Chapter-15
1290 Words
Chapter 15 – The Deal
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Dante sat in the backseat of the black Chevy Suburban, engine humming as it rolled to a stop outside an abandoned meatpacking plant on the outskirts of Salt Lake City.
Killian tapped the GPS on the dash. “This is the place. The coordinates came from that burner message. Think it’s legit?”
Dante glanced out the tinted window. “Only one way to find out.”
He pulled on a black hoodie, zipped it halfway, and holstered a Glock under his jacket.
Aria, seated beside him, placed a hand on his wrist. “Don’t go in angry.”
He turned, dark eyes still haunted by the weight of recent revelations. “I’m not angry.”
She stared at him. “Liar.”
---
Inside the building, dust floated like ghosts in the air. Sunlight streamed through cracks in boarded windows, slicing light across rusty machinery and bloodstained concrete floors.
Dante walked in alone, footsteps echoing.
A lone figure stepped from the shadows.
Middle-aged, gray hair buzzed tight, leather jacket too clean for the setting. He looked like he belonged more in a corporate boardroom than a slaughterhouse.
Agent Warren Finch, FBI.
He extended a hand.
Dante didn’t shake it.
Finch smirked. “Still rude, I see.”
Dante’s voice was low. “You said you had a deal.”
“Straight to business. I like that.” Finch reached into his coat and pulled out a thick envelope. Tossed it to the ground. “Photos. Files. Bank records. Everything tying Verratti to dozens of federal bribes and three assassinations.”
Dante knelt, flipping through the images. Surveillance shots of meetings, shell companies, audio transcripts.
“And you’re giving me this because…?”
Finch chuckled. “Because the Bureau’s hands are tied. Political pressure. Internal corruption. Verratti’s buried deep in too many pockets. But someone like you—off the leash—you can do what we can’t.”
Dante stood. “You want me to kill him for you.”
“Let’s not dress it up. Yes.”
---
Finch lit a cigarette, the cherry glowing in the dark. “Deliver Verratti to the grave, and I’ll wipe your record clean. Yours, Killian’s, even Aria’s. Hell, I’ll erase Luca’s black file from the archives.”
Dante didn’t flinch. “And in return?”
“You give me Marco. Alive.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
Finch leaned closer. “He’s the golden key. Verratti’s successor. He flips, we trace the whole syndicate—from coast to coast. I want him breathing.”
“I want him buried,” Dante growled.
Finch held up his hands. “You get Verratti. I get Marco. We both get justice.”
Dante turned away.
“I’ll think about it.”
---
Back in the car, Dante sat in silence while Killian drove, the envelope open in his lap. Aria leaned against the window, watching the mountains roll by in the distance.
“You don’t trust him,” she said.
“No,” Dante replied.
“But you’re considering it.”
Dante didn’t answer.
Killian kept his eyes on the road. “The feds are always ten steps behind. They want someone to clean the mess they helped make.”
Aria turned. “Do you think Finch was in on it before?”
Dante nodded slowly. “Either that or he’s working overtime to cover someone else’s sins.”
Killian tossed a flash drive into the cup holder. “I cloned the FBI’s mobile signal while you were inside. Let’s see what secrets Agent Finch keeps at home.”
---
That night, they stopped at a safehouse two states over—a dry motel in the desert town of Elsinore, population 640. The kind of place where everyone’s forgotten.
Perfect.
Inside the room, Killian decrypted the files. Aria sat beside him, scrolling through decades of transactions, photos, internal memos.
Then something caught her eye.
A folder labeled “Project Blacklist.”
She opened it.
Names. Hundreds of them. Ex-agents, whistleblowers, journalists. People who disappeared or “committed suicide.”
And on the final page…
Dante Moretti
Status: Active Threat
Order: Terminate on Sight
Origin: Verratti
Approved: W. Finch
Aria’s breath hitched.
Killian’s face darkened. “He’s not offering a deal. He’s setting a trap.”
---
Meanwhile, Dante stood outside, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers, his mind a battlefield of choices. He hadn’t told Aria about the final offer Finch had whispered before leaving:
> “You bring me Marco… I’ll give you your family’s real killer. It wasn’t Verratti. It was someone closer.”
Dante hadn’t slept since.
Could Finch be lying? Probably. But the seed was planted. If Marco had pulled the trigger… if Verratti had only given the order…
Then maybe Dante had been chasing the wrong ghost all along.
---
The next morning, Luca sat at the edge of the motel pool, toes in the water, staring into the blue like it might hold a reflection of the person he used to be.
Aria joined him, towel in hand.
“You okay?”
He nodded. “I feel… pieces coming back. But they don’t make sense yet.”
She smiled softly. “They will.”
He turned to her, voice trembling. “What if I remember something terrible?”
She didn’t flinch. “Then you’ll have someone to help you carry it.”
He lowered his gaze. “You believe in people too much.”
“No,” she said. “I believe in the chance to change.”
---
Inside, Killian played audio from Finch’s private office—recorded through the hacked burner.
> Finch’s Voice: “We’ll let him run for now. Let the bodies pile up. When he gets to Marco, we sweep in, take the kill shot. Clean, efficient. The Bureau wins, the press smiles, Verratti’s secrets go to the grave.”
> Unknown Voice: “And what about the girl?”
> Finch: “Collateral. Let her bleed if she gets in the way.”
---
Dante stormed in, gun in hand.
“Pack your gear. We’re not playing middlemen in their puppet show.”
Killian nodded. “Where to?”
Dante grabbed a map. Circled a spot in Nevada. “The airfield. Where Verratti’s been flying in shipments.”
Aria frowned. “What shipments?”
Dante looked at her.
“People. Girls. Boys. The kind of evil no courtroom can fix.”
Aria went cold.
“We go tonight,” he said. “And if Finch tries to get in the way…”
He c****d his pistol.
“…then he dies too.”
---
Hours later, the moon hung heavy over the desert as they approached the makeshift airstrip.
Spotlights flickered in the distance. Black SUVs parked near a hanger. Armed guards patrolling the perimeter.
Dante, Killian, Aria, and Luca moved like shadows—each one armed and focused.
Through binoculars, Killian marked the key players.
Then he whispered:
“Marco’s here.”
Dante’s entire body stilled.
There he was—standing beside a crate being unloaded from a plane, barking orders. Alive. Untouched. Running the empire like a prince born for war.
Aria touched Dante’s arm. “Now’s your chance.”
Dante raised his rifle.
Finger on the trigger.
Then paused.
---
He saw something.
Not just Marco.
A girl.
No older than 12, being pulled from the crate by two guards.
Terrified.
A commodity.
Dante’s chest burned.
Suddenly, this wasn’t about revenge.
This was about salvation.
He lowered the rifle.
“New plan,” he whispered. “We stop the shipment. We save the kids.”
Killian nodded. “And Marco?”
Dante’s eyes glinted.
“He gets to watch it all burn.”
---
- Writer
