Chapter 63 The Hunt

Chapter 63 The Hunt
The five-day countdown began not with an explosion, not with a gunshot, but with a man sitting in a dark apartment, watching the sunrise paint Chicago in shades of blood and gold.

Dante Vitale hadn't slept. Couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Elena's face, the way she'd looked at dinner the night before she disappeared, laughing at something he'd said, teasing him about his perpetual scowl. You'll worry yourself into an early grave, she'd told him. And I'll have to run the family myself.

She'd been joking.

Now she was gone, and the joke was ashes in his mouth.

He stood, dressed in black, the uniform of the hunter, and walked out into the morning. Day one. One hundred and twenty hours until someone took the city and killed everyone.

First, he would find his sister. Then he would burn whoever took her.

Everything else could wait.

The morning was gray and cold, the kind of Chicago December that seeped into bones and stayed there. Dante moved through the city like a ghost, visiting places his father's men had already visited, asking questions his father's men had already asked.

The answers were always the same. Haven't seen her. Don't know anything. Sorry for your loss.

Loss. She wasn't dead. He would feel it if she were dead. Somewhere in this city, Elena was breathing, waiting, counting on him to find her.

By noon, he'd burned through four leads and found nothing. By two, he was in a part of the city where the buildings leaned toward each other like conspirators, where the streets were narrow and the shadows were deep.

That's where he found Santino Jazo.

Santino was shaking down a store owner, a small grocery, the kind that sold expired milk and overpriced bread to people who couldn't afford anywhere else. He had the owner pinned against the counter, one hand around his throat, the other rifling through the register.

Dante watched for a moment from the doorway. Santino Jazo the Rinaldi capo who he considered a runner, a snitch, the kind of cockroach who survived by knowing where the bodies were buried and who buried them.

"Jazo."

Santino spun, his hand going for a weapon he didn't have time to reach. When he saw Dante, his face went through a series of expressions, fear, calculation, relief that he wasn't already dead.

"Vitale." He released the store owner, who slumped to the floor, gasping. "I wasn't expecting..."

"I am not here to ruin your shake down." Dante stepped into the store, his presence filling the space like smoke. "I need information."

Santino's eyes darted toward the door, measuring the distance, the odds. He was smart enough not to run. "Information about what?"

"My sister."

Something flickered in Santino's face, recognition, quickly masked. "I don't know anything about your sister. I swear..."

Dante moved. One second he was ten feet away, the next his hand was around Santino's throat, pinning him to the wall. The store owner scrambled out the back, forgotten, irrelevant.

"You're lying," Dante said quietly. "I can always tell when people are lying. It's in the eyes. The way they look away, then look back, trying to see if you believe them." He tightened his grip. "Try again."

Santino's face was purpling, his hands clawing at Dante's wrist. "Okay...okay...I heard things...rumors..."

Dante loosened his grip. "Tell me."

Santino gasped for air, his eyes watering. "There's a place, a coffee shop, in Marlin. High-end area. People talk there. I heard someone mention a woman, dark hair, pretty, looked like she didn't belong..."

"Where in Marlin?"

"The shop's called The Grind. But you didn't hear it from me. If they find out I talked..."

"How much?"

Santino blinked. "What?"

"The information. How much do you want?"

For a moment, Santino looked confused, men like Dante usually took what they wanted, paid nothing, left bodies in their wake. But Dante was different. Dante had rules.

"Two thousand," Santino said, hope flickering in his eyes.

Dante reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of cash, and counted. "Sixteen fifty. Take it or leave it."

Santino stared at the money, then at Dante's face. He took it.

"One more thing," Dante said. "If this information is bad, if I go there and find nothing, I'll come back. And next time, we won't negotiate."

He walked out, leaving Santino pressed against the wall, counting his money with shaking hands.

The Grind was everything Santino had promised, exposed brick, artisanal coffee, customers in expensive coats who looked at their phones instead of each other. Dante stood outside for a long moment, studying the building, the exits, the faces in the windows.

Three men inside who didn't belong. He could spot them the way a wolf spots other wolves in a flock of sheep. The way they sat. The way they watched the door. The way their hands stayed close to their jackets.

Dante pushed open the door.

The bell chimed softly. A few customers glanced up, then back to their phones. The barista smiled automatically. But the three men, they didn't look away. They watched him cross the room, watched him approach their table, watched him with the flat eyes of men who had done terrible things and would do them again.

