Chapter 2: The Protector
Six hours earlier, Dante Russo had been a dead man walking.
He stood in Vincent Castello's office, hands clasped behind his back, waiting for orders that would probably get him killed. The office smelled like Cuban cigars and old leather, the kind of place where men's fates were decided over expensive whiskey.
Vincent sat behind his massive mahogany desk, silver hair perfectly styled despite the late hour. At sixty-eight, he was still the most dangerous man in Chicago. Forty years in the mob had taught him that paranoia wasn't a weakness—it was survival.
"We have a problem," Vincent said without preamble. "This reporter, Elena Martinez. She's asking too many questions."
Dante remained silent. He'd learned long ago that Vincent preferred monologues to conversations.
"Tommy's meeting with her tonight. The kid's scared—thinks she knows more than she's letting on."
Vincent leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming against the desktop. It was the only sign that he was agitated.
"I want you to take care of it," he said finally.
Those four words carried a death sentence. When Vincent Castello said "take care of it," he didn't mean negotiate. He didn't mean scare. He meant eliminate.
"Understood," Dante said.
"This stays between us," Vincent added. "Nobody else needs to know."
There it was—the paranoia that had been eating at Vincent since last winter. The old man suspected someone in his organization was feeding information to the feds. That suspicion was making him dangerous to everyone around him, including his most loyal soldiers.
"Of course," Dante replied, then turned and left.
Walking through the warehouse that served as Vincent's legitimate front, Dante's mind went to another office, fifteen years in the past. He'd been twenty-two, sitting in a police station while a detective with kind eyes told him his parents were dead.
"Rival family," the detective had said. "The Morettis. I'm sorry for your loss, son. Sometimes these family wars claim innocent victims."
Dante had joined Vincent's crew six months later, consumed by rage and the need for revenge. Vincent had been happy to weaponize that rage. Dante was the perfect recruit: young, angry, intelligent, and completely dedicated to destroying the men who had murdered his family.
It had taken him years to learn the truth.
The Morettis hadn't killed their parents. Vincent had. His father had been skimming money from construction jobs, and his mother had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For twelve months now, Dante had been gathering evidence. Building a case that would destroy Vincent Castello and everyone who'd helped cover up the truth. But evidence was useless without someone who could use it. Someone with the authority to bring down an entire criminal organization.
Someone like a federal agent.
Now, sitting in his car three blocks from Bella Notte, Dante pulled up everything he could find on Elena Martinez. On the surface, her background looked clean, a freelance journalist who'd written for several small magazines. Nothing suspicious.
But Dante had learned to look deeper. To find the inconsistencies that exposed false identities.
She'd paid cash for her apartment lease eighteen months ago—unusual for someone claiming financial struggles as a freelance writer. Her residential history had gaps, periods where she seemed to have lived nowhere. Her online presence was recently created, right around the time she'd started investigating the Castello family.
Too perfect and too convenient to be real.
A phone call to his contact in city records confirmed what Dante already suspected.
"Elena Martinez is FBI," Marcus Volpe said simply. "Special Agent out of the Chicago field office. She's been undercover.
Dante closed his eyes, processing the implications. An eighteen-month federal investigation meant they were closer to taking down Vincent than anyone realized. It also meant Elena was gathering the same evidence Dante had been collecting—evidence that could destroy Vincent from the inside.
Or she could be the answer to everything he'd been working toward.
He watched from across the street as Elena entered the restaurant. She moved like a civilian, but her eyes swept the area with professional thoroughness. She was good, better than most undercover agents he'd encountered.
Vincent had already sent two soldiers to monitor Tommy's meeting. If Elena pushed too hard, asked the wrong questions, she wouldn't leave the restaurant alive.
Dante's phone buzzed: Target is spooked. Moving to plan B.
Through the restaurant windows, he watched Tommy stand abruptly and head toward the back exit. Elena's expression changed—still controlled, but tense in a way that confirmed his suspicions about her training.
This was it. In the next few minutes, Elena Martinez would either be murdered in the alley behind an Italian restaurant, or Dante would make a decision that would change his life forever.
He could let Vincent's men handle the problem. A dead federal agent would eliminate the immediate threat, and Dante could continue his investigation in secret, hoping for another opportunity that might never come.
Or he could act. Save the life of a woman who represented everything he'd been fighting for—justice, revenge, the power to finally make Vincent pay for what he'd done.
Dante started his car.
The decision felt inevitable, as if fifteen years of careful planning had led to this single moment. Elena Martinez wasn't just a federal agent—she was his weapon of revenge, the key to destroying the man who'd murdered his parents and turned him into a killer.
He would keep her alive, and he would use her to bring down Vincent Castello.
The chase was brief but intense. Elena moved well, using cover effectively, but she was outnumbered and in hostile territory. Dante followed at a distance, waiting for his moment. He needed her away from Vincent's soldiers, alone and vulnerable.
When she reached her car, Dante was already waiting.
Elena's hands trembled as she worked her keys, fear overriding professional training. She threw herself into the driver's seat and locked the doors, but she'd made the classic rookie mistake of not checking her back seat.
"Hello, Elena," Dante said softly. "We need to talk."
She spun toward him, reaching for the door handle, but Dante was faster. He pressed the chloroform-soaked cloth over her face—gently but firmly. He'd measured the dose carefully: enough to incapacitate, not enough to harm.
For the first time in fifteen years, Dante was using his skills to save a life instead of take one.
Elena struggled for perhaps ten seconds before the chemical took effect. Her body went limp, and Dante caught her as she fell forward. He carefully repositioned her in the passenger seat and secured her seatbelt.
The drive to Montana took twelve hours on winding mountain roads while Elena slept peacefully beside him. Dante found himself glancing at her occasionally, watching her face illuminated by the dashboard lights. She looked younger in sleep, vulnerable in a way that made him question what he'd become.
He'd killed seventeen men on Vincent Castello's orders. Seventeen people had died because a monster had manipulated him into believing he was serving justice. And now he was kidnapping a federal agent—a woman who was probably someone's sister, someone's daughter—and he wasn't certain he was still one of the good guys.
The cabin sat in a valley between two peaks, accessible only by a single dirt road that Dante maintained. Solar panels powered the essential systems, a backup generator provided additional electricity, and a well supplied fresh water. It was his sanctuary, the one place on earth where he could remember who he'd been before Vincent Castello turned him into a weapon.
Elena began stirring as he pulled into the driveway. Dante carried her inside with surprising gentleness, taking her upstairs to the guest bedroom he'd prepared months ago. He'd secured it—bars on the windows, reinforced door—but he'd also made it comfortable. A real bed with quality linens, books, and a chair by the window.
He settled Elena on the bed and stepped back, studying her sleeping face in the lamplight. Her dark hair fanned across the pillow, features peaceful in unconsciousness. She was beautiful, he realized, though that hadn't been part of his calculations.
Dante closed the bedroom door and walked to his own room. He sat in the chair at the foot of his bed and wondered if he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Snow began falling outside on the Montana peaks, and Elena Martinez slept the deep sleep of the drugged, unaware that her life had just taken a turn into territory no FBI training could have prepared her for.