Dante's POV
The docks at Red Hook were a cathedral of industry and shadow. Under the sickly yellow glow of sodium vapor lights, the skeletal cranes stood like sentinels against a starless sky. The air was thick with the smells of salt, rust, and brine. The area was where the empire's less legitimate arteries pulsed, where shipments arrived unseen and departed without manifest.
Tonight's cargo was rifles. Precision instruments, disassembled and packed within industrial machine parts, bound for a "private security firm" in Miami that was really a front for a cartel ally. A simple, high-margin transfer. Routine.
But in his world, routine was where death liked to hide.
He stood beside Marco under the open container door, watching his men unload the crates with efficient silence. The only sounds were the distant lap of water against pilings, the scuff of boots on concrete, and the low rumble of the idling truck. His men were positioned at the choke points—the gate, the warehouse entrance, and the water's edge. It should have been secure.
"The buyer's rep is delayed," Marco muttered, checking his phone, the screen lighting his scarred face in the dark. "Weather in Atlanta."
A prickle, the old, familiar instinct, raised the hair on the back of Dante's neck. Delays were never just delays. He rested his hand on the cold grip of the pistol holstered under his wool overcoat. "Tell the men to speed it up. I want this container empty and gone in ten minutes."
Marco nodded, lifting his radio.
The first shot wasn't a loud crack. It was a wet thump, followed by the clatter of a crate dropping from Sal, one of his soldiers, who crumpled silently to the ground, a dark bloom spreading across his chest.
"Ambush!" Marco roared, shoving Dante sideways behind the thick steel flank of the container as a barrage of gunfire erupted, shattering the night.
Muzzle flashes sparked from the roof of the adjacent warehouse. Automatic fire. Professional. Not street thugs. Bratva.
Dante's mind went cold and clear, the world narrowing to vectors and threats. He returned fire, the recoil of his pistol a steady, rhythmic punch in his hand. Beside him, Marco was barking orders into the radio, his weapon spitting fire. Dante's men scrambled for cover, returning a disciplined volley.
"They're pinning us!" Marco yelled over the deafening cacophony. "We're fish in a barrel here!"
Dante peered around the container edge. They needed to move to get to the warehouse where the defensive position was stronger. "Covering fire on my mark! After that, we will run for the side door!
He met Marco's eyes. A lifetime of understanding passed in a glance. Marco nodded.
"Now!"
They rose as one, firing rapid shots toward the muzzle flashes on the roof. Their men laid down a fierce barrage. Dante sprinted, a low, weaving run toward the warehouse's rusted metal door twenty yards away. The air hissed around him. Chips of concrete exploded at his feet.
He was three steps from the door.
A searing, white-hot lance of pain tore through his left shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The force of the impact was like being hit by a sledgehammer. He staggered, his left arm going numb and useless.
"Dante!" Marco's bellow was distant, underwater.
He didn't fall. He turned, raising his pistol with his right hand, and fired two more shots blindly toward the roof, buying himself the last two steps. He crashed against the metal door, fumbling for the handle with his good hand. Marco slammed into it beside him, shoving it open, and hauled him inside into the relative darkness.
The door boomed shut. The gunfire became muffled.
"You're hit," Marco gasped, his hands already on him, probing.
"Shoulder. Through and through, it feels like, " Dante gritted out, the pain now a deep, throbbing fire that radiated down his arm and up his neck. He could feel the warm, slick spread of blood soaking his shirt and overcoat. "Status."
"We've got four down out there. Their position is elevated. We're sitting ducks if we stay." Marco ripped open Dante's coat and shirt with a brutal yank, inspecting the wound in the dim light from a high window. He grunted. "Clean entry and exit. You'll live. But you're bleeding like a stuck pig."
"The back loading bay," Dante ordered, his voice tight with pain. "Get the men to fall back to the vehicles there. We burn the shipment. Leave nothing for them."
Marco relayed the orders via radio. Within minutes, the sound of gunfire shifted as his men retreated in favorable order. The acrid smell of smoke began to seep under the door—the crates were being torched. A multi-million dollar loss. A message was sent.
"Let's go," Marco said, slinging Dante's healthy arm over his shoulders, taking his weight.
The escape was a blur of pain, smoke, and roaring engines. They made it to the armored SUV at the back bay. Dante collapsed into the back seat, his head swimming, the interior light revealing the ruin of his left shoulder—a ragged, dark hole oozing blood.
