Chapter 5 Meeting With The Captain

Isabella Vitale.....

The farther I got from Inferno, the colder the air felt.

It wasn't just the temperature - it was the silence. The absence of bass-thumping music, leering glances, and Alessandro Gerardo's storm-eyed stare. The club had a pulse. A presence. Out here, I could breathe.

But breathing didn't mean relaxing.

Not when I was headed back into another kind of lion's den.

I kept my coat wrapped tight, hat pulled low, walking two blocks past the precinct before doubling back. One of the oldest tricks in the book, but still necessary. I'd made enemies just by walking into the Gerardo Empire. The last thing I needed was one of them tailing me to headquarters.

The alley behind the precinct was dim, but I found the unmarked door and knocked four times.

A metallic click. Then the door opened just enough to let me in.

Detective Elise Romano stood waiting, arms crossed, brows drawn low.

"You're late," she said.

I stepped inside, tugging off my gloves. "I'm alive. That's what matters."

She shut the door and locked it behind me. "Come on. Captain's waiting."

The office was small, poorly lit, and reeked of burnt coffee. But the man behind the desk didn't care about creature comforts. Captain Marco DeSantis had war in his eyes and a vendetta against the Gerardo family that went back two decades.

He didn't stand when I entered. Just stared.

"Sit, Vitale."

I did.

"Report," he said.

I glanced at Elise, who nodded for me to go on.

"I've been inside for just over a week. Working under Luca Gerardo at Inferno. I've made contact with two of the brothers - Luca and Matteo. Alessandro finally acknowledged me last night."

Captain raised an eyebrow. "Acknowledged?"

"Spoke to me. Directly. He's suspicious. He had someone tail me last Thursday - I lost them in the market crowd."

He scribbled something in a notebook. "Has he touched you?"

I flinched. "No. Not like that. But he watches. Closely."

Elise leaned forward. "And how are you handling it?"

That question stung more than I expected.

"I'm fine," I said too quickly. "Focused."

"You're too deep already," Captain said bluntly. "I read your last memo. You said he unsettled you."

"He unsettles everyone," I shot back. "That's who he is."

"No," he said slowly. "There's something else. You're writing about him differently now. Less like a suspect. More like a... man."

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek.

He's the Don. My mission hasn't changed."

Good." DeSantis slid a file across the desk. Because things are about to get worse."

I opened it. Inside were grainy photos - a shipment of weapons being loaded into a truck at the Napoli docks.

"What am I looking at?"

Gerardo's next move. We've got intel that he's expanding. Arms, not just drugs. That shipment leaves the port in three days. We need a location. A buyer. Something."

I can try," I said, eyes narrowing on the photos. "But I'm still earning their trust. Pushing too fast could get me burned."

Then get creative," DeSantis growled. "Because I won't keep you in there much longer if you're compromised. And from the sound of it - he already smells the smoke."

I closed the folder.

"I can handle Alessandro Gerardo," I said.

But even as I said it, I wasn't sure if I was convincing him - or myself.

-

Elise walked me back to the alley door.

"You're not sleeping, are you?" she asked softly.

"Does anyone sleep in hell?"

She smiled grimly. "I've been undercover. I know the drill. But Isabella... don't forget who you are. They get in your head. That's how they win."

"I'm not the girl who flinches," I said.

"But you're the girl who had a brother gunned down in front of a pizza shop because the wrong man owed a favor to the Gerardo name."

My jaw locked.

"Don't let his eyes distract you from that," Elise finished.

I didn't answer.

Because what could I say?

She was right. About all of it.

-

Back at my apartment - the one the department paid for under a fake name - I peeled off my jacket and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

The woman looking back at me wore dark eyeliner, red lips, and a thin smirk that wasn't entirely mine.

Bella Rossi ," I whispered. "Niece of a florist. Bartender. Nobody."

But my real voice - Isabella Vitale, the one buried under layers of lies - said something else:

Undercover officer. Sister of the dead. Daughter of justice.

And then, fainter still...

The woman who can't stop thinking about the man she's supposed to take down.

God help me.

I was slipping.

And I needed to pull myself back before I disappeared entirely.