All Chapters of The Debt of the Virgin Widow: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

“The transfer is at eighty percent, you pathetic little bitch. Do you really think I’d just hand you the keys to the kingdom and walk away?”Sofia’s voice grated through the nursery’s intercom, distorted by the crackle of a dying electrical grid. The monitors on the wall didn't show the baby’s vitals anymore. They showed a progress bar. A thick, red line eating its way toward completion.Dante slammed his shoulder against the reinforced door. The wood didn't give. He roared, his voice a raw, jagged thing that had nothing to do with the man he’d been an hour ago. He turned, his eyes landing on Bianca. They weren't empty. They were burning.“She’s in the server vault,” Dante rasped, his chest heaving. He grabbed a heavy brass lamp from the end table and hurled it at the window. The glass didn't shatter. It was ballistic grade. “She’s uploading her own biometric signature. If that bar hits a hundred, the automated defenses will recognize her as the Head of the Family. We’ll be intruders

“You took her from me. You didn’t just kill her, Dante. You erased her.”Bianca’s voice was a jagged shard of glass cutting through the thick, metallic tang of the halon gas. She stood over him, her chest heaving, lungs burning. Dante lay sprawled on the server room floor, his fingers twitching against the cold tile. The red emergency lights pulsed, casting long, bloody shadows over the rows of humming machines.“I... I didn’t...” Dante’s voice was a wet rattle. He gripped his head, his knuckles white, slamming his temple against the floor as if trying to beat the memories into place. “The docks. The fire. I remember the fire, Bianca.”“Not the fire!” she screamed, her voice breaking. She kicked a piece of shattered server casing across the room. “The night in the cellar! When you were the Butcher for Arthur. When you didn’t know my name or hers. You looked her in the eye and you didn't even blink!”The memories didn't trickle back. They hit like a high-speed collision. Dante’s spine

"What the hell is this doing on the porch?"Dante’s voice cut through the steam of the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, the morning light catching the jagged scar on his jaw. In his left hand, he held a small wooden crate, barely larger than a cigar box. It was tied with a cord of rough hemp. No postage. No return address. Just a heavy, wax seal stamped with the interlocking 'A' that made the air in the room turn to ice.Bianca froze, the coffee pot hovering over her mug. "Dante, don't open that. Call Lorenzo. Call the sweep team.""Lorenzo’s at the perimeter. They didn't see a soul." Dante walked to the kitchen island, his boots thumping on the oak floor. He set the box down. The weight of it made a dull, solid sound. He didn't reach for a knife. He just stared at the wax seal. "He’s dead, Bianca. I watched the roof collapse on Arthur. I smelled the gasoline.""Then who sent it?" Bianca set the pot down with a clatter. Her hands were shaking, so she jammed them into the pockets of h

“Switzerland? You’re shitting me, right?”Bianca slammed the heavy vellum envelope onto the kitchen island. The gold crest of the Shadow Council mocked her, its ink still smelling faintly of expensive minerals and old money. Dante didn’t look up from the sidearm he was field-stripping. The metallic clack-slide of the barrel against the frame was the only rhythm in the room.“The High Summit,” Dante muttered, his voice a dry rasp. He didn't look at the invitation. He didn't have to. He had seen that seal in his nightmares during the three years he was their favorite pet. “They don’t invite you to Switzerland for the skiing, B. They invite you because they’re done watching from the bushes.”“The guy in the grey suit... he said I belonged there. That my mother was one of them.” Bianca gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles turning a bloodless white. “If she was part of this council, if she faked her death just to test me... I’m going to burn that mountain to the ground.”“You go t

“Kill her, Bianca. Prove you aren't just another bleeding heart who happened to have the right DNA.”The old man at the head of the table didn't even look up from his tablet. He just flicked a finger. The sound of heavy, dragging footsteps echoed against the stone walls of the bunker. Two guards, their faces hidden behind black ballistic glass, hauled a woman into the center of the room.Sofia.Her knees hit the floor with a sickening thud. She was barely recognizable. One eye was swollen shut, a dark, purplish knot of flesh. Her designer dress was shredded, hanging off her shoulders in bloody rags. She didn't look like a high-level operative anymore. She looked like meat.“What the f**k is this?” Bianca’s voice cracked the silence. She didn't move toward the woman. She stayed rooted next to Dante, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the obsidian table. “Sofia was your top earner. She’s been loyal to the Council for a decade.”“She failed,” the woman with the surgical face s