The Don Falls
1673 Words
The next twenty-four hours didn’t pass. They dragged.
Mila spent most of them in Dante’s office, swallowed by his oversized jacket, staring at the heavy oak door. She hadn’t eaten. Sleep was a distant memory. The herbal tea he’d made her sat on the desk, a cold, untouched film forming on its surface.
Tomorrow night. Eight o'clock. The old warehouse on Cherry Street.
She had memorized the address. She didn’t know why. Maybe because knowing it felt like a sliver of control. Maybe because she needed to believe she could find him if the world ended.
And she knew, with a sickening certainty in her gut, that it was going to.
---
Dante had left at seven.
He’d come to her room first. Two sharp knocks, then he opened the door before she could answer.
He was dressed entirely in black. No suit jacket. Just a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms and the heavy, matte-black holster strapped to his side. He looked like a man walking into a war.
"I'll be back by midnight," he said.
"You don't know that."
He stepped into her space. He cupped her face in his hands. His palms were warm, calloused, and surprisingly gentle in a way that made her chest ache.
"I always come back, Mila."
"People always come back," she whispered, her voice trembling, "until the one time they don't."
His thumb brushed her cheekbone, wiping away a tear she hadn't realized had fallen. "Then pray for me."
She didn’t pray. She hadn’t prayed since her father died and the sky remained stubbornly empty. But she nodded anyway.
Dante leaned down and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to her forehead.
Then he turned and walked out.
---
Now it was nine o’clock.
Mila sat on the leather couch in the penthouse living room, knees drawn to her chest, watching the second hand on the wall clock tick toward ten.
Marco stood by the door. He had been stationed there since Dante left. Silent. Watchful. His hand never strayed more than an inch from the weapon at his hip.
"He's fine," Marco said for the fifth time.
"You don't know that."
"I know Dante. I've known him since we were kids. He's survived worse than Lucian Marchetti."
Mila pulled the lapels of Dante's jacket tighter around herself. It still smelled like him. Woodsmoke, leather, and crisp winter air.
"What's the worst thing you've seen him survive?"
Marco was quiet for a long moment. The silence stretched, heavy and thick. "His father."
Mila looked up, her breath catching. "What did his father do?"
"Everything." Marco’s jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath his skin. "Beatings. Starvation. He locked Dante in a basement for three days when he was twelve because he cried at his mother's funeral." He paused, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. "Dante doesn't cry anymore. Hasn't since that day."
Mila’s heart cracked open.
She had always thought Dante was cold because he chose to be. Now she wondered if he had ever been given a choice at all.
"That's why he won't hurt you," Marco continued, his gaze softening. "You and the baby. You're not his enemies. You're the first thing he's wanted to protect instead of destroy."
Mila’s hand drifted to her stomach. "He knows about the baby."
"I know. He told me." Marco shifted his weight. "He also gave me standing orders. If anything happens to him tonight, I am to get you and your mother out of the country within the hour. He has passports waiting. Cash. A safe house in Switzerland."
Mila’s eyes burned with fresh tears. "He planned for his own death."
"He plans for every outcome. That's the only reason he's still breathing."
The clock ticked to ten-fifteen.
Mila stood. Paced the length of the rug. Sat down. Stood again. Her nerves were frayed wire.
"How long does a meeting usually take?"
"Depends. Could be an hour. Could be all night."
"It's been over three hours."
Suddenly, Marco’s phone buzzed.
They both froze.
Marco answered, pressing the device to his ear. "Yeah?"
Mila watched as the color drained from his face.
Her stomach plummeted through the floor.
"Where?" Marco barked into the phone, his voice suddenly sharp, commanding. "How bad? ... No. Don't move him. We're coming."
He hung up.
Mila was already on her feet. "What happened?"
Marco’s voice was hollow, stripped of all its earlier confidence. "The meeting was a trap. Lucian brought twenty men. Dante took out twelve of them before they brought him down."
"Brought him down how?" Mila’s voice rose to a panic.
"He's alive. But he's hurt. Bad." Marco grabbed his jacket and his keys. "We need to go. Now."
Mila didn’t hesitate. She followed him out the door, barefoot, still drowning in Dante’s jacket.
She didn’t care about the contract anymore.
She didn’t care about the money.
She just needed to see his chest rise and fall.
---
The drive took seventeen minutes.