"Hospital," the driver said, peering back in alarm.
"No." The word was absolute, carved from stone. He met Marco's eyes in the rearview mirror. "No hospitals. No paper trail. No weakness." A Don seen bleeding in an ER would be a signal flare to every rival, every hungry underling. It would be an invitation for a coup. It would put a target on everyone he was responsible for, especially the ones waiting at home.
Marco didn't argue. He knew the rules. "The mansion. I'll call the family doctor."
"No doctor," Dante hissed as the SUV sped through the night. "Too many questions. You have the kit. You do it."
Marco's jaw tightened, but he nodded. He'd stitched Dante up before, in worse places.
The journey was agony. Every bump sent fresh waves of fire through his torso. He focused on his breathing, on compartmentalizing the pain, and on the cold fury that was already crystallizing over the fear. Volkov. This was his opening move. A direct strike. Because of the gala. Because he'd seen the distraction and the obsession and decided to test its strength.
The SUV slid through the mansion gates. Getting inside was an ordeal of sheer will, leaning on Marco, climbing the stairs one at a time, leaving a faint, smeared trail on the marble that a staff member would quietly erase before dawn.
He didn't go to the bedroom. He couldn't. He went to his office, the sanctum of control. He fell into the high-backed leather chair behind his desk, breath ragged. The room smelled of old books, whiskey, and now, coppery blood.
"Kit's in the safe," he managed, nodding to the panel behind the portrait of his father.
Marco retrieved the black medical case. He worked with brutal efficiency, cutting away the rest of Dante's shirt and cleaning the wounds with alcohol that felt like liquid fire. Dante didn't make a sound, his teeth gritted so hard he thought they might shatter. The needle and suture thread came next. The tug and pull of his flesh being sewn back together was a surreal, intimate violation.
"You need antibiotics. Painkillers," Marco stated, tying off the last stitch.
"In the drawer. The ones from Italy." Strong, unlabeled, and untraceable.
Marco found them and handed him two pills and a glass of whiskey. Dante swallowed them dry, chasing them with a burning gulp of liquor.
"The men?" Dante asked, his voice gravelly.
"Two dead. Sal and Benny. Two wounded, not critical. They're at the clinic in Jersey." Marco reported, his face grim. "Volkov's men melted away after we torched the shipment. They got what they wanted."
"What they wanted was me dead on that dock," Dante corrected, cold fury seeping into the edges of his pain. "They got a warning shot. Next time, they won't miss."
He was fading, the blood loss and the powerful painkillers pulling him toward a dark, treacherous edge. He needed to sleep, to let his body begin the repair, but the thought of being unconscious and vulnerable, even here, was intolerable.
"Post double guards," he slurred, his eyelids heavy. "The house. Sofia. Her."
"Already done," Marco said, gathering the bloody rags. "I'll be outside the door."
Dante nodded, unable to form another word. Marco left, closing the office door softly.
Alone, Dante let his head fall back against the leather. The pain was a distant thunder now, muffled by chemicals. The office was dark, lit only by the green glow of the desk lamp. He stared at the portrait of his father—a harder man, a crueler man, who had died in his bed, old and feared. Dante had always thought he'd die in blood and darkness. Tonight, he'd come close.
His thoughts, blurred at the edges, drifted not to the empire, not to revenge, but to the green eyes that had looked at him in the garden with a new, unsettling understanding. To the woman sleeping down the hall, behind a door with a guard. His woman. The reason for this weakness. The reason he now had to be stronger than ever.
He must have passed out or slipped into a stupor. He wasn't sure.
The soft click of the door opening brought him swimming back to a hazy, painful consciousness.
He forced his eyes open.
Silhouetted in the light from the hall, wrapped in a simple robe, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, stood Isabella.
Her eyes went from his face, pale and sheened with sweat, down to his bare, blood-streaked torso, to the bandages, stark and white, on his shoulder, to the medical kit and bloody rags still on his desk.
Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a gasp.
He was too weak, too drained, to summon the mask. It was too late for him to hide the evidence of the world he had tried to keep locked outside.
All he could do was stare back at her, caught in the act of being merely a wounded man, his empire of control reduced to a chair, a pool of lamplight, and the shocked, horrified eyes of his wife.