Chapter 5 - The Phantom of the Syndicate
For three days, I was not allowed to leave the master suite.
Dante had placed two guards outside the bedroom door, and an entire team of private nurses buzzed around me like white-clad hornets. They drew blood, administered vitamin IVs, brought trays of roasted salmon, organic greens, and fresh bone broths.
My body, starved of nutrients for months, absorbed the care with traitorous relief. The gray pallor left my skin; the swelling in my ankles slowly subsided. But the golden cage remained a cage.
On the fourth evening, the door clicked open, and Dante entered.
He had shed his suit jacket, wearing a charcoal dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked haggard. Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and a fresh cut was visible across his left eyebrow—the scab dark and angry.
He didn't say a word. He walked over to the bed, kicked off his shoes, and sat down on the edge.
“You’ve been fighting,” I said softly, sitting up against the pillows.
Dante let out a low, tired breath, resting his elbows on his knees. “Matteo is making moves.”
Matteo Moretti was Dante’s cousin—an ambitious, reckless Capo who commanded the South Side factions. I had always hated him. His eyes had always lingered too long on my body whenever Dante’s back was turned.
“What did Matteo do?” I asked.
“He noticed the shift in security,” Dante replied, turning his head to look at me. “When I pulled fifty of our best soldiers off the docks to secure this estate, the syndicates knew something had changed. Word leaked that I brought a woman back. Matteo thinks I’ve grown soft. He thinks a pregnant wife is an exploitable liability.”
*Wife.* The word hung between us. We had never married. I had been his mistress, his lover, the woman who shared his bed and his heart, but we had never taken vows.
Dante stood up and walked to the closet. He returned with a small basin of warm water infused with chamomile, a clean towel, and a bottle of rich almond oil.
I stared at him in confusion. “What is that?”
He didn't answer. He sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, pulled my swollen feet onto his lap, and dipped a washcloth into the warm water.
“Dante, stop,” I protested, trying to pull my legs back. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Be still, Sophia,” he commanded softly, his large, calloused hands gripping my ankle with astonishing gentleness.
He began to wash the remnants of exhaustion from my skin, his thumbs working in slow, rhythmic circles against the tight tendons of my arches. His hands, which had ended lives and signed death warrants, were impossibly tender.
A choked sound escaped my throat. The sheer vulnerability of this man—the undisputed boss of the Midwest underworld—kneeling on the floor between my knees, tending to my swollen feet, broke through the last barricades of my defenses.
“Why do you do this?” I whispered, tears running silently down my cheeks. “Why keep me here if I’m just a target? If Matteo wants you dead, I’m the easiest way to break you.”
Dante stopped his movements. He looked up, his hazel eyes dark with an emotion so fierce it terrified me.
“Because without you, Sophia, there is no empire,” he said, his voice raw with truth. “Before I met you, I was a butcher in a tailored suit. You gave this house a soul. You made me want to survive the night.”
He reached up, pouring a few drops of almond oil into his palms, warming it between his hands before sliding them gently over my skin, moving up to the curve of my calves.
“If Matteo wants a war, I will give him one,” Dante whispered, leaning forward to press his lips against the inside of my knee. “I will burn Chicago to ashes before I let anyone threaten the mother of my child.”
The baby kicked then—a hard, rolling movement against my belly.
Dante froze. Slowly, hesitantly, he rose from the floor and sat on the edge of the mattress. He reached out, his hand hovering over my rounded stomach, looking at me with an unspoken question in his eyes.
I took his hand. I guided his scarred palm down against my cotton nightgown, placing it directly over the spot where our baby was turning.
Under his palm, our child moved again.
Dante inhaled sharply, his shoulders trembling. A single tear slipped from his eye, tracking down the sharp line of his cheek before he could stop it. The ruthless Don of the Moretti family closed his eyes, resting his forehead against my belly, listening to the life he had created.
May you like
And in that quiet room, amidst the threat of bloodshed, the war between us died.
***
