Chapter 5: Playing with Fire
"What did you just do?" I demanded, adrenaline flooding my system.
Dante was already moving, gathering the evidence files and securing them in a metal briefcase. "I bought us twenty-four hours before Vincent sends an army to hunt you down."
"By telling him I'm more than a reporter? How does that help?"
"Because now he'll be cautious instead of reckless. He'll want you alive for questioning instead of dead in a ditch." Dante locked the briefcase and turned to face me. "It also means he'll give me the resources I need to 'find' you."
The implications hit me like ice water. "You're going to turn me in."
"I'm going to pretend to turn you in." His voice was patient, like he was explaining something to a child. "There's a difference."
"Is there? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're playing both sides."
Dante's jaw tightened. "I've been playing both sides for fifteen years, Elena. It's the only way to stay alive long enough to see justice done."
I stood up, pacing to the barred window. Outside, the Montana wilderness stretched endlessly in all directions. Beautiful and completely isolating.
"My handler will be looking for me," I said. "When I miss my scheduled check-in—"
"Agent Marcus Torres is already looking for you. He's been calling your phone every hour since last night." Dante pulled a familiar device from his jacket—my FBI-issued cell phone. "Seventeen missed calls and counting."
The sight of my phone in his hands should have terrified me. Instead, I felt a strange sense of relief. Marcus would find me. The Bureau would track me down. This nightmare would end.
But as I watched Dante study the device, I realized something that made my blood run cold.
"You're not going to let me contact him, are you?"
"I can't. Not yet." Dante met my eyes, and I saw genuine regret there. "As soon as the Bureau knows you're alive, they'll want you back in protective custody. The investigation will go official, and Vincent will disappear into the wind with all his evidence."
"So what? You keep me prisoner indefinitely while you play out your revenge fantasy?"
"I keep you safe while we build an airtight case against Vincent Castello." His voice hardened. "This isn't a revenge fantasy, Elena. This is the only chance we'll get to bring him down completely."
I wanted to argue, to demand my freedom, to assert my rights as a federal agent. But as I looked at the evidence scattered across the table—years of meticulous documentation that could destroy one of Chicago's most powerful crime families—I realized he might be right.
"How long?" I asked quietly.
"A week. Maybe two. Just long enough to coordinate our evidence and plan our approach."
"And if I refuse to cooperate?"
Dante was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft but implacable.
"Then Vincent wins. He disappears, reorganizes somewhere else, and continues destroying lives. And you and I both end up dead for knowing too much."
The truth of his words settled over me like a heavy blanket. We were already past the point of no return. The moment I'd looked at his evidence, I'd become complicit in whatever came next.
"I need to think," I said.
"Of course." Dante moved toward the door. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
"Dante." I called his name before I could stop myself.
He paused in the doorway, looking back at me with those impossibly dark eyes.
"Why save me?" I asked. "Really. You could have found another way to get your evidence to the FBI. Why risk everything to keep me alive?"
For a moment, his carefully controlled expression cracked, and I saw something raw and honest underneath.
"Because," he said simply, "you're the first person in fifteen years who's looked at me like I might still be worth saving."
The door closed behind him with a soft click, leaving me alone with evidence of crimes that could topple an empire and the growing certainty that I was falling for my captor.
I spent the afternoon studying Dante's files, cross-referencing them with everything I'd learned during my undercover investigation. The scope of Vincent's operation was staggering—money laundering, arms trafficking, drug distribution, human trafficking, contract killing. The Castello family wasn't just a crime organization; it was a multinational corporation built on suffering.
And Dante had documented it all.
Bank records showing the flow of dirty money through legitimate businesses. Shipping manifests detailing weapons shipments to war zones. Recorded conversations where Vincent casually ordered executions. Photographs of meetings with cartel leaders, terrorist financiers, and corrupt officials.
This wasn't just evidence. This was a roadmap to dismantling one of the most powerful criminal enterprises in North America.
But there was something else in the files that made my heart race for entirely different reasons. Personal documents. School records, medical files, psychiatric evaluations—glimpses into the man Dante had been before Vincent Castello turned him into a weapon.
High school valedictorian. Full scholarship to Northwestern University. Pre-med student with a 4.0 GPA and volunteer work at free clinics. This wasn't the background of a natural killer. This was someone who'd wanted to save lives, not take them.
The transformation had begun after his parents' death. Grief counseling records showed a young man consumed by rage and guilt, spiraling into darkness despite his therapists' best efforts. Then the records stopped abruptly, right around the time Dante would have joined Vincent's organization.
I was so absorbed in reading that I didn't hear him return until he spoke.
"Find anything interesting?"
I looked up to find Dante standing in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs. He'd changed clothes—dark jeans and a black sweater that emphasized his broad shoulders. His hair was damp from a shower, and the sight of him looking so casually masculine made my mouth go dry.