Dante stopped in front of their table. "I'm looking for someone."

The largest of the three, a man with a shaved head and a scar through his eyebrow, leaned back in his chair. "We're not the information desk."

"A woman. Dark hair. Pretty. Taken against her will about a week ago." Dante's voice was calm, conversational, as he showed the man Elena's picture. "I think you know where she is."

Scarface smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "I think you should leave."

"I think I should stay."

The other two men shifted in their seats, hands disappearing beneath the table. Dante catalogued them automatically, one with a knife, one with a gun, both slow, both amateurs compared to what he'd faced in worse places than this.

"I'll ask once more," Dante said. "Where is she?"

Scarface nodded, and the world exploded into violence.

The man with the knife came first, as Dante expected. Amateurs always led with the knife, it felt safer, more controlled. He was wrong.

Dante caught his wrist, twisted, and drove the blade into the man's own thigh. The man screamed, and Dante used the momentum to spin him into Scarface, who was rising from his chair with a gun clearing leather.

The third man, the one with the pistol, finally got it aimed. Dante was already moving, ducking low, sweeping the legs out from under him. The gun clattered away as the man hit the floor hard.

Scarface had shoved the knifed man aside and was bringing his weapon to bear. Dante grabbed the edge of the heavy wooden table and flipped it, sending coffee and pastries flying, buying himself one second of cover.

The gunshot was deafening in the small space. Customers screamed, dove for cover, scrambled for the exits. Dante ignored them. He came around the table low, inside Scarface's reach, and his hands found the man's head.

One twist. Sharp. Final.

Scarface crumpled, his neck at an angle necks were not meant to achieve.

The man with the knife was still on the floor, bleeding, trying to crawl away. Dante stepped on his back, pinning him. The man screamed.

"Where is she?"

"I don't, I don't know, they didn't tell us..."

Dante's knife, produced from somewhere unseen, pressed against the man's throat. "Last chance."

"Warehouse, near the river, the old Fulton Market district, number 117, please..."

Dante removed the knife. The man sobbed with relief for one second before Dante drove it into the base of his skull.

The third man, the one whose gun had skittered away, was on his feet, running for the back door. Dante was after him before the body hit the floor.

The alley behind The Grind was narrow, cluttered with dumpsters and recycling bins. The man was fast, faster than the others, driven by pure terror, but Dante was faster.

He closed the distance in seconds, his footsteps silent on the pavement. The man glanced back, saw death approaching, and redoubled his efforts. It wasn't enough.

Dante tackled him just as they reached the mouth of the alley, sending them both sprawling onto the sidewalk. A woman screamed. A car swerved. The man fought, punched, kicked, clawed, but Dante had been fighting longer than the man.

He pinned him, one knee on his chest, one hand around his throat.

"Who do you work for?"

The man's eyes were wild, his breath coming in gasps. "I can't...they'll kill me..."

"I'll kill you now. Or you can tell me and maybe live." Dante's grip tightened. "Choose."

For a long moment, the man stared up at him, weighing death against death. Then something in his face crumbled.

"Moretti," he gasped. "Lorenzo Moretti. He's working with your father."

Dante's blood turned to ice. "Where is she?"

"I don't know...I swear...I'm just muscle, they don't tell me..." The man's eyes widened as he saw something over Dante's shoulder. "Behind you..."

Dante didn't turn. He'd been fighting too long to fall for that. But the squeal of tires made him look, a black SUV, barreling down the street toward them.

He rolled, dragging the man with him, as the SUV mounted the curb where they'd been lying. The passenger door flew open, and a man with a suppressed pistol leaned out.

Dante was already moving, using the pinned man as a shield. The first shot took the man in the chest. The second went wide as Dante rolled behind a parked car.

The SUV accelerated, tires screaming, and disappeared around a corner.

Dante knelt behind the car, breathing hard, his heart pounding. The man he'd been questioning was dead, shot by his own people to keep him quiet.

But he'd talked first. He'd given Dante a name.

Lorenzo Moretti.

Alive. Working with his father. Holding Elena.

Dante stood, ignoring the stares of the few brave souls who'd witnessed the chaos. He pulled out his phone and dialed the only number that mattered.

"It's me," he said when Bella answered. "Your uncle is in league with my father. They have been playing the families all along. He has Elena. And he's about to learn what happens when you take what's mine."

He ended the call and walked into the city, the hunter becoming something darker.

Day one was over. Four remained.

And the devil was just getting started.