Chapter 7 - The Final Countdown
Thirty days left. The newspapers had caught wind of the sudden, secret wedding, but Dante’s legal team had buried the headlines beneath a mountain of injunctions and privacy lawsuits. To the public, Dante Varlli remained an enigmatic bachelor. To the underworld, he was now an untouchable monolith backed by a woman who knew every skeleton in every closet.
On a rainy Tuesday evening, Lena sat at her desk at Marchetti Matches, packing up the remaining client files. She was closing the agency. Her mother’s legacy was safe, but her own life had outgrown the quiet walls of East Sixty-Eighth Street.
The office door creaked open. Lena didn't look up, assuming it was her assistant.
"We're officially closed, Clara—" she started.
"It's not Clara," a smooth, chilling voice interrupted.
Lena looked up. Standing in the doorway was Victor Vance, Juliet’s older brother and a rival syndicate boss from Boston who had lost three lucrative shipping contracts when Dante consolidated his power in the Northeast. Victor had a silver-barreled automatic pistol leveled directly at Lena’s chest.
"Mr. Vance," Lena said, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, though her voice remained steady as glass. "You're trespassing."
"Your husband ruined my family, Mrs. Varlli," Victor smiled, stepping into the dim light, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. "He thinks he can build an empire on secret marriages and bloodless takeovers. I figured I’d take the one thing he actually cares about before he puts his mother in that chair."
Lena didn't scream. She didn't lunge. Instead, her eyes flicked past Victor’s shoulder to the heavy oak door behind him.
"You really should check your own security before you walk into a Varlli-owned building, Victor," Lena said calmly.
Victor sneered. "A cute bluff—"
The door behind him blew inward with a deafening crash of splintered wood. Two black-suited guards pinned Victor to the floor in less than a second, twisting his arm behind his back until his bones popped.
Dante stepped over the threshold, his coat soaked in rain, his face darker and more terrifying than any storm Lena had ever seen. He didn't look at Victor. His dark gaze locked entirely onto Lena.
Dante crossed the room in two strides, yanked Lena out of her chair, and hauled her straight into his arms, crushing her against his chest so hard she could barely breathe.
"Are you hurt?" Dante demanded, his voice trembling with a fury so raw it made the guards in the room step back.
"I'm fine," Lena whispered against his wet lapel, her fingers gripping his back. "He just interrupted my packing."
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Dante turned his head slowly toward Victor, who was gasping for air on the floor. Dante crouched down beside him, pulled a silencer from his jacket pocket, and screwed it onto the barrel of his own pistol with agonizing, slow precision.
"Take him to the harbor," Dante told his men, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Tell the boys in Boston we are expanding our shipping lanes."
