Chapter 5 - THE SHADOW IN THE SUITE
"Dante Moretti," I whispered, the name tasting like ash on my tongue.
Detective Santos pulled the photograph back, slipping it carefully inside the manila file. "Dante is Adrian Valente’s right hand. He runs the syndicate’s logistics, their offshore accounts, and their internal security. If Dante Moretti wanted that baby dead, or wanted someone framed for putting her there... he didn't do it without Adrian knowing. Or did he?"
"Adrian looked like he wanted to tear my head off with his bare hands," I said, remembering the raw, animalistic fury in the courtyard. "He didn't look like a man who staged it."
"Or maybe," Santos murmured, tapping her pen against the table, "Adrian is the target. Think about it, Isabella. If Emma dies, or if she's rescued by a kitchen dishwasher who conveniently has a history in nursing... who inherits the Valente empire?"
My breath hitched. "The collateral branch. The cousins in New York. Or... Dante himself, if he manages to maneuver through the power vacuum."
"Exactly," Santos said, standing up and buttoning her jacket. "I can't get you out of here today. The Valentes still own half the judges in Cook County, and my captain has already warned me to back off the high-profile angles. But I didn't come here to read you your rights, Isabella."
She leaned down, her mouth close to my ear.
"I came here to tell you that someone on the outside is moving fast. And if you want to survive long enough to save your sister’s heart... you need to keep your eyes open."
Before I could ask what she meant, the heavy steel door opened, and two guards hauled me back to my feet, dragging me down the corridor toward the intake cells.
Back in the dayroom, the atmosphere had shifted.
The female inmates were huddled around a small television mounted in the corner, watching a local news broadcast with rapt attention. As I walked past, a woman with a bruised jaw pointed at the screen and muttered, "Holy shit."
I stopped at the edge of the glass partition, my eyes locking onto the screen.
BREAKING NEWS: A massive federal and state raid is currently underway at the Valente primary shipping terminals in South Chicago. Federal marshals, acting on an unsealed grand jury indictment, have seized millions in contraband and frozen all corporate assets belonging to Valente Maritime Holdings...
The anchor’s voice faded into background noise as the camera cut to live footage outside the Valente estate in Lake Forest.
Black tactical vehicles swarmed the gates. But it wasn't the FBI leading the raid.
It was a private tactical unit wearing black tactical gear bearing an insignia I had never seen before—a silver wolf's head crest.
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And leading them, striding through the gates with an obsidian-handled cane in one hand and a suppressed pistol in the other, was Adrian Valente.
He didn't look like a grieving father anymore. He looked like an executioner who had just discovered that his own house was infested with rats.
