Chapter 355: Dante’s First Move

POV: DIMITRI

The bed was warm, and Eve was warm against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder, her breathing steady and deep with sleep.

Dimitri lay awake in the pre-dawn darkness of the penthouse, watching the city begin to wake below them. It was 5:47 AM. The kind of hour when the world was still quiet and peaceful.

He wasn’t thinking about business. Wasn’t thinking about operations or rivals or the constant machinery of power that demanded his attention. He was just lying there, holding his woman, listening to her breathe, feeling the weight of her against him, and for once, allowing himself to simply exist in the moment.

It wouldn’t last. He knew that. Peace never did in his world. But for these few hours before the day began, before the demands started, he could pretend that his life was simple. That it was just him and Eve and nothing else.

Her hand moved across his chest in her sleep, instinctively seeking connection even in unconsciousness. He covered her hand with his own, pressing it against his heart, and closed his eyes.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Dimitri’s eyes snapped open. Business. It was always business.

He carefully extracted himself from Eve without waking her, grabbed his phone, and stepped into the bathroom to take the call.

It was Mike. And Mike’s voice was tense in a way that meant something was seriously wrong.

"Dimitri, we have a situation," Mike said without preamble. "The Colombian shipment. It never made it through customs at the New Jersey port."

Dimitri’s entire body went still.

"Explain," he said, his voice dropping into the cold, controlled tone that meant business.

"It arrived on schedule yesterday afternoon," Mike said rapidly. "Container was flagged for a routine customs inspection around 6 PM. Standard procedure. Security was in place, everything looked normal. But when the inspection finished and they were clearing it for release, the container was gone. Completely gone."

"Gone," Dimitri repeated flatly.

"The port manager claims he didn’t see anyone remove it. Says security was supposed to be watching it, but there was some confusion about shift changes. By the time anyone realized what was happening, the container had vanished. Dimitri, that shipment was worth three million dollars. And someone took it right out from under us."

Dimitri’s mind was already moving through scenarios. Three million in product didn’t just disappear. Someone had to have taken it. Someone organized. Someone with resources and knowledge of the operation.

"Port manager’s story," Dimitri said. "How reliable is it?"

There was a pause.

"That’s where it gets interesting," Mike said. "I had our people pull his financial records. His gambling debts disappeared. All of them. Within the last twenty-four hours, every single debt he had to every bookie and loan shark in the tri-state area got paid off. Someone bought him, boss. Someone turned him."

Dimitri closed his eyes for a moment, processing this.

"How many people knew about this shipment?" he asked.

"Seven," Mike said. "You, me, Marco, the port contact, two security guards, and the logistics coordinator. That’s it. No one outside that circle knew timing or details."

"So we have a leak," Dimitri said. "Or someone with significant resources who’s been investigating our operations and found the vulnerability on their own."

"Either way, we’ve been hit," Mike said. "And hit hard. The suppliers in Colombia are going to be asking questions. The downstream distributors are going to be asking questions. If word gets out that we can’t protect our own shipments..."

"It won’t get out," Dimitri said, his voice sharp. "We control that narrative. But Mike, I need you to find out everything about who could have done this. Check Dante’s status. Is he even capable of this level of coordination yet? Or is there someone else moving against us?"

"I’ll get on it immediately," Mike said. "When will you be here?"

Dimitri looked back toward the bedroom, where Eve was still sleeping.

"I’ll be there in an hour," Dimitri said. "Have the team assembled. I want everyone who knew about that shipment in one room. And Mike...find out how the port manager’s debts got paid. Track the money. Find out who moved it. That’s going to lead us to whoever’s behind this."

"Understood," Mike said, and hung up.

Dimitri stood in the bathroom for a moment, letting the cold reality settle over him. Someone had hit one of his major operations. Someone had taken millions of dollars of product. Someone had turned one of his contacts and done it cleanly enough that it looked like an opportunistic theft rather than a coordinated attack.

But it was coordinated. It had to be. The timing was too perfect. The execution was too clean. This was someone making a statement.

The question was: who?

Dante was supposed to be crippled. Supposed to be months away from being able to walk, much less orchestrate a complex shipment interception. But people recovered. Especially if someone was helping them recover.

The Covenant.

The thought hit him like a physical blow. If The Covenant had decided to align with Dante, if they’d given him the resources and intelligence to target his operations, then this was no longer just about Dante’s personal vendetta.

This was about a much larger enemy with vastly more resources.

Dimitri showered quickly and dressed in dark pants and a dark shirt, business clothes that could transition to tactical if needed. When he emerged from the bathroom, Eve was awake, sitting up in bed, watching him with the kind of understanding that came from knowing exactly what his rapid movements meant.

"What happened?" she asked.

"One of my shipments was intercepted at the port," Dimitri said, moving to the closet to grab a jacket. "I need to go handle it."

"Now?" Eve asked, glancing at the clock. It was 6:15 AM.

"Now," Dimitri confirmed. He crossed back to the bed and pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply. "I’ll be back as soon as I can."

"Be careful," Eve said, and there was fear in her voice now...the fear of someone who understood that his world was violent and unpredictable.

"Always," he said, though they both knew it was a lie.