Dante Pov
Dante stood at the security monitors watching Dr. Cole walk away from the elevator.
She had stopped. Looked at the screens. Seen her old apartment building displayed in perfect clarity.
Most people would have panicked. Run. Confronted him immediately.
She did none of those things.
She looked directly at the hallway camera, her face completely blank, then walked to the elevator like nothing had happened.
That control was going to be a problem.
Or exactly what he needed.
He could not decide which.
"Session went well?" Nico appeared in the doorway, coffee in hand.
"She is competent." Dante turned away from the monitors and returned to his desk. Evening reports waited. Territory updates. Three separate issues requiring decisions. He should focus on those.
Instead he kept seeing her notebook. The way she had turned it around without hesitation and shown him what she wrote.
Chronic insomnia.
Two words. Simple. Clinical.
Nobody had ever named it before.
People noticed he worked late. Noticed he was always available, always sharp, always two steps ahead. They assumed it was discipline. Work ethic. The Reyes way of doing business.
Nobody had ever looked at his face and written down that he did not sleep, that this was a problem, that fourteen years of four-hour nights was not normal.
She had seen it in one session.
That observation should have annoyed him. Instead it kept surfacing in his mind like something he could not file away properly.
"Increase surveillance on her building," Dante said without looking up. "Add two more men to the rotation."
Nico was quiet for a moment. "She is already under twenty-four hour watch."
"Make it tighter."
"Why?"
Dante signed a document and moved to the next one. "She is a liability. We acquired her under unusual circumstances. She requires additional security protocols."
"She requires protection," Nico corrected. "Or you want to watch her more closely. Those are different things."
Dante looked up. Nico met his gaze without flinching. That was why he kept Nico close. Most people in the organization were afraid to tell him the truth. Nico was not.
"She is an asset obtained at significant risk," Dante said carefully. "Assets require protection."
"If you say so." Nico's expression said he was not convinced. "I will add the men."
He left.
Dante returned to the reports but the words blurred. He pushed them aside and pulled up the security footage from the session instead. Watched it from the beginning.
The way she had knocked at exactly 9:58. Two minutes early. Professional.
The way she had sat down and opened her notebook with practiced efficiency. This was familiar territory for her. She interviewed dangerous men regularly. She knew how to handle them.
Except she did not know how to handle him yet.
The silence had stretched to four minutes before she spoke. Most people broke at ninety seconds. She had outlasted everyone he had ever tested that way.
Then she had asked about sleep.
Not about the business. Not about the execution she witnessed. Not about his father or the organization or any of the things people usually wanted to know.
She asked how he slept.
And when he gave her the minimum answer, she had looked at him with eyes that saw past the suit and the control and the power, and she wrote down the truth.
He replayed that moment. The way her pen moved across the page. The way she turned the notebook without hesitating.
Most therapists would have hidden their notes. Maintained professional distance. Kept the power imbalance in their favor.
She had handed him the power by showing him exactly what she saw.
That was strategy or honesty and he could not tell which.
Both options were interesting.
Dante checked his watch. 11:47 PM. He had been reviewing the same footage for an hour. That was not like him. He processed information once and moved on. Dwelling was inefficient.
He shut down the video and returned to the territory reports.
Moreno family movements in the west sector. Victor meeting with suppliers without clearing it through proper channels. Three minor infractions that needed handling before they became major problems.
He worked steadily until his eyes burned and the words started running together. When he finally looked up again it was 2:14 AM.
Four hours until he needed to be functional again. If he went to bed now he might get three hours of actual sleep.
The thought felt different tonight.
For fourteen years he had accepted insomnia as simply how he was built. His father slept four hours a night. His grandfather had been the same. Reyes men did not need rest the way other people did. They needed to be ready. Alert. Always ahead of the threat.
But Dr. Cole had written chronic insomnia like it was a medical condition with a name and possibly a treatment.
Like it was something wrong rather than something strong.
The distinction bothered him more than it should.
A knock at the door. Nico again.
"You should be asleep," Dante said.
"So should you." Nico came in without being invited and set down a tablet. "We have a problem."
Dante took the tablet. Security logs from Mara's building. Time-stamped entries showing vehicle activity on her street.
"This car." Nico pointed to a highlighted entry. "Showed up at 9:47 PM. Parked across from her building for ninety minutes. Left at 11:16."
"Our people?"
"No. And they got plate photos before the car moved." Nico pulled up the next screen. "Registered to a shell company. Three layers of offshore accounts. Very clean. Very professional."
Dante studied the information. The company structure was familiar. He had seen that pattern before.
Money moved through the Caymans, then Luxembourg, then back to a Delaware LLC that existed only on paper. It was elegant and expensive and very few organizations had the resources to build that kind of cover.
He knew exactly whose work looked like that.
"Moreno," he said quietly.
"That is what I thought too." Nico leaned against the desk. "But Marco Moreno does not usually move this carefully. This is Victor's style."
Dante set down the tablet very carefully.
Victor.
His uncle had been asking about the therapist. Casual questions at family dinner. Concerned comments about unusual arrangements. Dante had assumed it was Victor being Victor, fishing for leverage like he always did.
But if Victor was putting surveillance on Mara, that meant he saw her as more than just an unusual business decision.
He saw her as a weakness.
Something that could be used.
"When did the surveillance start?" Dante asked.
"First confirmed sighting was tonight. But they might have been watching longer and we just caught them now."
Dante thought about the session. About Mara noticing the security monitors. About the way she had looked at the camera before leaving.
She was smart. Too smart to miss that she was being watched from multiple directions now.
And if Victor was having her followed, it would not stop at surveillance.
Victor tested for weaknesses. And when he found them, he pressed until something broke.
"Double her protection detail," Dante said. "I want eyes on her building, her route to work, every coffee shop she visits. And I want to know the moment anyone who is not our people gets within fifty feet of her."
"That is going to be expensive."
"I do not care about expensive. I care about making sure my uncle does not get access to her before I understand what he is planning."
Nico nodded slowly. "You know he is going to see the increased security. It will tell him she matters."
"She is a witness to a capital crime and my court-mandated therapist. Of course she matters."
"That is not what I meant."
Dante looked up sharply. "Say what you mean."
Nico met his eyes. "You watched that session footage for an hour. You are increasing her security to levels we use for family members. You kept a note she left in your jacket pocket for two days." He paused. "This is not about protecting an asset anymore."
"You are overstepping."
"Maybe. But someone needs to tell you that the way you look at her is different from the way you look at everyone else." Nico straightened. "And if I noticed it, Victor will too."
He left before Dante could respond.
The office was quiet.
Dante sat in the silence and thought about a notebook turned around without hesitation. About two words that named something he had carried for fourteen years. About a woman who had watched him order an execution and still looked at him like he was a person worth understanding.
Nico was wrong.
This was professional. Strategic. She was valuable because she served multiple purposes and nothing more.
But he pulled up the security footage one more time anyway.
Watched the moment she showed him the notebook.
Watched the way she had looked at him when she wrote those words.
His phone buzzed. A message from the security team.
Subject returned home. Lights on. No unusual activity.
He replied: Maintain position. Report all movement.
Then he added: Find out who gave the order for the Moreno surveillance. I want a name by morning.
If Victor thought he could use Mara to get to him, he had badly miscalculated.
Nobody touched what belonged to Dante Reyes.
The thought stopped him cold.
She did not belong to him. She was a contractual obligation. A legal requirement. A witness he had converted into an asset.
That was all.
He told himself that three times before he finally believed it enough to turn off the monitors and try to sleep.
He lasted two hours before giving up and returning to his desk.