Tangled in Fire

The warehouse fire blazed in the distance like a signal to the underworld. The night crackled with tension as Dante's men scrambled to contain the chaos. Red and blue lights flashed along the docks, throwing silhouettes of armed men against steel containers. The sound of gunfire had died down, but the air was still thick with smoke, fear, and confusion.

Dante stood amidst the wreckage, boots crunching over shattered crates and charred wood. His eyes darted across the scene, taking in the damage. It was too clean too perfectly timed. The fire, the assault, the missing shipment it wasn't a rival's move.

It was a distraction.

And only one person had known the timing of the shipments. Elena Romano.

He turned sharply. "Where is she?"

Nico shook his head. "Last I saw, she was near the east loading bay, but she disappeared when the smoke got thick."

Dante's jaw tightened. "Find her. Now."

He didn't wait. His instincts kicked in, pulling him toward the private access road that led away from the chaos. A cold knot tightened in his chest as the realization settled.

She played him.

…..

Elena sprinted down the alley behind the warehouse district, boots barely making a sound against the pavement. Smoke billowed behind her, mixing with the adrenaline in her blood. Her heart raced not with fear, but with purpose.

"Keep moving," she hissed into the comms device in her ear. "You're five minutes out?"

"Three," came the voice of her brother, Marco. "Everything's quiet at the estate. Are you sure he moved the guards?"

"He did," Elena said, glancing back one last time at the burning warehouse. "He took the bait."

A crooked smile touched her lips as she reached the waiting black SUV and slid into the back seat. It pulled away immediately.

Inside, she opened a duffel bag and checked the contents. Flash drives, a set of encrypted files, and a small black box the biometric safe containing what Dante valued most. Not money. Not weapons. But secrets. Secrets that could dismantle the entire Moretti empire.

"You got it?" Marco asked, his voice tense over the line.

"Everything he's protected," Elena whispered. "His legacy. His leverage. His weakness."

Back at the estate, Marco moved like a ghost. The perimeter had been left half-staffed, the security lines stretched thin as most of Dante's men were pulled to the warehouse. Slipping past the first gate was easy. Disabling the motion sensors on the east wing easier still.

He made his way to Dante's private study, the one Elena had scoped out weeks ago. She'd noticed how often Dante visited that room, how he never let anyone else in. She'd also noticed the biometric safe hidden in the floor beneath the antique rug.

Marco knelt, fingers trembling slightly as he placed the scanner Elena had stolen from Dante's office days before. The fake thumbprint gel pad worked on the first try.

Click.

The safe opened with a quiet hiss.

Inside: three flash drives, a ledger, and a sleek black box.

Marco grinned. "Package secured."

As he turned to leave, he activated the next part of their plan.

His own disappearance.

An hour later, Dante stormed into the estate, fury etched into every line of his face.

"Anything?" he barked.

"Nothing," Nico said, wiping sweat from his brow. "We've lost contact with half the guards on the east wing. The cameras glitched out. And Marco DeLuca? Gone."

Dante froze. "Gone?"

"Disappeared. We think he was taken. Maybe retaliation from the Fiore crew. We found signs of a struggle near the study."

Dante's blood turned to ice. He pushed past Nico and ran to the study. The moment he stepped in, his gut confirmed what his mind refused to believe.

The safe was open.

Empty.

Elena sat at the edge of an abandoned vineyard on the outskirts of the city, the stolen contents laid out before her on a dusty oak table. The drive-in had been smooth. No tail. No eyes. Dante's attention had been exactly where she needed it on the fire, the chaos, the supposed traitor.

Now, he would be too busy chasing shadows to realize the truth.

Marco walked in, wiping the sweat from his neck with a rag. "I heard the chatter. They think I was kidnapped. Clever, huh?"

Elena didn't smile.

"We just bought ourselves three days," she said. "Maybe four. After that, he'll realize there was no mole. That the fire wasn't about his men it was about what he protected most."

Marco leaned over the table, examining the files. "You think this is enough to bring him down?"

"No," she said quietly. "But it's enough to make him bleed."

He looked at her sideways. "You okay?"

She nodded, then paused. Her voice dropped. "He looked at me like he trusted me, Marco. Like he saw something… good."

"He doesn't know you," Marco said, shrugging. "And you don't know him. That's the point."

Elena's silence was telling.

Dante sat alone in his study, staring at the hollowed-out safe. His reflection in the glass case across the room looked back like a man he didn't recognize.

She had played him.

Every word. Every glance. Every damn meeting at the pier.

He should've seen it. But he didn't.

Nico entered quietly. "Warehouse is secured. No major injuries. We lost three crates and the front lines got singed. But the damage was controlled."

Dante didn't move. "What about Marco?"

"Still no trace. And we scanned the house someone used a fingerprint spoof. High-end tech."

Dante exhaled slowly, the pieces falling into place.

"There is no mole," he said.

Nico frowned. "What?"

He stood. "There never was. Elena was the mole. Not inside my crew—but inside my life."

Nico's face darkened. "You want her found?"

Dante didn't answer right away. His eyes drifted to the window, where the fire's glow had finally faded into night.

"Not yet," he said at last. "Let her believe she's ahead. Let her play queen on the board."

Nico tilted his head. "You've got a plan?"

Dante's expression hardened.

"I always do."