“What just happened out there man!?” Calvin asked.The question hung in their living room like a loose wire sparking in the dark.Dante was leaning back in a battered wooden chair, one boot resting lazily on the edge of the small table between them. The place smelled faintly of dust, old leather, and gun oil. A single yellow bulb hung from the ceiling, swinging slightly from the breeze creeping through a cracked window.Outside, the night had settled deep and silent and forgotten what happened earlier.Inside, Calvin stared at Dante with the bewildered expression of a man who had just witnessed something that made absolutely no sense.Dante rubbed his jaw slowly, as if replaying the scene in his head.“Honestly,” Dante said finally, “I have no idea.”Calvin blinked.“No idea?” he repeated. “You saw the same thing I saw, right?”“I was there,” Dante replied dryly.Calvin leaned forward, elbows on his knees.“Then explain it to me. Because I feel like I just watched the strangest emotion

The phone rang while Dante was still staring at the ceiling, his mind drifting somewhere between exhaustion and uneasy thoughts he could not quite name.The sound cut through the quiet room, sharp and insistent.He turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing as the vibration continued against the wooden table beside him. For a moment, he did not move. Something about the timing felt off, as though the call itself carried weight before he even answered it.Then he reached for it.“Elena?” he said, his voice low, controlled, but edged with curiosity.There was a brief silence on the other end, the kind that stretched just long enough to make a man aware of his own breathing.“Yes,” she replied softly. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”Dante sat up, the tension in his shoulders tightening almost immediately. Elena was not someone who asked for private conversations without reason. She was careful with her words, guarded even among them, and whatever had pushed her to call him like this was not s

Dante arrived at the rooftop bar just off the Stradun, ten minutes late. The place was Elena’s choice—quiet, hidden behind a narrow staircase, with a view of Dubrovnik’s old city. She was already there.Sitting in the corner booth, back straight, hands wrapped around a glass of ice-cold lemonade that had begun to sweat on the wooden table. She didn’t look up when he approached. Just kept staring into her drink like it held answers she wasn’t ready to face.He slid into the seat across from her.“Sorry I’m late,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. “Had to finish something up.”Elena lifted her gaze slowly.Her eyes were sharp, unreadable. “You’re never late. So don’t pretend it was work.”Dante didn’t flinch. “Then what should I say? That I got lost in thought?”“That would be honest,” she replied.Silence settled between them, like a heavy air before a storm. It was sort of awkward (the whole situation was awkward).The city moved on like nothing ever happened, tourists laughing, music

Dante blinked, and the day was here.One moment he was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan’s slow rotation, exhaustion pulling him under like a riptide. The next—he was stepping into the light of a new morning, coat in hand, the weight of the meeting pressing against his chest like a second heartbeat.Time hadn’t passed. It had vanished and now it was the day they had all agreed on.The meeting day.The day everything that had been left unspoken between them would either settle or break completely.He was surprised that the day of the meeting was finally here. Just like that, without warning or sense of time. It felt almost unreal, like time had slipped through their fingers while they were still trying to hold on to everything that was already falling apart. Calvin had been the one who called Adrian earlier.It wasn’t a long conversation, and it wasn’t the kind of call that carried urgency in tone, but there was weight behind every pause.Adrian had answered on the first ri

The rain began seriously as Swag walked back to his car. He'd just played a dangerous game with Vitale, and won. Or so he thought. As he slid into the driver's seat, he checked his rearview mirror obviously not for traffic, but for tails. He saw nothing. Very good. The Valenti man, aka Ricardo Vitale had been clean too, nobody suspicious following him to the meeting. That meant Vitale either had exceptional security or he was as invested in secrecy as Swag was. Swag started the engine, wiped the condensation from the windshield with his sleeve, and drove toward Palazzo DeLuca. He knew Salvatore was there, probably with others to discuss their next move. It didn’t take 30 minutes for Swag to arrive there with his men. However, he was the only one who went inside while his men stayed outside. The room where Don Salvatore De Luca chose to meet was too clean for a man like him. Polished wood, a long dining table, glass fixtures that reflected too much light. Everything inside felt con