Page 57

Few days later in Italy

The villa on the outskirts of the Italian countryside was no less fortified than Dante's coastal estate.

Cameras blinked from every marble archway, while armed guards stood still as shadows.

No unnecessary noise, no wasted movement. Here, silence was dominance.

Inside the war room, an obsidian table glowed with digital light, projecting maps and encrypted data.

Dante Valencourt stood alone, a silhouette of quiet control.

His black shirt clung to the sharp lines of his frame, sleeves rolled just below the elbow, veins prominent on forearms.

His gaze was fixed, jaw tense as he scrolled through tactical layouts.

The heavy doors opened.

Lucien Thorne entered.

His presence didn’t need announcement. He brought cold with him.

A long black coat swept behind, unbuttoned over a dark suit that wrapped his frame like a second skin.

His gold-rimmed glasses caught the screen’s glow, casting shadows over the pale gray eyes beneath.

Dante didn’t look up. “You’re late.”

Lucien stepped beside him, calm and unbothered. “You’d have waited.”

“I would’ve started without you.”

“You lie poorly,” Lucien muttered, lips twitching in what barely passed for a smirk.

They turned to the table. The map zoomed into Eastern Europe. Red targets. Underground trafficking routes.

Offshore accounts. No sign of Roza anymore—she was gone.

Slaughtered by Dante’s own hands. But there's still fragments of her empire that refused to die quietly.

Lucien gestured toward the Romanian route. “Still a leak?”

“Not anymore. But the remnants are bold. They think we’ve gone soft since Roza’s death.”

Lucien’s voice dropped to a rasp. “Then it’s time we remind them.”

Dante tapped the glass surface. A black and white image appeared—two men tied to chairs in an abandoned estate near Bucharest.

“They’ve been skimming. Guns, girls, routes. I want them gone, and the network absorbed by us.”

Lucien nodded. “I brought my second unit. Cleaners. They’ll erase the facility when we’re done.”

Dante finally looked at him. “And you?”

Lucien slid off his gloves. “I came for the satisfaction.”

They walked through the estate’s courtyard as dusk fell, flanked by guards who knew better than to breathe too loudly. Tactical bags, weapons, secure satcoms—all ready.

Lucien lit a cigarette as Dante handed a steel case to one of his men.

“I missed this,” Lucien murmured.

“War?”

“The part where we get to be ourselves.”

Dante didn’t smile, but his posture shifted. “Its hard for men like us. Also it's time for us to move.”

They rode in separate vehicles—an old habit. The convoy moved like a phantom across country roads, armored but subtle.

At the facility, the operation was swift.

Lucien moved through shadows, his blade precise, silent. Dante was fire—methodical but brutal.

He didn’t speak when he drove a knife through the last man’s hand to pin him down. Didn’t blink when he pulled the trigger.

Two groups against one.

There were no survivors left.

Back in the SUV, Dante scrubbed the blood from his knuckles with a cloth. Lucien leaned against the headrest, watching the countryside pass.

That evening, back at the villa, they stood on the balcony overlooking the lit gardens.

Drinks in hand. Suits re-buttoned. Civilized again.

Lucien adjusted his cuffs.

“Give your wife Sorina my regards,” Dante said. “And the boy?”

“Growing too fast His eyes follow everything I do. I wonder how long before he learns what I am.”

Dante looked out at the night. “He’ll love you more for it.”

Lucien’s smile was small but honest. “And Isolde?”

“She’s… too good for me. But she’s mine. That’s all that matters.”

“Good to know.”

Their glasses clinked. Kings, once again.

The wind off the Vienna rooftops was sharp—cleaner than the air Dante was used to, but colder too.

The Bratva ledger was supposed to be here.

Dante stood beside Lucien under the skeletal shadow of a broken steeple.

Around them, six men in black moved like water—each handpicked.

Two from Dante’s personal detail, four from Lucien’s ghost-trained second unit.

They were silent but brutal, bred for situations that didn’t require questions.

“This is it,” Alex murmured into Dante’s earpiece from the van parked two blocks out. “Thermal scan reads twelve heat signatures. Some armed, some pacing.”

