Page 7 of Breeding Justice

Hassan rubbed his temples, looking utterly defeated. “That all sounds like it’ll take forever. We need something quicker.”

"We do have one person," I said slowly, reluctant to even voice the thought. "Someone who knows the landscape and still has a foot in that world."

Hassan's eyes narrowed, then widened as he caught up to my thinking. "No. Absolutely not. We can't trust him."

“Dante Moretti is an asshole, not a traitor,” I said, already bracing for Hassan’s objections. “He still owes me a favor, and we don’t have many options.”

Hassan stood, pacing the small room with the restless energy of a caged animal. "Dante would sell us out in a heartbeat if Vito offered him more. He's not reliable."

"He's predictable," I countered. "Which makes him less dangerous than going in blind. We just need to use him carefully. Look, Dante wanted to turn the Moretti business in New York legitimate. He held up his end of the bargain; we sold him product, he distributed it through his clinics. Okay, things soured a little, but really no one doubled crossed him or anything. He just didn’t like me in particular.”

"So this is personal for him," Hassan said, stopping his pacing. "He doesn't like you, but he'll still help us out of the goodness of his heart? Also, who wouldn’t like you?”

“I’m a doctor, and he was using clinics to hide a fentanyl operation. I think I gave him a reason not to like me.”

“You’re a gangster,” Hassan replied. “I mean, no offense.”

"None taken," I said, though deep down, his words stung because they were the truth. I had always tried to justify my actions, to see myself as something more than just another thug with a stethoscope. But in moments like these, it was clear: I was a gangster playing at being something nobler.

Hassan sank back into his chair, the fight momentarily leaving him. "So you really think Dante is our best shot?"

"I think he's our quickest shot. We go to him, explain the situation, and see what he knows. If he can give us the intel we need, then we decide how to move from there."

"And if he doesn’t want to play ball?”

"Then we're no worse off than we are now. Right? Dante is a Moretti, not a De Vito.”

Hassan pondered this, his eyes unfocused, lost in some internal calculation. I could almost see the gears turning in his head, weighing the risks and benefits, the potential costs of every move. He was always the more cautious one, even when we were younger and recklessly ambitious. That caution had saved us more times than I could count, but now it seemed to be paralyzing him.

"I'll go alone," he said finally.

"No," I objected immediately. "If something goes wrong—"

"If something goes wrong, you'll still be here to take care of Sebastian," he finished for me. "You’re in no shape to confront anyone right now. Hell, you can barely stand without wincing."

He wasn’t wrong. The bullet wound throbbed with every heartbeat, a dull, insistent reminder of my own mortality. The morphine had taken the edge off, but I could feel its effects waning, the pain creeping back like an unwelcome guest.

“You’re right. But that also means I won’t be able to defend him properly. No, if you’re going to New York, that means we’re all going to New York.”

"We can't just drag the baby into this," Hassan protested, his voice rising with anxiety. "It's too dangerous."

I locked eyes with him, trying to convey the gravity of our situation. "It's dangerous here, too. Vito's men know where we are, Hassan. We're sitting ducks. At least in New York, we can move around, keep a lower profile. Dante can help us pull Zane, Bash and Justice out without getting them hurt or…or worse. If Justice doesn’t live—if Skylar doesn’t live…fuck, if Bash dies…how…I mean, we can’t risk it. I know we want to. I know the plan was originally for you to go there. But now that I’m thinking it through, we might just have to wait.”

“This sucks, Zane.”

“I know,” I said. “But we have to have faith that they’ll stay alive.”

“Right. Okay. Yeah. So all they have to do is live.”

Chapter Three: Justice

The room was suffocating. Stale air, damp concrete, and the faint tang of rust clung to every breath I took. My wrists burned where the ropes rubbed raw against my skin, but I didn’t pull at them. The last thing I needed was to make it obvious that I was struggling. Struggling meant weakness, and weakness would get me killed.

Skylar, across from me, was the exact opposite. His long body draped over the chair like he was lounging at some dive bar instead of being tied up in a literal dungeon. He had that smirk on his face, the one he always wore when he was about to piss someone off. It was half his charm and all of his danger.

Bash sat a few feet to my right, his bulk making the chair look like dollhouse furniture. His face was as unreadable as always, but I could see the tightness in his jaw, the way his eyes tracked every move the guards made through the little grated window inthe heavy metal door. He was watching, calculating. That made two of us.

I leaned back in the chair, keeping my breathing steady even though my heart was doing its best to escape my chest. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me panic. That was rule number one when you were a prisoner: don’t let them see your fear.

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