Chapter 383: Salvatore Would Have Wanted Dimitri To Pay

POV: DANTE

The documents spread across Dante’s desk were financial reports from the last month of operations.

Territory consolidation in Brooklyn. Preliminary numbers on the Japanese business deal. Preliminary assessments of how many dealers in Dimitri’s secondary operations could be turned or scared away.

Dante sat back in his chair and looked up from the pages.

Salvatore’s photograph sat on the corner of his desk, framed in dark wood. His brother’s face, captured in a moment of rare laughter, frozen forever at age twenty-eight. Three months and some change since Dimitri had put a bullet in him in a Rome alley. Three months since that debt had become personal in a way that went beyond business, beyond territory, beyond anything else.

Salvatore.

That was why this all started. That was the anchor point, the justification, the reason Dante woke up every morning with vengeance burning in his chest like a fire that couldn’t be extinguished or contained or reasoned with.

Dimitri killed his brother.

Everything else was just the machinery of that single, fundamental truth.

his mind drifted briefly to Isabella, sitting at her father’s estate, He hadn’t seen her in weeks, and he understood the necessity of letting her stay away while she stabilized after what happened in New York. But he wondered sometimes how she was doing. If she was eating. If she was thinking about him. If she was doing well now that she has moved back ho,w and now under her father’s watchful eyes..

But he couldn’t afford to think about Isabella right now.

Too much was happening. The two-week standdown was a cage, and he was pacing inside it like something caged. The Covenant’s plan was unfolding somewhere in the spaces between what he knew and what he didn’t know, and every hour of waiting felt like an hour wasted.

Someone knocked at door around 7:34 PM, pulling him out of his thought.

"Yeah," Dante called out.

Luca entered, settling into the chair across from Dante’s desk with the ease of someone who’d occupied that space a thousand times before.

"How are the numbers looking?" Luca asked.

"Better than expected," Dante said. "Brooklyn’s more porous than we thought. Three of Dimitri’s mid-level operators in the territory are already open to conversation. Money or fear, they’ll turn."

"And the Japanese deal?"

"Progressing. Our intermediaries are offering terms they can’t refuse. By next week, they’ll abandon the Valentino partnership."

Luca nodded, satisfied with the operational updates. This was the rhythm of their work....evaluation, assessment, movement. The machinery of power turning slowly but inevitably forward.

"The waiting is hard," Luca said.

"Yes," Dante acknowledged.

"But it’s almost over. Two more weeks and...."

The phone rang.

Not the normal line. The encrypted line. The Covenant contact.

Dante’s entire body went still. He’d been told to expect contact, but not yet. The timeline was set. Two weeks. Then operations would resume.

He picked up the phone.

"Yes?" he said.

The voice on the other end was controlled but vibrating with suppressed fury.

"Our operation failed," the voice said.

Dante’s blood went cold.

"What operation?" Dante asked, though he already knew.

"The poison attempt," the voice said flatly. "Tonight. In New York. The woman survived."

Dante’s jaw clenched.

"The attempt was executed as planned," the voice continued. "The operative confirmed delivery. We monitored the location. She should have been dead. But she isn’t. She’s alive. Which means their security detected the threat and neutralized it."

"Where did they detect it?" Dante asked.

"We don’t know yet," the voice said, and the admission of ignorance somehow made everything worse. "But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that your original assessment was wrong. What matters is that Dimitri’s security apparatus is more sophisticated than we anticipated."

Luca was watching Dante’s face, reading the shift in his expression, understanding that something significant had just happened.

"What do you want me to do?" Dante asked.

"You’re going to resume operations," the voice said. "Immediately. No more waiting. We underestimated the timeline on eliminating the woman. We need you to move against Dimitri now."

"I thought I had two weeks...."

"Plans changed," the voice cut him off coldly. "Keep Dimitri occupied. Keep him distracted. Keep him defending against your moves. While you’re doing that, we’ll be planning our next move on the woman. But we need his attention divided. We need his resources stretched. We need him focused on you, not on protecting her."

The implication was crystal clear: Dante was the distraction. Dante was the hammer being swung to make noise while The Covenant moved silently in the shadows.

"I understand," Dante said.

