Chapter 4: Unlikely Allies
The breakfast was getting cold, but I couldn't bring myself to eat. My hands shook as I turned through page after page of evidence that could reshape everything I thought I knew about the Castello investigation. Bank records showing offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. Shipping manifests with coded entries that matched weapon serial numbers from ATF seizures. Photographs of Vincent meeting with known arms dealers in locations the FBI had never identified.
"This is impossible," I whispered. "We've had surveillance on Vincent for months. How did we miss all of this?"
Dante moved to the window, his broad shoulders blocking some of the morning light. "Because Vincent compartmentalizes everything. No single person in his organization knows more than their piece of the puzzle. Except me."
"Why you?"
He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a weight that made something in my chest tighten.
"Because he trusts me completely. Or he did, until recently." Dante turned back to face me, and for the first time, I saw vulnerability in those dark eyes. "I've been his most loyal soldier for twelve years. The son he never had. The killer he could always count on."
The word 'killer' should have terrified me. Instead, I found myself studying the man who'd spoken it with such quiet self-loathing. This wasn't the monster Vincent Castello had created. This was someone fighting to reclaim his soul.
"How many?" I asked softly.
"Seventeen." He said it without hesitation, like he'd counted them every night for years. "Seventeen people are dead because I believed Vincent's lies about justice and family loyalty."
My FBI training screamed warnings about Stockholm syndrome, about sympathizing with criminals, about losing objectivity. But as I watched Dante's face—the genuine remorse, the carefully controlled anguish—I realized this wasn't manipulation. This was confession.
"I can't take back what I've done," he continued. "But I can make sure Vincent pays for what he's made me become. What he's made all of us become."
I closed the folder and leaned back in my chair. "The FBI doesn't make deals with killers."
"The FBI makes deals with whoever can bring down the bigger fish. You know that as well as I do." Dante's voice hardened slightly. "How many murderers has the Bureau given immunity to in exchange for testimony against mob bosses? How many drug dealers have walked free because they could deliver cartel leaders?"
He was right, and we both knew it. The justice system was built on compromise, on choosing the lesser evil to prevent the greater one. But this felt different. This felt personal in ways that had nothing to do with the case.
"What makes you think I won't just take your evidence and disappear?" I asked. "Turn it over to my superiors and let them handle Vincent through official channels?"
Dante's smile was sharp and knowing. "Because official channels take years, and Vincent doesn't have years. His paranoia is escalating daily. He's already ordered three executions this month—people he suspects of disloyalty. By the time the FBI builds a case around my evidence, half his organization will be dead and the other half will be in hiding."
The logic was sound, but there was something else in his expression. Something that suggested he knew exactly why I wouldn't just walk away.
"And because," he added quietly, "you feel it too."
"Feel what?"
"This." He gestured between us with one hand. "Whatever this is that's been building since the moment I said your name in that car."
Heat flashed through me, unexpected and unwelcome. I'd been trying to ignore the way my pulse quickened when he looked at me, the way his voice seemed to resonate in my bones. This was a man who'd kidnapped me, who'd admitted to being a killer. I shouldn't be attracted to him.
But I was.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
Dante crossed the room slowly, deliberately, stopping just outside my personal space. Close enough that I could smell his cologne—something expensive and dangerously masculine. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes.
"You're a good liar, Elena. But not good enough."
My name on his lips sent electricity down my spine. This was insane. This was professional suicide. This was—
"Don't," I whispered, though I couldn't have said what I was asking him not to do.
"Don't what?" His voice was lower now, rougher. "Don't notice that you haven't tried to escape once since I unlocked that door? Don't notice the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching?"
I should have stood up, put distance between us, reasserted my authority as a federal agent. Instead, I found myself leaning slightly forward, drawn by something I didn't understand and couldn't control.
"This is Stockholm syndrome," I said, though the words felt hollow.
"Is it?" Dante's hand moved to the table beside me, his body forming a cage around my chair without quite touching me. "Or is it something else entirely?"
Before I could answer, the sound of a cell phone ringing shattered the moment. Dante stepped back immediately, his expression shifting from intimate to alert in an instant.
He checked the caller ID and his face went cold.
"Vincent," he said simply.
I watched as he transformed before my eyes. The man who'd been looking at me with dark desire became someone else entirely—controlled, dangerous, perfectly loyal.
"Vincent," he answered the phone. "What can I do for you?"
Even from across the room, I could hear Vincent Castello's voice through the speaker. Angry, agitated, demanding answers.
"The girl got away," Vincent was saying. "Torrino and Kowalski lost her somehow. I want to know how a fucking reporter outsmarted two of my best men."
Dante met my eyes as he answered, his voice smooth as silk. "Maybe she wasn't just a reporter."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean maybe Tommy was right to be suspicious. Maybe Elena Martinez is more than she appears to be."
I held my breath, realizing that my life hung on whatever Dante said next.
"I'm looking into it," Dante continued. "Give me twenty-four hours, and I'll have answers."
"Twenty-four hours," Vincent agreed. "And Dante? When you find her, make sure she doesn't disappear again."
The line went dead.
Dante set the phone down and looked at me with an expression I couldn't read.
"Well," he said quietly. "Now we're both on borrowed time."