Chapter 281: She’s A Natural

"Will you?" Eve asked. "Be safe?"

"Yes," Dimitri said, and he believed it. "I’ve killed before, piccola. I’ve fought trained soldiers. I’ve done things you can’t even imagine to survive. These seven men aren’t going to be the thing that takes me down. Not when I have everything to fight for."

He held her closer, his lips brushing her hair.

"Tomorrow night, when they come, I need you to stay here. In this room. With the door locked. Marco will have men positioned. You’ll have a gun. You know how to use it now. If anything goes wrong, and it won’t....but if it does, you use it. You protect yourself. You survive. Understood?"

"Understood," Eve said, but she was trembling slightly.

Dimitri understood. Fear wasn’t weakness. Fear was just the acknowledgment that something mattered enough to be afraid of losing it.

They stayed like that for a while, holding each other, not talking. There was nothing left to say. Tomorrow would bring what it brought. Tonight, they just needed to be together.

Eventually, they made their way back upstairs.

Marco was waiting in the main room, a folder in his hands. He didn’t comment on the fact that they’d obviously been intimate, Marco was too professional for that.....but Dimitri caught the slight curve of his lips.

"Everything’s in position," Marco said, handing Dimitri the folder. "Security is set. Weapons are distributed. The perimeter is covered. When they come, we’ll be ready."

"Good," Dimitri said, then he looked at Eve then back at Marco. "How’s Eve doing with the gun?"

"She’s a natural," Marco said, glancing at Eve with something that might have been respect. "Better aim than most soldiers I’ve trained."

Eve blushed slightly at the compliment.

"She’s always been capable," Dimitri said, pulling her close. "Sometimes she just needs a reason to believe it."

***

That night, they lay in bed together in the safe house, both of them knowing that tomorrow everything would change. Tomorrow there would be violence and blood and the kind of darkness that couldn’t be unseen once witnessed.

But tonight, they held each other and didn’t think about tomorrow.

Dimitri kissed Eve’s forehead as she drifted toward sleep.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too," she murmured back, already half-asleep.

And Dimitri lay awake in the darkness, thinking about the men who were coming. Thinking about what he was going to do to anyone who threatened the woman sleeping in his arms.

By the time the sun came up tomorrow, seven men would learn exactly why they should have left Dimitri Valentino alone.

And Eve would understand that the man she loved wasn’t just capable of darkness.

He was darkness when it mattered.

And that was exactly the kind of man you needed in your corner when the world tried to destroy you.

***

HOURS LATER

The night was completely silent.

Dimitri sat in the main room of the safe house, watching the monitor that showed the perimeter cameras. Marco had positioned men strategically around the property, two at the northern approach, two at the southern, one on high ground with a rifle, two more moving silently through the grounds.

It was 12:47 AM.

Thirteen minutes until they arrived.

Dimitri was dressed in all black....tactical pants, a dark shirt, weapons within easy reach. Two handguns on his hips. A rifle leaning against the wall beside him. A knife in his boot. Marco had wanted him to stay in the safe house, protected, letting the security team handle the threat.

But Dimitri had made it clear: these men came to kill him, and he was going to be the one to end them.

Eve was upstairs in the secure room. Marco had locked her in personally, a detail that had made her furious, but a detail that was necessary. She had a gun. She had water. She had communication with Marco via radio. And she was as safe as Dimitri could make her.

Which meant Dimitri could focus entirely on what was about to happen.

He checked his weapons one more time. Loaded. Ready. Everything in place.

On the monitor, the water around the island was still and dark. No sign of the speedboat yet. But they would come. Marco’s intelligence had been solid. The timing had been confirmed from multiple sources.

Dante’s men were coming to the island tonight.

And they were walking into a trap.

Dimitri heard Marco’s voice in his earpiece....soft, professional, completely calm.

"All positions report ready. Northern team in place. Southern team in place. High ground secure. Perimeter locked down. We’re green across the board."

"Good," Dimitri said quietly. "Let’s end this."

He picked up one of the handguns and chambered a round. The sound was quiet but definitive. A reminder that killing was coming. That blood would be spilled.

He’d spent the last two days thinking about these seven men. Thinking about what they represented. They were soldiers, the kind of men who did jobs for money, who didn’t ask questions, who understood that sometimes you killed people and sometimes you didn’t go home.

Dimitri respected that. In another life, he might have been that kind of man.

But in this life, he was the man who hired people like that. And more importantly, he was the man who killed people like that when they dare to threaten him.

"Incoming," Marco’s voice came through the earpiece. "Speedboat, northern approach. Two kilometers out. ETA five minutes."

Dimitri stood and walked to the window. The night was dark, but he could see the ocean in the distance. Could see the darkness of the water waiting to receive bodies.

Five minutes.

He thought about calling Eve. Thought about hearing her voice one more time before this started.

Instead, he just checked his weapons again.

***

The speedboat appeared on the monitors at exactly 1:03 AM.

It moved quietly through the water, running dark...no navigation lights, no beacon. Just seven men in tactical gear, moving toward an island they thought would be easy to breach.

They had no idea that Marco had been tracking them for the past three hours. That every man on the island knew exactly where they were and exactly where they were going.

"Northern team," Marco said quietly into the radio. "They’re coming to your position. Let them pass. Don’t engage until I give the word."