"Good," the voice said. "Move against Brooklyn territory tonight. Execute the Japanese deal sabotage immediately. We want visible movement, visible aggression, visible threat. Make him react."

Then the line went dead.

Dante set down the phone slowly.

Luca was watching him, waiting for him to talk.

"The Covenant failed," Dante said. "They couldn’t kill Eve."

It wasn’t a question. Luca had heard enough of the conversation to understand.

"We underestimated Dimitri," Luca said.

Dante leaned back in his chair, feeling something bitter settle in his chest.

"Of course we fucking did," Dante said, his voice carrying frustration that was purely tactical, purely operational. "That bastard is a mafia Lord. We underestimated how tight his security can be. Especially when it comes to Eve."

The poison had been detected. The operative had failed. The woman....Dimitri’s woman...was still alive.

It was a tactical failure, nothing more. But it meant everything.

"What do they want you to do now?" Luca asked.

Dante looked at him, understanding the scope of the pivot that had just been triggered.

"Resume operations," Dante said. "They said I had two weeks to stand down. But their plan changed since they failed in eliminating Eve. They want me to move against Dimitri. Keep him occupied. While they restrategize on how to execute their next move."

Luca processed this.

"So we’re the distraction?" Luca asked

"Yes," Dante confirmed.

"While they plan to kill her," Luca continued.

"Yes."

Luca was quiet for a moment, absorbing the implications of this new arrangement.

"Does this change anything for us?" Luca asked.

Dante looked back at Salvatore’s photograph on his desk.

"No," Dante said. "My vendetta against Dimitri is real regardless of what The Covenant is planning. Whether we’re part of a larger strategy or not, the fact remains: he killed my brother, and he needs to pay for that."

"Even if it means being used?" Luca asked.

"Even then," Dante said. "Because The Covenant didn’t create this hatred. Dimitri did. The Covenant is just channeling it. Using it. But it’s still mine. This is still real."

Luca nodded slowly, accepting the logic of it even if the situation was far from ideal.

"When do we move?" Luca asked.

"Tonight," Dante said. "Brooklyn territory. Full assault. I want three of Dimitri’s operators flipped or dead by morning. I want him scrambling."

"And the Japanese deal?" ℴ

"Accelerate it," Dante said. "I want their representatives calling Dimitri by end of business tomorrow with a better offer from us. I want him losing money and territory and deals simultaneously."

"That’s going to pull his attention completely," Luca said.

"Good," Dante said. "That’s exactly what we want. While he’s defending Brooklyn and trying to salvage the Japanese deal, The Covenant will be planning their next move. While he’s divided, they’ll be focused."

Dante stood, moving to the window of his office, looking out at Rome.

"Tell the teams to move," Dante said. "Brooklyn first. Then coordinate with the deal teams on the acceleration. I want maximum visible pressure on Dimitri by morning."

"Understood," Luca said, already standing.

But before Luca could leave, Dante spoke again.

"Luca."

"Yeah?"

"Salvatore would have wanted this," Dante said, looking back at his second. "Not the manipulation by The Covenant. Not being used as a tool. But the vendetta itself. The pressure on Dimitri. That part is real. That part is ours."

Luca understood what Dante was doing, reaffirming the reality of their original mission, the legitimacy of their hatred, in the face of realizing they were being used for larger purposes.

"Salvatore would have wanted Dimitri to pay," Luca agreed. "Everything else is just mechanism."

"Exactly," Dante said.

Luca left to mobilize the teams.

Dante turned back to Salvatore’s photograph.

Three and a half months since his brother’s death. Three and a half months of building toward this moment. And now, finally, operations were resuming. Finally, the machinery of vendetta was moving again.

It didn’t matter that The Covenant was using him. It didn’t matter that he was the distraction while they planned something darker and larger. What mattered was that Dimitri Valentino was about to understand that he was not going to stop, was not going to back down, and was not going to accept any outcome except the complete destruction of everything Dimitri had built.

Dante picked up the document on his table and started reading trough it again.

Brooklyn would be chaos by morning.

The Japanese deal would collapse by afternoon.

And Dimitri would be forced to respond to threats he couldn’t ignore.

While The Covenant worked silently in the shadows on their own plan.