Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Family
Consciousness returned not as a sudden awakening, but as a slow, agonizing crawl through broken glass.
Every breath felt like inhaling ground porcelain. My chest was bound tightly in heavy compression bandages, and needles were taped into both my arms, running cold fluid through my veins.
I opened my eyes.
The ceiling wasn't the peeling plaster of my Queens apartment, nor was it the sterile white panels of Mount Sinai. It was coffered mahogany. A massive crystal chandelier hung above, dimmed to a warm, gentle amber.
“Don’t try to move,” a quiet voice said from the shadows beside the bed.
I turned my head an inch. The motion sent a white-hot spike through my neck.
Dante was sitting in a leather wingback chair pulled directly against the mattress. He looked terrible. Dark stubble shadowed his sharp jawline; his eyes were ringed with violet exhaustion. He hadn't changed into a clean suit—he wore a simple black sweater, sleeves pushed up to his forearms, revealing veins mapping down to his scarred knuckles.
“Dante…” My voice was a dry, sandpaper rasp.
He moved instantly, pouring water from a glass pitcher into a cup, sliding a bendable straw between my lips. “Small sips. Just wet your throat.”
The water was heaven. I swallowed, wincing as my diaphragm pulled against the stitched wounds.
“Rosa?” I managed to whisper.
A flicker of raw emotion passed over Dante’s face, something so deep and reverent it changed his features completely. He reached out, his calloused thumb gently skimming the line of my cheekbone, his touch impossibly tender for a man who made killers flinch.
“She’s in her quarters. Safe. Unharmed,” he murmured. “Because of you.”
I closed my eyes, letting out a shallow breath of relief. “Good.”
“Good?” Dante’s voice tightened, a note of incredulous fury vibrating beneath his whisper. “Clara, you took five bullets. You were clinically dead for three minutes on an operating table in my basement. And the first word out of your mouth is ‘good’?”
“It was... my job to protect her,” I mumbled.
“Your job was physical therapy!” he hissed, leaning closer, his breath warm against my temple. “Your job was to make her walk twenty feet! Not to throw your body between my mother and a Russian sniper rifle!”
I opened my eyes again, meeting his gaze. “If I hadn't... she would be dead.”
Dante fell silent. The fury melted from his eyes, leaving only a vast, terrifying vulnerability. He took my right hand—the one that wasn’t tied down with IV lines—and brought it to his lips. He pressed a kiss against my bruised knuckles, lingering there, his eyes closed.
“If you had died,” Dante whispered against my skin, “I would have burned this city to the ground, Clara. Every borough. Every street. I would have set it all on fire.”
The intensity of his words made my pulse spike, the heart monitor beside the bed quickening its tempo.
Before I could reply, the heavy mahogany door swung open.
Marco, Dante’s younger cousin and second-in-command, stepped into the room. He wore an expensive gray suit, his hair slicked back, but his posture was rigid, eyes shifting nervously between Dante and me.
“Dante,” Marco said softly. “The captains are gathered in the west wing. Victor Russo has put out word on the street that the hit wasn't his doing. He’s denying the Mount Sinai ambush.”
Dante didn’t release my hand. He slowly turned his head toward his cousin, his demeanor shifting instantly from a grieving protector to a lethal predator.
“Of course he’s denying it,” Dante replied, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying register. “Because Victor Russo is a coward. But Victor Russo didn’t plan this alone. He had help from the inside.”
Marco’s gaze flickered to the floor for a fraction of a second before meeting Dante’s eyes. “We’re tearing through every burner phone, every banking record of the security team. If there’s a rat, I’ll find him, cousin.”
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“No,” Dante said, finally releasing my fingers and standing up to his full height. He loomed over the room, an apex predator preparing for the hunt. “You won’t find him, Marco. I will.”
***
