Chapter 200: Boss, I Found Something

POV: EVE

The kitchen smelled like fresh herbs and simmering tomato sauce when Marco arrived.

Eve knew it was him before she even heard his voice, she’d learned to recognize the subtle shift in the penthouse’s atmosphere when different people entered. Marco had a heaviness to his presence, a weight that came from years of carrying other people’s secrets and burdens.

She was helping Nonna chop vegetables, something she’d started doing without being asked, settling into the domestic rhythm of the penthouse in a way that felt both foreign and right.

"Buonasera," Nonna said when Marco appeared in the kitchen doorway, his expression carefully neutral. "You look like you have not eaten. Sit. I will make you a plate."

"I appreciate that, Nonna," Marco said, but he didn’t sit. His eyes were on Eve. "Is the boss in his office?"

"Yes," Eve said, feeling the shift in the room’s energy. Something had happened. Something important enough that Marco needed Dimitri immediately.

Marco nodded once and left without another word.

Eve watched him disappear down the hallway, and something in her chest tightened.

"Do not worry," Nonna said, going back to her cooking. "Marco does not come with that face unless something must be discussed. It is business. It is always business."

But Eve’s instincts, the ones she’d learned to trust in this world, were screaming that this particular business was important.

***

POV: DIMITRI

Dimitri was reviewing security footage when he heard the knock.

His home office was small compared to his corporate headquarters, but it served its purpose, a place where he could work on sensitive matters without the corporate structure around him. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A mahogany desk that had belonged to his grandfather. Windows overlooking the city.

"Come in," he called.

Marco entered and closed the door behind him with deliberate care.

That single gesture told Dimitri everything he needed to know. This wasn’t casual. This wasn’t something that could be discussed in front of anyone else.

"Boss," Marco said, moving to the desk. "I found out something."

Dimitri set aside his laptop and gestured to the chair across from him. "Sit."

Marco sat, but he was perched on the edge, ready to move, ready to act, tense in a way that Dimitri rarely saw.

"The person who’s been visiting Isabella," Marco said quietly. "The one who’s been surveilling her apartment. The one who’s been...."

He paused, jaw clenching.

"Who’s been fucking her," Dimitri finished. He already knew it was someone close to Dante. Already knew it was part of a larger intelligence operation.

"It’s not someone working for him," Marco said, and his voice came out like a blade. "It’s Dante himself. Dante Romano has been visiting her apartment regularly for the past three weeks. Our sources in Rome confirmed it two hours ago. Multiple sightings. The same man entering her building at night, leaving in the morning."

The words hung in the air between them.

Dimitri felt something shift in his understanding of the situation.

Dante wasn’t just using his organization to gather intelligence. Dante was personally invested in this. Personally present. Personally fucking Isabella.

"You’re certain?" Dimitri asked, though he could see it in Marco’s face. The absolute certainty. The cold rage that came from confirming a threat.

"Positive. We have photographs. We have witness statements from building security. We have entry and exit times that line up perfectly with Isabella’s movements." Marco pulled out his phone and showed Dimitri a series of photographs, a man entering Isabella’s building, the same man leaving hours later, the same man in different angles, different times, always the same face.

Dante Romano.

"This changes everything," Dimitri said quietly.

"It does," Marco agreed. "Because now we know exactly who the threat is. And now we have to figure out how to move against him without getting Isabella killed in the process."

That was the complication. The thing that made this situation infinitely more complex.

Isabella might be a pawn in Dante’s game, but she was still connected to one of the most powerful families in Italy. Kill her.....or let her die, and Lorenzo Russo would burn the entire continent looking for revenge.

Which meant Dante’s leverage was potentially worth more than his life.

"How much does she know?" Dimitri asked.

"About what? That Dante is using her? That he’s gathering intelligence on her?" Marco shook his head. "Based on our sources, she doesn’t know any of it. She thinks he’s just a man who’s obsessed with her. A lover. She has no idea she’s being used as a tool."

Dimitri stood and walked to the window, looking out at the city below.

Dante was playing the long game. He wasn’t rushing. Wasn’t making obvious moves. He was positioning himself inside Isabella’s life, inside her trust and using that proximity to gather information that could be leveraged against her entire family.

And through her family, against him.

Because if Dante had leverage over Lorenzo Russo, he had leverage over the entire East Coast mafia structure.

"We can’t move against him," Dimitri said, turning back to Marco. "Not directly. Not yet. If we do, if we so much as make a move that he detects, he’ll either kill her or disappear. And either outcome leaves us with nothing."

"So what do we do?" Marco’s voice was tight with frustration. "We let him keep operating? We let him keep gathering intelligence?"

"We monitor him," Dimitri said, his mind already working through the angles. "We let him think he’s undetected. We gather our own intelligence on what he’s gathering. And we prepare for the moment when he makes his move."

"And Isabella?"

"Isabella is going to have to be protected," Dimitri said. "But carefully. Without her knowing that we’re doing it. Because if she figures out what Dante is doing, she’s going to panic, and panic is dangerous."

Marco nodded slowly, understanding the chess game Dimitri was laying out.

"There’s something else," Marco said. "Our Rome contact reported that Dante has been meeting with people we don’t recognize. Military-grade operatives. The kind of people who don’t usually work with regional mafia organizations."