Chapter 202: Dimitri Knows

Then he picked her up by her waist, his strength making it effortless, and positioned her above him.

"Dante, what are you...." Isabella started.

He brought her down.

Hard.

Impaling her completely on his cock with a force that knocked the breath from her lungs.

She screamed...a raw, anguished sound....and he began moving her up and down with brutal efficiency.

His hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, controlling every movement, controlling her completely.

"This is what you are," Dante said, his voice cold as ice. "This is all you are. A cunt to be used. A body to be fucked. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Isabella’s tears streamed down her face, but her body responded despite her obvious distress. Her inner walls clenched around him. Her hips tried to move in rhythm with his brutal pace.

Because that’s what he’d trained her to do. To associate pain with pleasure. To confuse his cruelty with affection.

He increased his pace, moving her faster and faster, his muscles straining with the effort.

The bed shook beneath them. The headboard knocked against the wall with each violent thrust.

Isabella’s screams turned into sobs turned into wordless sounds of overwhelming sensation.

Dante felt nothing but the physical satisfaction of the moment. The cold knowledge that he was demonstrating exactly what she meant to him, which was nothing. Which was less than nothing.

She was a means to an end. An intelligence-gathering tool. A way to get information on the Russo family. A potential leverage point against Dimitri Valentino.

And now, with Dimitri’s men watching the building, she was about to become something even more useful.

He fucked her harder, driving up into her with a savagery that bordered on violent.

Isabella’s voice gave out....she could no longer scream, could only make broken, gasping sounds.

Her body convulsed around him, and he felt her come, whether from pleasure or pain or the overwhelming intensity of it all, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

He followed her over moments later, spilling inside her with a groan that came from deep in his chest.

But he didn’t soften inside her. Didn’t pull out gently. Just held her suspended above him, breathing heavily, his expression still cold.

Then, without warning, he pulled out and dropped her onto the bed like she was nothing.

Isabella collapsed into a heap, gasping, shaking, completely destroyed.

Dante stood, walked to the bathroom, and cleaned himself.

When he emerged, Isabella was still lying there, unable to move.

He dressed without looking at her. Without acknowledging her. Without showing any sign of what had just transpired between them.

"I’ll be back when I feel like coming back," he said to her.

"Wait..." Isabella’s voice was hoarse. "When will that be?"

Dante looked at her....really looked at her, seeing exactly what he’d created. A woman so desperate for attention, so broken by rejection, that she’d become exactly the tool he needed.

"When I feel like it," he repeated.

Then he walked out of the apartment without looking back.

***

The night air hit him as he exited Isabella’s building.

Dante didn’t bother looking for Dimitri’s surveillance team. He knew they were there. Knew they were watching. Knew they’d documented his exit time.

Let them.

He pulled out his phone and called Luca.

"I’m out. Update?"

"They’re still in position. No movement toward you. Just observation."

"Good." Dante got into his car, a black sedan that blended perfectly into the Rome streets. "That means Dimitri’s being smart. He’s not going to move against me while I’m this close to Isabella. Too risky."

"What’s the play?" Luca asked.

"We let him watch," Dante said, starting the engine. "We let him gather his intelligence on my movements. And we use that time to gather intelligence on his response. Because the fact that he’s watching means he’s planning something. And I want to know what that something is before he executes it."

"And Isabella?"

"Isabella is exactly where we need her. Broken. Dependent. Gathering information without even knowing she’s doing it." Dante smiled into the darkness. "By the time Dimitri figures out how to handle this situation, we’ll have everything we need to destroy him."

The call ended.

Dante drove through Rome’s streets, his mind already calculating the next ten moves.

Dimitri knew he was fucking Isabella. Knew he was gathering intelligence. Knew he was positioning himself as a threat.

Dimitri thought he was being clever. Thought he could outsmart Dante by watching the apartment. Thought that surveillance would somehow help him understand the situation.

But Dimitri didn’t understand the scope of what was happening. Didn’t understand the layers Dante was operating on.

By the time Dimitri figured out what was actually going on, it would be far too late.

***

POV: JAMES CONLEY

The apartment in the Lower East Side was nondescript.

That was the point.

James stood in front of the mirror, looking at his reflection, forty-two years old, scarred, built like someone who’d spent his entire life preparing for war. Which, essentially, he had.

Twenty years in the Marines. Another eight working for Dimitri. Countless missions, countless scars, countless moments where he’d stared death in the face and refused to blink.

And now, he was about to walk directly into it.

The Covenant.

He’d heard whispers about them over the years. Rumors in the intelligence circles that his military contacts still moved through. Dark stories about bioweapons and human experimentation. About people who disappeared and were never found.

About an organization so deeply embedded in global power structures that most governments turned a blind eye to their operations.

And in approximately four hours, James was going to volunteer to be one of their test subjects.

A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.

Marco entered, carrying a large metal case.

"You ready?" Marco asked. His expression was carefully neutral, but James could see the weight behind it. Marco had known him for five years. Had worked alongside him on multiple operations. Had probably never believed James would actually go through with this.

"As I’ll ever be," James said.