DANTE POV
Dante has been awake since 4 AM.
Four hours of sleep is what keeps him sharp. Anything less and he becomes dangerous in ways he cannot control. Anything more and he goes soft. He stopped allowing softness at twelve.
Ren enters without knocking. He's earned that right through fifteen years of loyalty and an ability to read situations faster than most men read emails.
"The referral trace is complete," Ren says, setting a single photograph on the desk instead of the full file.
It's CCTV footage. A woman stepping out of a taxi at the estate gates. Medical kit. Shoulder bag. She wears clinical whites like they're armor.
Dante stares at the image.
"Three separate agencies," Ren continues. "All legitimate. All credible. All completely clean."
"Which means it's not clean."
"Cyprus relay. Then Geneva. Then the signal dies. Whoever arranged this spent serious money on misdirection." Ren pauses. "The contact chain fingerprints match Enzo Sarto's operational style. The layering. The legitimate fronts. The spacing."
Dante doesn't respond. He enlarges the photograph. The woman is young. Younger than her credentials suggest. Her hair is pulled back tight, the kind of tight that says control. Her eyes are looking up at the mansion with the calm assessment of someone measuring a problem.
Not fear.
Assessment.
"Sofia Reyes," Ren says, reading from memory. "Twenty-five. Pharmacologist. Five years hospital experience. Credentials are exceptional. Scholarship graduate. Top marks. Performance reviews describe her as brilliant but difficult. Argues with senior staff when she thinks they're wrong."
"Is she right?"
"Every documented case. Yes."
Dante leans back. Sofia Reyes is legitimate. Her education is real. Her experience is genuine. Which means Enzo didn't hire a professional. He found someone legitimate and applied enough pressure to break them.
The question is what breaks her so completely that she agrees to poison a man.
Ren continues. Sofia's mother works two jobs. Sofia took the harder scholarship instead of the better stipend. She took graveyard shifts. Never called in sick. Turned down two promotions because she was too junior, too female, too inclined to argue with men who didn't deserve her deference.
Six weeks ago her eight-year-old brother was diagnosed with a rare cardiac condition. Experimental treatment. No insurance. Cost that would take her ten years of salary.
That's the leverage. That's where Enzo always finds the weak point. He locates the person who loves something more than they love their own survival, and he presses until they shatter.
"She arrived forty minutes ago," Ren says. "Luca had dinner with her. She told him she was jet-lagged."
"Was she?"
"No. She was evaluating exits."
Dante stands. He walks to the window overlooking the east wing. Somewhere in those corridors, Sofia Reyes is unpacking her medical kit and preparing herself to poison him. She's telling herself it's just chemistry. Just survival. Just the price of keeping her brother alive.
He thinks about those four seconds on the CCTV. The way she looked at the mansion. The way her shoulders straightened after she looked away. The decision happening in real time across her face.
A scared person is unpredictable. A cornered person is dangerous in ways they don't intend.
He should remove her before she gets close enough to try.
Logic says remove her. Protocol says remove her. Every security measure in this estate is designed to protect against exactly this scenario.
Dante does not give that order.
"Let her settle in," he says instead. "Log her movements but make it look routine. I want her feeling safe."
Ren's expression hardens. "Dante—"
"Schedule the first injection for Thursday. She'll need three days to feel capable of it. By Thursday she'll be ready."
"You want to let her poison you."
"I want to see what she does when she thinks it worked." Dante turns from the window. "Enzo sent her here. That means he's confident about something. Either he's confident she'll actually do it, which means he has serious leverage. Or he's confident she'll fail in a useful way. I need to understand which."
"And if the compound is lethal?"
Dante thinks about Sofia Reyes' face for four seconds. The way she measured distances. The way she straightened her shoulders like she was preparing for something she was terrified of but would do anyway.
"She's not lethal," he says. "Anyone truly capable would have refused. Would have run. Would have found another way. Sofia Reyes didn't run. She walked directly into a mansion owned by a man she was sent to kill. Which means she's not a professional. She's someone who loves her brother more than she loves her own life, and she's hoping something will save both of them."
"That's a dangerous assumption."
"Yes."
Ren leaves without another word. He's learned that Dante's instincts about people are rarely wrong, and arguing about them is exhausting.
Dante opens Sofia's complete file. The one assembled from sources beyond official records. Her apartment building. Her pharmacy shifts. Her hospital rotations. The research grant she abandoned when her brother got sick. The way she gave her lunch to colleagues who couldn't afford it.
Not just desperate.
Brilliant. Brave in a quiet way. The kind of person who becomes dangerous not because they're violent, but because they're willing to sacrifice everything.
He makes a single note in the file margin.
Not his usual shorthand. Plain language: She chose to say yes for someone she loves. There is a difference.
He closes the file and pulls up the security system for the medical wing. Thursday at 9 AM. Sofia will walk in with her kit and her compound and the weight of her brother's life in her hands. She'll try to kill him with the kind of clinical precision that comes from someone who knows medical protocol better than she knows how to lie.
Dante will let her try.
And when she does, he's going to watch her face and understand exactly what kind of woman Enzo thought he could manipulate.
He's going to understand why that's going to be Enzo's greatest mistake.