The Devil's Collateral

Chapter 03 : The Devil's Wrath

Marcello came to Dante's office room and bowed his head as he entered.

"Get to it, Marcello."

Marcello handed him an envelope and a phone. "Someone took our money, sir. One billion euros in total."

Dante neither opened the envelope nor looked at the phone. He ran his tongue slowly across his lower lip.

"The culprit?" he asked.

"They're in the basement, sir. We caught them last night him and the others involved—"

"That's enough, Marcello. I want to see for myself." Dante rose from his chair and walked toward him. "I want to hear it from the man directly."

His voice was perfectly calm. That calm even in the face of something this damaging was exactly what made Marcello's skin crawl.

Dante walked out of his Office room, Marcello falling into step behind him.

The basement was cold.

Not ordinary cold the kind that seeped into bone, that turned every exhale into a thin curl of vapor. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, its light pale yellow, just enough to illuminate one chair in the middle of the room.

And the man tied to it, surrounded by Dante's men.

Enzo. Thirty-eight years old. Nine years in the service of the Volfango family. The man Dante had trusted to manage the movement of money between accounts a job that demanded complete and total trust.

Trust that, it turned out, had a price.

Enzo looked up when the door opened. His red, swollen eyes found Dante immediately and something in his face collapsed.

"Mr. Volfango, please, let me explain—"

Dante said nothing.

He walked in with steps that were too measured for this situation. Too steady. Too controlled. He pulled a chair from the corner, flipped it around, and sat facing Enzo elbows resting on the back of the chair, fingers laced together, eyes fixed and unblinking.

Silence.

Just silence.

And somehow that was what made Enzo start to tremble.

"One billion euros," Dante said at last. Quietly. Very quietly. "Nine years you've worked for me. Nine years I've paid you well. I trusted you."

"Sir, my family my wife is sick, we needed the money—"

"You have a mouth." Dante cut him off without raising his voice. "You have legs. You could have come to me and talked."

"I was afraid—"

"Afraid?" Dante stood.

The movement was slow deliberately slow but there was something in the way he rose that made Marcello, standing just outside the door, instinctively take half a step back.

"You should be afraid now."

His voice cracked through the room not a hysterical shout, but something deeper, heavier, like thunder that had been holding itself back for too long.

His hand seized Enzo by the collar and hauled him upward until the chair nearly left the floor.

"Nine years, Enzo. Nine years." His jaw locked tight. His eyes had gone dark in a way that was different from usual not cold anymore, but burning. "And you thought you could steal from me?! From my family?!"

"Sir, please—"

"Please?" Dante released his collar with a shove hard enough to send Enzo rocking back in his chair.

"You're asking for mercy after betraying me?" The corner of his mouth curved but there was nothing warm in it.

The room went still.

Dante stood there, chest rising and falling, hands clenched at his sides. Several seconds passed.

Then like a switch being flipped his expression went flat.

Cold.

Controlled.

He straightened his jacket, steadied his breathing, and looked down at Enzo who was now weeping in his chair, with an expression that held not a single trace of pity.

"The money comes back. All of it." His voice was quiet again. "Down to the last cent."

"Y-yes, sir—"

"And you don't go anywhere until every last euro is returned." Dante turned toward the door.

"Marcello."

The young man stepped in. "Yes, sir."

"Make sure he's comfortable." A brief pause. Then, in a tone that sounded nothing like kindness "He still needs his hands to transfer the money back."

Dante's eyes cut sharply to Enzo. "Or does he? Along with both kidneys."

Enzo said nothing. He already knew they all did.

"Can we rough him up in the meantime, sir?" one of his men asked.

Dante smiled faintly. "Don't." He turned.

"Why not just kill him and take both kidneys sell everything while you're at it. But that's up to you. I'd rather not dirty my hands just yet." He turned and walked back toward the stairs.

The door closed.

Dante's footsteps back up to the upper floor felt heavier than usual.

Not from exhaustion. Dante didn't know exhaustion not in the way ordinary people did. But there was something hanging in the air that night, something he couldn't quite name, and it unsettled him more than it should have.

Marcello followed two steps behind. Close enough to be called upon. Far enough not to intrude.

Twenty-three years working for Dante had taught him exactly where that line was.

"Dante."

Dante stopped.

Marcello almost never addressed him by name almost never, except when he had something to say that wasn't a report, wasn't information, wasn't business.

Dante didn't turn around.

"Speak."

"Are you alright?"

A brief silence.

"Stupid question."

"Maybe," Marcello said evenly. "But I'm asking anyway."

Dante walked on without answering. Marcello followed without pushing. That was what set the young man apart from everyone else in this mansion.

He wasn't afraid of Dante. Or more precisely he was, but he didn't let that fear change the way he spoke.

Dante had never said it out loud.

But that was why Marcello was still here, after everything.

They reached the upper floor.

Dante moved toward his office room but without meaning to, his steps slowed as he passed the corridor of the east wing.

Odette's room.

The light behind the sheer curtain was out.

Finally asleep, he thought.

Without realizing it, he stopped for one second just one before continuing on to his study.

Marcello saw him stop.

Said nothing.

But the corner of his mouth shifted barely, something that wasn't quite a smile but came close before going flat again the moment Dante glanced back at him.

"Don't," Dante said flatly.

"I didn't say anything, sir."

"Your face did."

Marcello lowered his head. "My apologies, sir."

Dante pushed open the door to his Office room and stepped inside. A tidy desk. The lamp still on. A glass of whisky still half-full from earlier.

He sat down.

Poured two more fingers.

And stared at the ceiling with a mind that should have been empty but wasn't.

Uninvited, an image pushed its way in.

Odette Marchetti. Standing in the doorway of her parents' apartment, suitcase in hand. Eyes that held his without flinching. Jaw set tight, holding back something she refused to let out.

Dante wrapped his hand around the glass and finished the whisky in one swallow.

This is a transaction, he reminder himself the same words, for what felt like the hundredth time

.

But tonight, for the first time, he didn't entirely believe them.