Lucien cracked his knuckles. “Perfect.”

They didn’t wait.

Dante signaled with a flick of two fingers.

His team swept through the side entrance while Lucien and his moved from the roof, descending with grappling lines like shadows through the rafters.

The building exploded into movement.

A scream. Then the staccato burst of suppressed gunfire.

One of Lucien’s men slid a wire around a guard’s throat, dragging him backward into darkness.

Another slammed a baton into the knee of a runner before whispering something in Russian that made the man whimper before death.

Dante didn’t speak. He moved like wind with weight, slamming his shoulder into a door and leveling his weapon on the other side.

Four men. All Bratva.

He shot three in three seconds.

The fourth lunged, knife raised. Dante caught the wrist mid-air and twisted until the bone cracked loud.

Then he pulled the man’s head forward and shattered his nose with the butt of his pistol.

The fight spread across three floors.

Lucien’s silhouette flashed overhead, dropping down into a pile of crates, blade drawn.

One man tried to run. Lucien dropped him with two bullets to the knees, then slit his throat while whispering, “Cowards kneel.”

Dante entered the back chamber.

Inside: the ledger.

A silver case on a table, still locked.

Two more guards.

He didn’t hesitate. He fired once into each, his aim perfect, eyes calm.

Then, the phone in his back pocket buzzed.

Isolde.

He stared at it.

For a moment, everything paused.

He answered.

Her voice came soft, nervous. “Dante?”

He exhaled slowly, wiping his hands on a cloth. “I’m here.”

“You didn’t message last night.”

“I was busy.”

“With what?”

He walked to the case, eyes still on his surroundings. “Business.”

A pause.

“I miss you,” she said. Quiet, fragile. “I had a nightmare.”

His voice softened by degrees. “Tell me.”

“I dreamed you didn’t come back.”

“I always come back,” he said, unlocking the case with one hand and gripping a bloodied pistol in the other.

She whispered, “Promise?”

“I’d burn this world before letting it keep me from you.”

He could hear her breathe in, a soft sigh of relief. “Okay. I love you.”

“I know.”

She laughed quietly. “Say it back.”

“I’ll show it when I return.”

“Dante…”

He hesitated.

Then murmured, “I love you.”

Click. He ended the call.

Lucien entered behind him, a slash of blood across his sleeve.

“Wife?”

“Yes,” Dante said, lifting the case. “And always worth it.”

Hours later, they were at a hotel penthouse, the ledger decrypted.

Bank codes. Trafficking clients. Payment routes.

Lucien lounged on the couch, his glasses glinting as he read the files projected on the wall.

“This ledger… it’s not just hers.”

Dante nodded. “Bratva. Solntsevskaya. Remnants of Roza’s alliances. She was never the root. Just a branch.”

Lucien’s smile was cold. “Then we follow the root.”

Dante leaned back in his chair. “One of these accounts is still live. Zurich. Big movement, four hours ago.”

Lucien stood. “Want to intercept?”

Dante looked at the skyline. “Let’s destroy what’s left of her legacy.”

Lucien raised his glass. “To Destruction.”

Dante’s eyes flicked toward his phone again.

Meanwhile, Isolde sat curled on the plush couch in the beach house, her fingers clutching her phone.

Her call with Dante had ended, but his voice lingered. Her thoughts swam with half-truths and worry.

She wrapped a shawl over her nightgown and walked outside. The waves were quiet tonight. Too quiet.

She called again. No answer.

Inside her chest, something tightened.

In Vienna, the streets outside Zurich Bank HQ blurred past.

Dante and Lucien sat in the back of an unmarked black sedan.

Their teams had already infiltrated the building’s secondary security. The driver didn’t speak.

Dante stared out the window. “She called again.”

Lucien didn’t look up. “Guilt?”

“No.”

“Fear?”

Dante finally turned. “Hope.”

Lucien nodded. “Then you better finish this quick.”

And they did.

The bank heist took twelve minutes. Four lives. Three passwords. One detonator.

The account was drained. The servers wiped. The trail ended.

Dante stood in the server room, flames licking the walls, and thought of her.

Isolde.

She was waiting. And this war? It was almost done.