Chapter 5
The reality of Dante’s words crashed down on Emma like a physical blow.
Her textbooks, her laptop, her rent receipts, her safe little apartment on the Upper West Side—all gone.
Reduced to leverage in a brutal syndicate war she never asked to join.
“You dragged me into this!” Emma shouted, stepping up to him with a fury that surprised even herself. “I was just a waitress trying to pay tuition!”
“And now you’re an active target in a multi-billion-dollar turf war,” Dante countered, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. “Welcome to reality, counsel.”
He opened the door of a nondescript silver sedan parked quietly near the subway exit.
“Get in,” Dante instructed. “We’re going to my secondary safehouse in Queens.”
Emma hesitated for a fraction of a second.
She had no money, no ID, and every federal agency and criminal syndicate in New York was likely looking for her.
She got into the passenger seat.
The drive across the Queensboro Bridge was silent.
The Manhattan skyline shimmered behind them like a glittering cage of fire and glass.
Dante drove with one hand on the wheel, his eyes constantly scanning the rearview mirror.
“Why didn't Julian just kill you at Bellanova?” Emma asked quietly, breaking the silence.
“Because Bellanova is neutral ground owned by the Commission,” Dante explained. “Violating the truce inside the restaurant would have turned every other family against Julian. That’s why he used a false bartender and an outsourced hitman. Plausible deniability.”
“And my receipt warning?”
“You ruined his deniability,” Dante said, looking at her sideways. “You forced my hand, and you saved my life. Nobody crosses Julian and lives. That makes you target number two.”
They turned down a quiet, tree-lined street in Astoria, pulling into the detached garage of an unassuming brick townhouse.
Inside, the house was heavily fortified with electronic shutters, reinforced steel doors, and an array of tactical monitors displaying every angle of the street.
Dante tossed his car keys onto the kitchen island.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Dante said. “We have a long war ahead of us.”
Emma walked over to the living room window, peering through the blinds.
“We aren’t going to hide, Mr. Vance,” Emma said, turning around to face him. “We’re going to fight back.”
Dante raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine respect crossing his gray eyes.
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“And how do you propose a law student and a hunted mob boss take down Julian Vance?”
“By using his own financial records against him,” Emma said coldly. “Every syndicate needs shell companies. And every shell company leaves a paper trail.”
