he could see the faint tremor in her hands, the rapid pulse beating at the base of her throat.
“I shredded them,” Dante said, his voice a low, gravelly murmur that commanded the space between them.
Serena’s breath hitched. Her dark eyes darted up to meet his, searching for a trap.
“Why? We agreed. It’s over.”
“I heard her, Serena,” Dante stated simply, watching the color drain entirely from his wife’s face. “I heard Patricia, and more importantly, I heard you.”
Panic flashed in Serena’s eyes. She took a step back, hitting the edge of the armchair.
“You… You weren’t supposed to hear that. Dante, you have to leave right now. You don’t understand what my father—”
“I understand everything,” Dante interrupted, reaching out to gently grasp her shoulders.
It was the first time he had initiated physical contact in months. And this time, she didn’t flinch.
She just stared at him, terrified.
“I understand that my wife has been living in a waking nightmare to keep me alive. I understand that the coldness wasn’t disgust. It was protection.”
“They are coming to kill you.”
A tear finally spilled over her lashes, tracking down her pale cheek.
“Listen to me. The lobby guards are my father’s men. If you stay here, Dante, they will corner you.”
Dante moved his hand, his calloused thumb gently brushing the tear from her skin.
“Let them come. This is my city. This is my home, and you—”
His grip tightened slightly, anchoring her in the storm.
“Are my wife. Nobody touches what is mine. The Romanos think they are springing a trap, but they just locked themselves in a cage with a monster.”
A sharp electronic chime echoed through the penthouse.
It was the sound of the private elevator bypassing the biometric security lock.
Serena gasped, her fingers instinctively curling into the lapels of Dante’s tailored suit.
“They’re here.”
“Get behind the mahogany desk in the study,” Dante ordered, his tone shifting instantly from tender husband to wartime commander. “The wood is reinforced with a steel core. Do not move until I say your name.”
He didn’t wait for her to argue.
He pushed her toward the adjoining study, drawing his Glock 19 from his shoulder holster in one fluid motion.