Marco drove like a man possessed. He ran red lights and cut through narrow, trash-strewn alleys. Mila gripped the door handle until her knuckles ached, silently pleading with a God she had stopped believing in.
Please. Please. Please.
The warehouse was on the desolate edge of the city, surrounded by empty lots and shattered streetlights. Men in black tactical gear stood outside, weapons drawn. They parted like the Red Sea when they recognized Marco’s car.
Mila threw the door open and jumped out before the engine even died.
The inside of the warehouse hit her like a physical wall. It smelled of copper, cordite, and damp concrete.
Bodies lay scattered across the floor. Men she didn’t know. Men who would never go home. She stepped over them without looking down, her entire world narrowing to a single point.
And then she saw him.
Dante was on his back in the center of the room. His black shirt was torn open. Blood was soaking through the fabric, turning it slick and heavy, pooling dark and thick on the concrete beneath him. His face was the color of ash. His eyes were closed.
"No." Mila dropped to her knees beside him, the impact jarring her bones. "No, no, no."
She pressed her hands to his chest. The blood was terrifyingly warm. It coated her fingers, seeping into her skin.
"Dante. Dante, wake up."
His eyelids fluttered.
"Mi—la." His voice was a wet, ragged rasp.
"Don't talk. Don't move. We're getting you out of here."
He tried to smile. It twisted into a grimace of agony. "Told you... I always come back."
"You're bleeding out on a warehouse floor. That's not coming back."
"Still breathing." He coughed, a wet, horrible sound, and a bubble of blood formed at the corner of his lips. "That counts."
Marco dropped to his knees on Dante’s other side, already dialing his phone. "Chopper. Now. He's got at least two gunshot wounds. Chest and abdomen. He's losing blood fast."
Mila pressed harder against the wound, trying to stem the flow. Her hands were shaking violently. Her whole body was vibrating with terror.
"Stay with me," she begged, her voice breaking. "You don't get to die. Not after everything. Not after you promised to keep us safe."
Dante’s hand found hers. It was weak. Freezing cold.
"You're crying," he whispered.
"I'm not."
"Liar." His thumb weakly brushed her knuckles. "You're... a terrible liar, Mila."
"Then stop giving me reasons to cry."
He let out a breath that might have been a laugh, but it dissolved into another violent cough. More blood.
The deafening *thwack-thwack-thwack* of helicopter blades chopped through the night sky.
Marco stood up. "They're here. We need to move him. Now."
Two medics rushed in, lifting Dante onto a stretcher. He groaned, a low, guttural sound, and his hand slipped from Mila’s grasp.
She grabbed it again. Held on with everything she had.
"I'm coming with you."
"No," Marco said firmly. "It's too dangerous. You need to go back to the penthouse."
"If you try to leave me behind, I will steal a car and follow you. Try me."
Marco looked at her. Really looked at her. For the first time, he didn't see a contract wife or a helpless victim.
He saw a woman who would burn the world to the ground for the man she loved.
"Fine. Get in."
---
The helicopter ride was a chaotic blur of noise, wind, and the terrifying reality of Dante’s blood staining Mila’s hands.
A medic worked frantically in the cramped space, cutting away the ruined shirt, packing wounds, shouting medical jargon Mila couldn’t process.
She held Dante’s hand the entire time.
His eyes stayed closed.
His grip remained terrifyingly weak.
But he didn’t let go.
That has to mean something, she thought fiercely. That has to mean he'll survive.
The helicopter touched down on the roof of a private hospital. *Dante’s* hospital. The one he owned, where questions were never asked and laws were merely suggestions.
They wheeled him through the doors, into an elevator, and down a sterile, brightly lit hallway.
A surgeon met them at the operating room doors. She was young, fierce, and moved with lethal efficiency. Her eyes took in Mila’s blood-soaked hands and Dante’s ashen face in a single, sweeping glance.
"Are you family?" the surgeon asked, her hand already on the door.
Mila opened her mouth.
She was going to say *contract wife*.
She was going to say *employee*.
She was going to say *no one*.
Instead, the word tore out of her throat, fierce and absolute.
"I'm his wife."
The surgeon gave a sharp nod. "We'll do everything we can."
The double doors swung shut, sealing him away.
Mila stood alone in the hallway. She was covered in his blood, shivering in the oversized jacket, staring at the glowing red numbers on the wall clock.
11:40 PM.
She slid down the cold wall until she hit the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and waited.
- Writer
