Chapter 21: Elena's Investigation Begins

Elena stared at the grainy photograph on her laptop screen, her coffee growing cold in the mug beside her. Three in the morning, and sleep was impossible. The image showed a figure in black, face obscured by shadows, standing over two unconscious men in an alley she recognized from the south side. The timestamp was read two nights ago. The same night Dante had claimed he was in meetings until midnight.

She clicked to the next tab. Another article. Another incident. The Sentinel, they called him. Chicago's ghost. A vigilante who'd been operating in the shadows for the past three years, dismantling gang operations, destroying drug shipments, leaving criminals tied up for police like grim presents.

Three years. The same amount of time Dante had been making regular visits to her community center.

Coincidence?

Elena rubbed her eyes, willing herself to think rationally. This was insane. Dante Salvatore was a billionaire CEO, not some masked vigilante prowling the streets at night. He wore thousand dollar suits and attended charity galas and sat in boardrooms making decisions that affected thousands of employees. He didn't beat up drug dealers in alleys.

Except.

Except for the scars she'd seen on his knuckles when he thought she wasn't looking. The way he moved sometimes, with a controlled grace that reminded her of the fighters she'd known growing up. The shadows that crossed his face when she talked about gang violence, like he understood it from experience rather than statistics.

The night she'd witnessed The Sentinel saving that girl, she'd seen his eyes. Dark, intense, burning with a fury that had made her breath catch. She'd been having dreams about those eyes for weeks, unable to shake the feeling that she knew them.

And then Dante had walked into her life with his checkbook and his intensity and those same dark, burning eyes.

"You're being paranoid," Elena muttered to herself, but her fingers were already typing into the search bar. Dante Salvatore history. Dante Salvatore family. Dante Salvatore sister.

The results loaded, and her heart lurched.

Tragic Loss: Tech Mogul's Sister Murdered in Gang Violence.

The article was from five years ago. A beautiful young woman named Isabella Salvatore, just nineteen, killed in what police called a case of wrong place, wrong time. She'd been leaving a volunteer shift at a women's shelter when she was caught in crossfire between rival gangs. Dead before the ambulance arrived.

Elena's chest tightened. She knew that particular flavor of grief, the way it carved holes in you that never quite filled in. She'd been there, standing in a cemetery, burying someone too young while the world kept spinning like their death meant nothing.

She clicked through more articles, building a timeline. Isabella died five years ago. The Sentinel appeared two years later. Dante's company had established a foundation in Isabella's name, but Dante himself had become notably more reclusive, canceling public appearances, conducting business primarily through intermediates.

Until three years ago, when he'd started these personal visits to south side community centers.

When he'd started funding the exact kinds of programs that might have saved his sister.

When The Sentinel had begun his war on the gangs.

Elena's phone buzzed, shattering the 3 a.m. silence. A text from an unknown number: Still awake, Elena?

Her blood ran cold. She looked at the message, then at her windows, suddenly aware of how exposed she was in her apartment with the lights on. Who the hell was texting her at three in the morning?

Another message: I can see your light from here. Working late on that grant application?

Elena's hands shook as she typed back: Who is this?

The response was immediate: Dante. I'm on the roof across the street. I couldn't sleep either.

She rushed to the window, peering out into the darkness. Sure enough, there was a figure on the roof of the building opposite, barely visible in the ambient city light. He raised his hand in a small wave.

What the actual hell.

Her phone rang. She answered without thinking. "What are you doing on a roof at three in the morning?"

"I could ask you the same thing about being awake." Dante's voice was rough, tired. "Saw your light. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"So you've been watching my apartment?"

"I've been watching the neighborhood." A pause. "There's been increased gang activity in this area the past few nights. I worry about you being here alone."

Elena's investigator instincts screamed at her to push, to ask questions, to demand answers about where he really was and what he really did when he disappeared into the night. But something in his voice stopped her. He sounded... lonely. Bone deep, exhausted lonely.

