Chapter 5 5

Dante's pov

"Drive faster. We're already late."

My voice is calm, but everyone in the car hears the warning underneath it.

I sit in the backseat of the armored sedan, legs spread slightly, posture relaxed . The windows are blacked out, bulletproof. I glance at my watch again, irritation flickering sharp and brief.

Late is unacceptable.

Outside, the city blurs past in streaks of concrete and glass. We're moving fast. Too fast for most people. Not fast enough for me.

Two cars lead the convoy. Two trail behind. Armed men in every vehicle. Radios murmur constantly, low and clipped, confirming routes, clearing intersections, updating positions.

My phone buzzes in my hand.

Capo Romano: Five minutes out.

Capo DeLuca: Arrived.

Security Chief: Perimeter secured.

This meeting decides too much to be careless with. Territory, alliances, blood , if things go wrong. I've spent weeks tightening this situation into something controllable. I won't have it unravel because of traffic.

The driver tightens his grip on the wheel and presses harder on the accelerator. The engine responds immediately.

Good.

I lean back slightly, eyes forward, mind already shifting into calculation. Faces, voices of Godfathers. Who will lie, Who will push too far. Who might need to be reminded of their place.

Nothing shakes me today.

Then something moves in the road ahead.

It was not a car and definitely not a barricade but a human . My driver is definitely moving too fast nervously to notice.

"Brake!" someone shouts.

It happens all at once.

A figure stumbles into our path, barely upright, moving wrong, like gravity is pulling them down faster than they can walk. The driver swerves instinctively, too late to be clean, too fast to be gentle.

Tires scream.

The car jerks violently, the force throwing me forward against the restraint before snapping me back. Metal slams into metal as the lead vehicle clips something during the swerve. The sound is deafening, ugly, final.

The convoy skids to a halt.

Shouts explode over the radios. Doors fly open. Guns are out before the cars fully stop.

My instincts ignite immediately.

This feels wrong.

Too sudden. Too messy. The kind of chaos people use to mask an ambush.

"Secure the perimeter," I snap, already unbuckling. "Eyes everywhere."

I'm out of the car before anyone can stop me. The air outside smells like burnt rubber and hot metal. Men fan out in practiced formation, scanning rooftops, windows, alleys. Fingers tight on triggers.

The driver stumbles out after me, pale, shaken. "Boss... I swear, she just...she came out of nowhere."

I follow his line of sight.

There's a body on the asphalt.

Small. Still.

Blood stains the road beneath her, dark against the gray. One shoe lies a few feet away, twisted at an unnatural angle. Traffic has frozen in every direction now, cars stopped mid-lane, horns blaring, people shouting.

My irritation drains, replaced by something colder.

This isn't a setup.

This is a person.

I start toward her.

"Boss," one of my men warns. "Let us..."

"I said clear the area," I cut in. My voice leaves no room for argument. "Now."

They move immediately, forming a tighter perimeter, barking orders at the growing crowd. Someone is already filming. I see the phone held up, shaking. One of my men steps in front of it, blocking the view.

I crouch beside the woman.

She's unconscious. Breathing, but shallow. Each rise of her chest is uneven, like her body is struggling to remember how to do it. Her clothes are simple. Worn. Nothing about her screams threat or trap.

There's blood at her temple, a thin line trailing into her hair. Her skin is pale beneath the streetlights, lips parted slightly.

For reasons I don't understand yet, my chest tightens.

"Check her pulse," I say.

There's hesitation. A half-second too long.

I snap my head up. "Now."

A guard kneels opposite me, fingers pressing to her neck. "It's weak," he says. "But it's there."

Good.

For the first time today, my meeting doesn't matter.

I lean closer despite myself, scanning for injuries, cataloging damage the way I've been trained to assess threats and casualties. My focus narrows to her breathing, the faint tremor in her fingers, the way her lashes rest against her cheeks.

Then I see it.

Just below her jawline, half-hidden by blood and shadow, there's a scar.

Thin. Pale. Old.

My breath stills.

No.

I tell myself it's coincidence. Scars are common. Everyone carries something like that, somewhere. The world is full of damaged people.

Still, I lean closer.

The shape is wrong for coincidence. Too precise. A narrow curve that dips slightly near the center, exactly where...

My heart starts pounding, hard enough that I feel it in my throat.

Memory crashes into me without warning.

A garden, years ago, sunlight filtering through leaves.

A girl laughing, younger, her hair longer then, swinging as she turned.

A quiet smile she only showed when she felt safe.

A stubborn streak that got her into trouble more than once.

A girl who vanished.

A girl we buried without a body.

A girl I trained myself to believe was dead.

My hands begin to shake.

I straighten abruptly, forcing air back into my lungs. "Clear the street," I order, my voice sharper now, edged with something my men recognize immediately. "I want it empty."

They don't ask questions.

"Get a private ambulance," I add. "Now. No sirens. No delays."

Someone is already on the phone.

I look back down at her face.

Blood, dirt , pain and beneath it, faintly, unmistakably familiarity. The curve of her cheek. The shape of her mouth. Subtle changes carved by time and hardship, but the bones don't lie.

I crouch again, closer this time, ignoring the chaos around us.

This is impossible.

She was gone. She had to be. I watched years harden around that truth until it became part of me, something I carried without questioning.

My voice gets softer, barely a whisper , meant only for myself.

"That's impossible."