Chapter 342: Dr. Aleksandr Volkov Is Dimitri Valentino

Dante’s grip on the phone tightened. He remembered now, the rumors that had circulated through Roman circles when the news broke. An industrial accident, the official story said. But he’d heard enough whispers to know it wasn’t true. He’d even had his own suspicions about who was responsible, though he’d never had proof. He’d been scheduled to visit that facility himself, once, on a matter of business with one of the previous directors, a meeting that got cancelled two weeks before the fire.

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Dr. Aleksandr Volkov doesn’t exist," the voice said. "That was an alias. The man who destroyed our facility, who killed our people, who set our research back over a decade....his real name is Dimitri Valentino."

Dante’s heart was pounding now, blood rushing in his ears.

"You’re certain of this?" he asked.

"Completely," the voice said. "We’ve spent months confirming it. Facial recognition. Biometric data. Financial trails that connect back to his operations. There’s no doubt, Mr. Romano. The man you’re hunting for personal reasons is the same man who murdered forty-seven of our people and destroyed everything we built."

Dante sat back in his chair, his mind racing. Dimitri had destroyed a bioweapons facility months ago. He’d never mentioned it. Never explained why. But it made sense now, the timeline, the disappearance, the sudden focus on consolidating power afterward.

"Why are you telling me this?" Dante asked.

"Because we want the same thing you want," the voice said. "Dimitri Valentino dead. And because we believe we can help each other, We found a man already at war with him," the voice said. "A man who’d already lost people to him. A man with motive that predates ours by years. It seemed like fate, Mr. Romano. And i believe we can help each other out"

Dante sat back, processing this. So The Covenant hadn’t died in that fire. It had just gone quiet. Regrouped. And now it wanted the same thing he wanted.

"What exactly was that facility to you?" Dante asked. "If it wasn’t your headquarters."

"One node in a much larger network," the voice said. "We test compounds in multiple locations, spread the risk, spread the research. Losing that site cost us time, cost us data, cost us people we can’t easily replace. It was a wound. Not a fatal one. But a wound we intend to answer."

"And you mentioned that we could be of help to each other."

"How?"

"You’re familiar with the kind of research our facility conducted," the voice said. "Experimental treatments. Compounds that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. Including regenerative therapies for nerve damage, the exact kind of injury you’re currently suffering from. We’ve used it successfully before. You could be walking again in under a month, Mr. Romano. Fully mobile. Fully yourself again."

Dante’s breath caught.

"You’re saying you can fix my legs."

"Yes" the voice replied.

Dante closed his eyes for a moment, letting the weight of that promise settle over him.

"Why not use your own people to kill him, if you want this so badly?" Dante asked. "Why come to me?"

"Because you already have infrastructure in his territory," the voice said. "Contacts. Knowledge of his patterns, his people, his weaknesses. We could send our own men, but that would take months to build the same intelligence you already possess. You’re not a means to an end for us, Mr. Romano. You’re a shortcut."

Dante almost laughed. Everyone wanted to use him as a shortcut lately.

"And if I say yes," he said, "what happens next?"

"You heal," the voice said simply. "We send a physician to administer the treatment personally, someone who can’t be traced back to us, who your Dr. Fabrizio will never need to know exists. While you recover, we begin feeding you information. Weaknesses in Valentino’s operation we’ve identified. People close to him who might be turned. Patterns in his security that even you haven’t found yet. By the time you’re back on your feet, you’ll have everything you need to finish him permanently."

"And you get nothing until he’s dead."

"We get nothing until he’s dead," the voice confirmed. "So you understand, we have every incentive to make sure you succeed. Your success is our success."

Dante was quiet for a long moment, staring at his useless legs stretched out in front of him.

"I still need time to think," he said.

"Then think," the voice said. "But don’t take too long. We have limited patience, Mr. Romano, and limited resources to offer. There are others who lost people in that fire. Others with their own grievances, their own resources. If you hesitate too long, we’ll find someone hungrier."

The line went dead.

Dante sat in the darkness of his study, the phone still pressed against his ear long after the call ended, his mind turning over everything he’d just learned.

The Covenant was alive. Rebuilding. And it wanted Dimitri Valentino’s blood as badly as he did.

The study door opened. Luca stepped in, his expression tightening the moment he saw Dante’s face.

"Boss? You’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes. Who was that?"

Dante lowered the phone slowly, his thoughts still racing.

"Luca," he said quietly, "you remember the facility outside Milan. The one that burned."

Luca’s face went carefully still. "The Covenant. Yes. Why?"

"They’re not gone," Dante said. "They lost one site. Forty-seven people. Data. But the organization survived. And they just confirmed something I always suspected."

"What’s that?"

"Dimitri Valentino burned that facility," Dante said. "He’s the reason those people died. And now The Covenant wants him dead just as badly as I do."

Luca’s jaw tightened. "What did they offer you?"

Dante looked down at his legs, then back up at his second-in-command, his expression hard with something that hadn’t been there an hour ago. Purpose. Clarity. The first real hope he’d felt since the bullet tore through his spine.

"A way to walk again," Dante said. "In under a month. And every piece of intelligence I could ever need to finally end him."

Luca was silent for a moment. "And the price?"

"You already know the price," Dante said. "There’s only one price anyone wants from me anymore."

He looked toward the window, toward the lights of Rome spread out beyond the estate walls, and for the first time since New Jersey, he allowed himself to smile.

"I think," Dante said slowly, "we’re going to say yes."