Chapter 9 - The Ghost in the Shadows
Dante pulled back from the kiss slowly, his hand remaining on my waist, but the tension radiating through his muscles felt like coiled steel.
"What is it, Marco?" Dante asked without turning his head, his voice barely audible over the roaring orchestra.
"Boss," Marco murmured, his eyes scanning the perimeter of the ballroom. "We just received a priority dispatch from the Cook County intake facility. Delia Marsh never made it into her holding cell."
My stomach dropped into a bottomless void. "What do you mean she didn't make it?" I whispered, clutching Dante’s forearm. "She was surrounded by armed federal marshals!"
"The transport van was ambushed two miles outside the facility on the expressway," Marco said, his jaw tight. "Three marshals dead. Sutton Vane was executed in the back of the van with a single shot to the forehead. But Delia was extracted."
*Extracted.*
Not killed. Rescued.
"By who?" Dante demanded, his dark eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "The Marcones?"
"No," Marco said, hesitating for a terrifying second. "The hit team used silenced submachine guns with subsonic military ammunition. They left a calling card on Sutton’s chest. A black obsidian coin with a carved wolf head."
Dante stopped breathing.
The color drained from his face—a reaction I had never seen from him, not even when he was bleeding out from poison four months ago.
"The Fenrir Syndicate," Dante muttered, his voice hollow with shock. "That's impossible. They were wiped out in Berlin seven years ago."
Before Marco could reply, the grand chandelier overhead flickered once, twice, and then plunged the entire Palmer House ballroom into pitch-black darkness.
Screams erupted instantly.
Glasses shattered against marble. The sound of dozens of handguns being cocked echoed across the echoing hall like a series of firecrackers.
"Stay down!" Dante roared, throwing his massive body over mine, shielding me and my unborn child against the polished mahogany pillar at the edge of the stage.
Red emergency lights flickered to life seconds later, bathing the grand ballroom in a bloody, apocalyptic glow.
At the center of the floor, where Vincent Marcone had been standing moments before, stood a woman in a long black trench coat, her face partially obscured by the shadow of a wide-brimmed fedora.
Beside her stood Delia Marsh.
Delia was no longer crying. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek, severe ponytail, her face clean of tears. In her hands was a high-capacity automatic pistol, aimed directly at Dante’s chest.
"Did you really think I was just an ambitious social climber, Dante?" Delia called out, her voice amplified by the dead silence of the terrified crowd. "Did you really think a girl from the South Side could orchestrate a pharmaceutical-grade cardiac toxin without professional training?"
The woman in the black trench coat stepped forward, slowly removing her fedora.
A collective gasp choked the room.
The woman possessed razor-sharp cheekbones, piercing gray eyes, and silver hair cropped close to her jawline. She looked shockingly, terrifyingly familiar.
"Mother?" Dante breathed, his voice cracking with disbelief.
Elena Moretti. The woman who had supposedly died in a car bombing in Florence twelve years ago. The matriarch who had taught Dante that tenderness makes men weak.
"Good evening, my son," Elena said, her voice smooth, cultured, and devoid of warmth. "You’ve grown soft in my absence. Parading pregnant maids through ballrooms. Discarding loyalty for sentimental rot."
"You set this up," Dante said, stepping out from behind the pillar, keeping himself positioned directly between the guns and me. "Four months ago. You gave Delia the digitalis. You ordered the hit on your own son."
"A Don who falls for a woman's tears is no Don at all," Elena replied coldly. "I needed to see if you had the steel to rule this empire through the coming war. You failed the test, Dante. You let a cleaning girl cloud your judgment. You let my grandchild be planted in the belly of a common South Side stray."
"Elena, lower the weapon," Vincent Marcone said from the side, backing slowly toward the exit. "This wasn't our agreement."
"Our agreement is void, Vincent," Elena said without looking at him.
Delia cocked her pistol, her eyes locking onto me with psychotic glee. "I told you, Marin. You don't belong in this world. And your baby won't live to see the sunrise."
Delia pulled the trigger.
The gunshot cracked like thunder.
Dante didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, throwing his entire body into Delia’s line of fire. The bullet tore through the shoulder of his midnight-blue tuxedo, blood blossoming across the fine fabric.
"Dante!" I screamed.
At the exact same moment, Marco and Dante’s tactical perimeter opened fire from the upper balconies.
A hail of suppressed gunfire rained down upon the stage. Elena’s private operatives returned fire, muzzle flashes lighting up the bloody red glow of the ballroom.
Dante didn't drop. Ignoring the blood soaking his arm, he drew his black pistol with his left hand, fired two precise shots that struck Delia’s gun hand, sending her weapon spinning across the floor, and tackled her hard onto the marble.
Delia shrieked in agony, clutching her shattered wrist.
"It's over, Delia!" Dante snarled, pressing the barrel of his gun directly between her eyes.
"Look up, Dante!" Delia choked out through bloodied teeth, laughing hysterically. "Look up!"
Dante glanced toward the center stage.
Elena Moretti was gone. She had vanished through the service corridors behind the orchestra pit, leaving behind only the scent of bitter almonds and a small black velvet box resting on the grand piano.
The gunfire ceased as Elena’s surviving mercenaries threw down their weapons under the overwhelming crossfire of Dante’s men.
The Palmer House was secure once more, but the air was thick with the copper stench of blood and gunpowder.
Dante stood slowly, his breathing ragged, his hand clamped over the bleeding graze on his shoulder. He turned back to me, stumbling slightly.
I ran to him, catching his waist, wrapping my arms around him just as I had four months ago in that stormy hotel suite.
"I’ve got you," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "I've got you, Dante."
Dante looked down at me, his dark eyes softening, his forehead resting gently against mine.
May you like
"I know you do, little ghost," he whispered. "I know you do."
***