"Your academic records," I said, trying to keep my voice professional. "You were pre-med?"
A shadow passed over his face. "Another lifetime."
"What changed?"
Dante set one mug in front of me—coffee, perfectly prepared with cream and sugar. The fact that he'd remembered how I liked it from breakfast was somehow more intimate than it should have been.
"Vincent changed everything." He sat across from me, cradling his own mug. "After my parents died, I was angry, reckless, looking for someone to blame. Vincent gave me targets for that anger."
"Did you ever think about leaving? Going back to school?"
"Every day for the first five years." His smile was bitter. "But Vincent doesn't let people leave. Once you're in his family, you're in for life. Or until someone puts a bullet in your head."
I studied his profile as he stared out the window. Even in casual clothes, he carried himself like a predator—controlled, alert, dangerous. But there were moments when his guard dropped, when I could see the man he might have been if tragedy hadn't derailed his life.
"What would you have specialized in?" I asked softly.
"Emergency medicine. I wanted to save people who were running out of time." He met my eyes, and the irony wasn't lost on either of us. "Guess I got my wish, just not the way I expected."
The double meaning sent heat through my chest. He was saving me, but from what? Vincent's bullets, or my own FBI protocols that would end this strange partnership before it could accomplish anything meaningful?
"Elena." His voice was lower now, rougher. "We need to talk about what happens next."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Vincent expects results. Tomorrow morning, I need to report back to him with information about your whereabouts." Dante leaned forward, his intensity filling the space between us. "Which means we need to decide how much truth we're willing to risk."
My pulse quickened. "What kind of truth?"
"The kind where I tell him I found you. Where I bring you back to Chicago and deliver you directly into his hands."
The room seemed to shrink around us. "You said you wouldn't—"
"I won't. But Vincent doesn't know that." Dante's eyes never left mine. "As far as he's concerned, I'm going to hand over a federal agent who's been investigating his organization. What he doesn't know is that you and I will be working together to feed him exactly the information we want him to have."
The plan was audacious and terrifying. "You're talking about making me a double agent."
"I'm talking about using Vincent's paranoia against him. Making him believe he's won while we gather the final pieces of evidence we need." Dante's voice was steady, confident. "But it only works if he believes you're genuinely compromised. Scared. Broken."
The implications hit me like a physical blow. "You want me to act like you've tortured me."
"I want you to act like you'll do anything to stay alive. Even betray the FBI."
My hands trembled as I set down my coffee mug. This was beyond anything I'd been trained for, beyond anything the Bureau would authorize. This was stepping into moral gray area where the lines between right and wrong became blurred beyond recognition.
"And if something goes wrong? If Vincent sees through the deception?"
Dante's expression hardened. "Then we both die, and Vincent continues destroying lives for another fifteen years."
I closed my eyes, weighing options that all led to disaster. Stay here and become an accessory to whatever Dante had planned. Return to Chicago and risk being exposed as a double agent. Contact Marcus and watch the entire operation collapse before justice could be served.
When I opened my eyes, Dante was watching me with an intensity that made my skin feel too tight.
"There's something else," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Vincent will expect me to have... interrogated you. Thoroughly."
The word hung between us like a loaded weapon. I understood exactly what he was implying.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you'll need to look like you've been through hell. Scared, exhausted, maybe roughed up a little." His jaw tightened. "I won't actually hurt you, Elena. But you'll need to convincingly appear hurt."
Heat flooded my cheeks as I realized what he was suggesting. We'd have to stage evidence of torture, create a performance that would fool one of the most suspicious men in Chicago. The intimacy required for such deception would push us into territory neither of us was prepared for.
"How... how would we...?"
"Very carefully. With your consent at every step." Dante's voice was rough with something that might have been desire or might have been dread. "But Elena, once we start down this path, there's no going back. We'll be committed to seeing it through to the end."
I stared at him across the small table, this dangerous man who'd kidnapped me and was now offering to risk his life to bring justice to monsters. The smart choice was to refuse, to demand he contact the FBI and let official channels handle Vincent Castello.
But intelligence wasn't the only thing influencing my decision. There was something else, something I didn't want to examine too closely. The way he looked at me like I was worth saving. The way his presence made me feel both terrified and utterly secure. The growing certainty that walking away from him would mean walking away from something irreplaceable.
"How long would we have to maintain the deception?" I asked.
"Until we have enough evidence to destroy Vincent completely. Two weeks, maybe three."
"And you really think we can fool him?"
Dante's smile was sharp and predatory. "Elena, I've been fooling Vincent Castello for fifteen years. Trust me, I know exactly how to give him what he expects to see."
The word 'trust' hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us was ready to address. But as I looked at the evidence spread across the table—years of painstaking documentation that could bring down an empire of corruption—I realized trust might be the only currency that mattered.
"Okay," I said quietly. "Tell me what you need me to do."