Chapter 8 - The Mastermind's Mask

Sofia sneered, spitting blood onto the ruined floorboards. "You think I acted alone, brother? You think I had the resources to track your precious little wife to this backwoods town without help?" Dante’s grip on my waist tightened instantly, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure ice. "Speak," he commanded.
Sofia laughed bitterly, a dark, chilling sound. "Check the offshore accounts that funded my mercs, Dante. Check the security logs from your penthouse the night Lena packed her bags. Who gave her the key code to the private garage? Who cleared her path so she could drive away unnoticed?" My breath hitched as the realization slammed into me. The night I left, the penthouse security team—men loyal only to Dante’s highest commander—had turned their backs and let me go.
"Uncle Carlo," I whispered, the name escaping my lips in a horrified gasp. Carlo Moretti—Dante’s trusted uncle, his chief advisor, the man who had sat at our dinner table every Sunday for five years and treated me like a daughter. He hadn't just allowed me to leave; he had orchestrated my quiet escape so Sofia could track me down far away from Dante’s Chicago army.