Chapter 2 - The Web of Serpents
The private ICU on the top floor of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was guarded like a military fortress. Twelve of Dante Russo’s most trusted men stood at every elevator bank, stairwell, and window, armed with suppressed submachine guns beneath their heavy coats.
Inside the sterile room, Elena lay hooked to a ventilator, IV lines feeding powerful antibiotics and fluids into her thin veins. Her fever had finally broken, her color slowly returning under the warm blankets.
In the adjoining suite, Clara, Maya, and Lily were asleep on a massive velvet sofa, wrapped in plush warm blankets, their bellies full of hot soup and cocoa for the first time in months.
Dante sat in a leather armchair beside Elena’s bed, holding her hand. He hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.
On the table beside him laid a thick black folder compiled by his intelligence team.
Seven years ago, Dante’s father had passed away, leaving Dante as the young, rising don of the Russo syndicate. His uncle, Silvio Russo, had coveted the throne. Silvio knew that as long as Dante had Elena—a brilliant, gentle art student who gave Dante a vision of a clean life outside the mob—Dante could never be manipulated.
So Silvio had struck a deal with Sal Moretti, their main rival in the North End.
They had staged the car crash on I-93. They had drugged Elena, placed a deceased female victim from a morgue into the driver’s seat, set the car ablaze, and dragged a pregnant Elena away into the night, threatening to murder her unborn children if she ever contacted Dante again.
For seven years, Elena had lived in hiding under a false name, moving from town to town in complete poverty, painting portraits in secret to buy bread for her daughters, believing that if she ever stepped into the light, Silvio and Moretti would murder Dante and the girls.
The soft beep of the heart monitor shifted.
Elena’s hand twitched in Dante’s grip. Her eyes slowly opened, clear and free of fever for the first time.
She looked around the soft, warm hospital room, then turned her head and saw Dante sitting beside her.
"Dante..." she whispered, her voice still weak from the ventilator tube that had just been removed hours earlier.
Dante instantly stood up, leaning over her, gently brushing her dark-blond hair away from her forehead. "I'm here, Elena. Don't try to move."
Tears trickled down her pale cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, her hands clutching his wrist. "I'm so sorry, Dante. I tried to protect them. I tried to keep them safe from your family..."
"Shh," Dante hushed her, his voice choked with emotion as he kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. "You have nothing to apologize for. You fought for seven years alone. You saved my daughters."
"They told me you were dead three years ago," Elena sobbed. "Silvio’s men found me in Maine. They showed me a newspaper article saying you were killed in a turf war. That's why I came back to Boston... I had nowhere else to go..."
Dante’s eyes burned with a lethal, absolute fury.
"Silvio lied to you," Dante whispered into her hair. "I am very much alive. And nobody is ever going to threaten you or our daughters again."
The door to the ICU opened silently. Nico stepped inside, holding a encrypted radio in his hand.
"Boss," Nico murmured, leaning down. "Silvio just called a emergency meeting of the Commission at the harbor estate in Quincy. He’s claiming you’ve lost your mind over a dead woman, and he’s asking the other families for permission to strip you of your title tonight."
Dante slowly leaned back, looking down at Elena. He cupped her face in his hands, his dark eyes filled with absolute, unwavering devotion.
"Rest, my love," Dante said softly. "I have to go settle an old debt."
"Dante, please," Elena begged, her fingers catching his sleeve. "Don't go into a trap. Silvio has hundreds of men."
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Dante leaned down and kissed her deeply, a promise written in the pressure of his lips.
"They had seven years to destroy me, Elena," Dante whispered against her skin. "They failed. Now it's my turn."
