Loose Ends

POV: Dante

I shoved the toe of my heavy boot into the ribs of the final corpse sprawled on the club floor, kicking the dead shooter over onto his back. The tension remained coiled tight and burning in my heavy muscles. The ruined VIP section reeked of sulfur, gunpowder, and fresh death. Broken glass crunched under my soles as I surveyed the slaughter. Messy, unpredictable loose ends were the exact kind of headache I despised. This was supposed to be a straightforward sit-down, not a damn war zone.

Baines, the club manager, hovered by the shattered doorway. Sweat dripped down his neck, ruining his expensive silk suit. He was a pathetic sight among the carnage. His eyes darted from the bleeding bodies on the floor to the gun resting in my grip.

I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and lit it, taking a slow, deep drag. I let the nicotine hit my system. I stared him down through the curling smoke before giving my final orders.

“I don't care how you do it, or how much bleach it takes. Just make it so no one in this city recalls this ever happening. I don't want whispers on the street. I don't want gossip in the rival families. And I sure as shit don't want cops poking their noses in my face.”

Baines offered a frantic nod, swallowing hard.

"Yes, Mr. De Leone, I will handle it."

He scrambled away in terror to comply, shouting hurried instructions to the remaining staff. I watched his retreating back for a fraction of a second before pulling out my phone. I hit Cassian’s speed dial. Usually, these calls were reserved for completed business and body counts in our favor. Not tonight.

He answered on the second ring, his inquiry strained.

"How bad is the situation?"

"Bad enough I want to shoot someone in the goddamn head," I answered with blunt honesty.

The line went dead. He was already on his way. My men continued sweeping the area, dragging the dead out the back exit and tossing the overturned furniture out of sight.

By the time Cassian and Marcello arrived at the secure location, the battlefield had been erased, wiped clean by our cleaners. If a stranger walked in tomorrow, they would only see a high-end nightlife establishment. They would never smell the copper clinging to the leather booths.

Cassian did not waste a single second of time. He moved into the room with the heavy, undeniable presence of the undisputed monarch of our empire. His suited frame demanded submission from the room. Marcello followed right behind him, lacking his usual mocking smirk, which meant he was ready to put someone in the ground.

"What the fuck happened?" Cassian demanded.

I sat relaxed in a large leather armchair, nursing a glass of dark liquor. I explained the ambush from start to finish, detailing the entry points, the weapons used, and the precise timing of the shooters. They knew exactly where we were going to be sitting.

"I wasn't impressed that the pampered Vittoria D'Amore took a live bullet to the shoulder," I told my brothers, taking a sip from my glass.

It was a blatant lie. Even as I spoke, I couldn't stop thinking about exactly how the mafia daughter had fought seamlessly alongside me. I expected her to scream, to freeze, or to cower behind the table waiting for me to save her. Instead, she was lethal and efficient. She remained unflinching, returning fire and moving through the chaotic crossfire without a millisecond of hesitation. The image of her gunning down a professional hitman in a designer dress was burned into my memory. She was a weapon cast in flesh and blood.

Cassian’s face darkened as we sat around and analyzed the sheer mechanics of the betrayal.

"We need to find out who the fuck is feeding classified information to the enemy. Either someone embedded in our circle is a rat, or someone in hers is."

Cassian traced the rim of his own glass, his mind shifting into war mode. The reality of a mole inside our ranks tasted like ash. We prided ourselves on unbreakable loyalty. Someone had grown greedy, or brave, or exceedingly stupid. Whoever authorized this hit had made a fatal miscalculation by missing me. I crushed my cigarette out in the heavy crystal ashtray on the table.

I met my older brother's deadly gaze, holding it firmly.

"I will handle the investigation personally."

Cassian nodded slowly, his voice dropping to a terrifying, killing whisper.

"Do it. And when you finally find out who it is—make a painful example out of them."

We rode all the way back to the sprawling De Leone estate in a tight, unspoken silence. The tension inside the black stealth SUV was thick enough to cut with a blade. Cassian stared out the tinted window into the passing city lights, his jaw clenched tight. Marcello sat in the passenger seat, checking the action of his sidearm. It was the calm before the storm. A war was brewing, and the opening shots had just been fired.

The moment we arrived at the massive iron gates of the estate, Cassian went to work. He stepped out of the vehicle and ordered a lockdown of the compound.

"Nobody leaves, nobody enters without my direct authorization. If there is a traitor in this house, I want their dead body laid on my front doorstep by dawn."

I unbuttoned my blood-spattered jacket, letting it drop to the nearest couch. I was already making my move back toward the door.

"I'll go to Vittoria."

Cassian turned, stopping me with a harsh stare, questioning if she actually knew anything of value.

"She could be the leak herself for all we know," Cassian stated flatly.

I shook my head, rejecting the theory. I knew she wasn't a naive fool. If someone was firing automatic weapons at us, they were deliberately firing at her too. No one coordinates an assassination attempt on themselves just to build an alibi. She had as much to lose in this deadly game as we did, and judging by the fire in her eyes back at the club, she was likely tearing her own father’s empire apart looking for answers right now.

Marcello poured himself a heavy glass of whiskey at the bar, swirling the amber liquid in the crystal tumbler. He smirked, mocking me as he issued his warning.

"Be cautious, brother. You sound almost worried about her well-being."

I ignored his taunt. I wasn't worried. I was pragmatic. The D'Amore princess held a piece of this puzzle, and I intended to extract it from her brains before the real culprits could finish the job they started. My mind was set on the girl, calculating my approach as I grabbed the keys to a different vehicle.

I pulled my stealth SUV up to the towering gates of the D'Amore mansion just past three in the morning. The engine purred low in the dead quiet of the night. The massive stone walls loomed high into the darkness, a fortified castle guarding its criminal royalty.

The armed guards standing watch opened the heavy iron gates upon recognizing my vehicle. They didn't reach for their radios. They didn't ask for my business. Vincenzo clearly knew I would be paying them a visit before the sun came up.

I drove up the winding driveway and parked near the grand entrance. The tires crunched softly against the gravel. I stepped out into the cool night air, the lingering adrenaline from earlier sparking in my veins. My boots hit the stone steps with heavy, deliberate thuds.

As I approached the massive stone fortress, the heavy mahogany front doors swung wide open before I could even raise my fist to knock.

Vittoria stood there framed in the warm yellow light spilling from the foyer. She looked tired, the exhaustion pulling at the corners of her striking features. More than tired, she looked furious. Her jaw was set, and her posture was rigid. Shockingly, she was still wearing her ruined, blood-stained black blouse from the club ambush. The dark crimson patch over her shoulder served as a grim reminder of how close we had come to finding a permanent grave tonight.

She did not step aside to let me in. She held her ground on the threshold of her father’s home.

"Took you long enough, De Leone, we have something to discuss," she said coldly, holding my gaze like a challenge.

Her voice was devoid of any warmth. She was all business, a mafia daughter forced to become a battlefield general. I could appreciate the ice in her tone, the sheer force of will keeping her standing after taking a bullet.

I opened my mouth to match her ruthless energy, preparing to demand access to whatever intel she had scraped together over the last hour.

Suddenly, her dark eyes darted wildly to the shadows past my shoulders. The subtle shift in her expression was immediate. The cold anger melted into pure, raw alarm.

Before my combat instincts could even command me to spin around, a loud gunshot shattered the quiet of the night.

The explosive crack echoed off the sprawling estate walls, and I could physically feel the burning heat of the bullet whizzing right past my ear.