"Can't you afford a better insomnia remedy than rooftop surveillance?" she asked, softer than she intended.

A low laugh. "Probably. But this view is better than my penthouse offers."

"What view? It's three in the morning. You can't see anything."

"I can see your light. That's enough."

The words hung between them, intimate and unsettling. Elena pressed her forehead against the cool glass of her window, watching that distant figure on the roof. "Dante, what are you really doing out there?"

Silence stretched. When he finally spoke, his voice was different. Guarded. "Thinking about choices. About the line between justice and revenge. About whether a man can ever really escape what he's done."

Elena's mouth went dry. "What have you done?"

"Nothing you'd understand. Nothing I can explain." He sighed. "Go to bed, Elena. Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow at the center."

"Dante, wait—"

But he'd already hung up. She watched as the figure on the roof stood, a fluid movement that spoke of physical conditioning far beyond what a CEO should possess. Then he was gone, disappearing into the shadows like he'd never been there at all.

Like a ghost.

Like a sentinel.

Elena returned to her laptop, her heart hammering. She pulled up the photos of The Sentinel again, studying every detail. The height was right. The build was right. The way he moved was right.

But it couldn't be. Could it?

She opened a new browser window and started researching in earnest, pulling up police reports, news articles, and witness statements. The Sentinel's first appearance coincided exactly with Dante's withdrawal from public life. Every major incident The Sentinel was involved in happened on nights when Dante claimed to be unavailable. The vigilante's targets were always the same operations that Dante's foundation specifically fought against through legal channels.

It was circumstantial. All of it. Nothing that would hold up as proof. But the pattern was there, undeniable once she saw it.

Dante Salvatore was The Sentinel.

The man she was falling for was a vigilante.

The man who'd saved her community center, who'd held her while she cried, who'd kissed her like she was oxygen and he was drowning, was also the man who prowled the streets at night dispensing his own brutal brand of justice.

Elena's hands trembled over the keyboard. What was she supposed to do with this information? Confront him? Report him? Pretend she didn't know?

Her phone buzzed again. Another text from Dante: I know you're still awake. Stop researching and go to bed.

Her breath caught. Could he see her screen from there? No, that was impossible. Unless...

She typed back: How do you know what I'm doing?

Because I know you. You're too smart and too stubborn to let things go. Whatever questions you have, they can wait until morning.

Can they?

This time the pause was longer. When his response came, it made her blood run cold: They have to. Because if you keep pulling this thread tonight, you might unravel something you're not ready to see. Trust me on this, Elena. Some truths are better discovered in daylight.

It was as close to a confession as she was likely to get. Dante knew she was investigating something. Knew she was close to the truth. And instead of denying it or deflecting, he was warning her off.

Which meant it was true.

All of it.

Elena closed her laptop with shaking hands. Outside her window, the city stretched dark and infinite, full of shadows and secrets and men who thought they could save the world through violence.

She should be terrified. She should be calling the police, washing her hands of Dante Salvatore and his dangerous double life.

Instead, she found herself wondering what had driven him to this. What kind of pain turned a billionaire into a vigilante? What kind of loss made a man decide the legal system wasn't enough?

She thought about Isabella Salvatore, nineteen and bright and dead in the street. She thought about her own brother, sixteen and scared and gone before she could save him. She thought about Miguel, bleeding on her community center floor, and all the other kids she'd watched the system fail.

Maybe she understood more than Dante thought.

Maybe that's what terrified her most.

Elena climbed into bed but didn't turn off her light. Somehow, knowing Dante might be out there, watching her building, made her feel safer and more endangered all at once.

Her phone lit up one more time: Sleep, Elena. I'll keep watch.

She stared at the message until her vision blurred, then finally typed back: Who's watching you?

No response came.

Elena lay in the dark, her light still burning, and wondered what the morning would bring. Wondered if she'd have the courage to confront him. Wondered if she was falling in love with a man or a ghost or something far more dangerous than either.

I wondered if it was already too late to walk away.