Chapter 10 - Behind Locked Doors At The Moretti Compound
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Dante stepped through the doorway like the god of retribution itself.
He was entirely clad in black, his tactical vest dusted with powdered brick and rain. In his right hand, he held a heavy tactical pistol, its barrel smoking faintly. His eyes were not the eyes of the man who had looked at me with tenderness beneath the chandeliers. They were the cold, black eyes of a predator who had found the rats who dared to touch his mate.
Marcus Bennett whimpered on the floor, dragging himself backward until his spine hit the foot of my mother’s bed.
"Dante... please," Marcus begged, tears of pure terror leaking from his swollen eyes. "It was my father! It was Richard! He told me to do it! He promised me the docks—"
Dante didn't say a word.
He didn't shout. He didn't monologue.
He simply walked forward, raised his heavy combat boot, and brought it down with crushing, sickening force directly onto Marcus’s right knee.
A horrifying, splintering *crack* echoed through the room, followed by a scream so high and agonizing it sounded like an animal caught in a bear trap. Marcus clutched his shattered leg, writhing on the glass-strewn floor, vomiting from the sheer shock of the pain.
"Luca," Dante said quietly, his voice dangerously even.
Luca appeared instantly in the doorway behind him, accompanied by two armed guards.
"Take him to the basement vault at the compound," Dante instructed without looking down at the groaning man. "Make sure a trauma surgeon stabilizes him. I don't want Marcus Bennett dying before he watches his father’s sentencing."
"Understood, Boss," Luca said, grabbing Marcus by the collar of his jacket and dragging him out of the room like a bag of garbage, leaving a dark trail of blood across the linoleum.
The moment the guards cleared the doorway, Dante holstered his weapon.
All the lethal, terrifying detachment on his face vanished in a heartbeat.
He crossed the room and dropped down before me, his hands instantly reaching for the plastic zip-ties biting into my wrists. With a swift flick of a pocket blade, he sliced through the plastic.
"Elena," he gasped, his voice breaking with genuine, agonizing relief.
He pulled my hands into his. He inspected my bleeding wrists, his jaw clenching with suppressed fury at the sight of the bruises, before he pulled me into his arms with a desperation that knocked the breath from my lungs.
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of rain, wool, and gunpowder. My hands clutched the back of his vest, my entire body shaking with aftershocks of adrenaline.
"You came," I sobbed against his neck, the dam finally breaking. "Dante... you came."
"I will always come for you," Dante whispered fiercely into my hair, his arms locking around my waist so tightly it almost hurt. "Every time. To the ends of the earth, Elena. I swear to you on my father’s grave."
He held me for a long, silent minute while the tactical team behind us secured the corridor.
Then, Dante pulled back slightly, his thumb gently wiping the blood from the cut on my temple. He looked over my shoulder toward the hospital bed.
A team of two private doctors, wearing the pristine lab coats of Dante’s personal medical staff, were already examining my mother. One was adjusting her oxygen monitor, while the other verified her vitals.
"How is she?" Dante demanded, his voice returning to its authoritative tone.
The head doctor turned, bowing his head respectfully. "She was completely undisturbed by the concussive grenades, Mr. Moretti. The sedative we administered before the breach kept her under. Her pulse is stable. The contaminated IV line was intercepted before a single drop entered her system."
I let out a ragged, trembling breath, collapsing back against Dante’s chest. "Thank God... oh, thank God."
"She is being moved immediately," Dante told me softly, his hand resting reassuringly against my back. "A fully equipped private intensive care suite has been constructed in the east wing of the Moretti compound. She will have three dedicated oncologists and twenty-four-hour private security. No Bennett, no councilman, and no assassin will ever breathe the same air as your mother again."
I looked at him, my eyes wide with disbelief. "You built a medical suite... in your house?"
"I started building it three weeks ago," Dante confessed, a faint, rueful smile touching his lips. "The night you fell asleep at the kitchen table crying over her lab results. I promised myself then that you would never have to worry about hospital billing offices ever again."
Tears pricked my eyes again, but this time they were not born of fear or grief.
"Come," Dante said, gently lifting me to my feet. He kept one arm securely around my waist, supporting my weight as we walked through the shattered remnants of the room.
We descended via the secured service elevator directly to the private ambulance bay. A convoy of five black armored Suburbans sat idling, their headlights cutting through the pre-dawn mist.
My mother was carefully loaded into a specialized medical transport vehicle flanked by two armored escorts.
Dante led me to the center vehicle. He opened the door, helped me inside, and climbed in beside me, pulling the heavy steel door shut, locking us inside our own private fortress.
As the convoy pulled out onto the highway, speeding toward the fortified gates of the Moretti estate on the cliffs overlooking the sea, the first rays of dawn began to pierce through the heavy rain clouds on the horizon.
I leaned my head against Dante’s broad shoulder. His hand found mine, his fingers intertwining with my bruised ones, the midnight-blue sapphire catching the pale morning light.
"What happens now, Dante?" I asked quietly, watching the city skyline fade in the distance. "Richard Bennett is still out there. And Vanessa... she won't stop."
Dante didn't answer immediately. He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles that had been bruised by Marcus’s zip-ties, his dark eyes fixed on the road ahead with cold, absolute certainty.
"Richard Bennett is already cornered," Dante said, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. "He thinks he has allies among the Five Families. But by noon today, he will discover that the Council belongs to me."
He turned to look at me, his gaze sweeping over my face with fierce, unyielding devotion.
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"And as for Vanessa..." Dante’s eyes darkened with promise. "She wanted a war for the Moretti crown. In six days, she will sit in the front row of the cathedral and watch me place it on your head."
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