The Mafia Boss Returned with Loyal Dog to Find His Abandoned Mom – The Truth Made Him Freeze

Chapter 9

Although Dante had tried hard to persuade Iris to stop working for a while and stay inside the mansion where it was safe, her stubborn pride wouldn’t let her become completely dependent on him. She still insisted on keeping her night shifts at the community clinic two evenings each week, saying that the poor patients there needed her, and she couldn’t abandon them.

Dante had no choice but to yield, on the condition that he always send people to drive her there and bring her back.

But on that fateful night, a staged disturbance at one of his casinos on the other side of the city forced his guards to divide their manpower. And in that brief opening, Vasily made his move.

Just as Iris stepped out through the clinic’s back door into the cold night mist, a black car rolled up. Several shadowed figures rushed out, and before she could cry out, a hand clamped over her mouth and dragged her into the vehicle as the tires screamed against the wet pavement.

It all happened in only a few seconds. Clean and cold. Exactly the way Vasily had always operated.

The terrible news reached Dante while he was at the mansion. And for the first time in many years, the man who had always kept himself perfectly calm felt true panic crush the air from his chest.

His phone rang right after that. And Vasily Kane’s lazy, triumphant voice sounded from the other end of the line.

He said he was holding something very precious to Dante. And if Dante still wanted to see the woman unharmed, he would obediently hand over all his territory, his casinos, his business roots—everything he had built over so many years. Or else she would pay the price for the blood debt her former husband had left behind.

Vasily gave a mocking laugh and said this was both business and an old debt that needed to be settled. Then he gave Dante exactly one day to think it over.

Dante gripped the phone so tightly it seemed about to shatter in his hand. Anger and fear mixed into a violent emotion unlike anything he had ever tasted. Because now his enemy had touched the very thing he had only just dared to treasure.

In the middle of that storm inside him, the first thought that flared in his mind was Nia. And he hurried toward the child’s room.

Relief rushed through him when he saw that she was still sleeping peacefully in the warm room, completely unaware of the nightmare unfolding outside—with Ruth dozing lightly beside her, and at the foot of the bed, Otis lying on guard, his ears upright, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, his massive body like a fortress wall of protection.

The dog lifted his head slightly to look at Dante. And in that loyal gaze, there seemed to be an understanding that the time had come for him to guard these small, fragile lives more closely than ever.

Dante knelt beside the bed, looked at Nia’s innocent face, and silently promised himself that even if he had to sacrifice his entire empire, or his own life, he absolutely wouldn’t let this child wake up in a world without her mother.

He stood, wiped the panic from his face, and when he turned to leave, his gray eyes had regained their lethal coldness. But this time, hidden beneath that ice, there was no longer the soulless cruelty of a crime lord. There was the burning resolve of a man ready to do anything to protect the people he loved.

He called Marco, his voice low and decisive, ordering him to gather every resource. Because tonight would be the night he took everything back.

Throughout that night, Dante sat alone in his study, and he understood that he was standing at the most important crossroads of his life.

He could do things the way the underworld did—gather his men and charge into a bloody gunfight to take Iris back. But he knew very well that Vasily had already anticipated that move, and a bloodbath could very likely get her killed in the chaos.

He could also hand over the entire empire as Vasily demanded. But he understood all too well that a man like Vasily would never release a hostage once he had power in his hands. And Iris’s life would still hang by a thread.

Then he looked up at the Uncle Bear drawing Nia had given him, still resting on his desk. And Dante made a decision that the man he had been eight years ago would never have imagined.

He would give up the very world that had made him.

Early the next morning, he did something the entire underworld would call impossible. He went willingly to Captain Reyes—the police detective who had spent years trying to bring him down.

Reyes looked at him with deep suspicion when he placed a thick file on the table. Evidence of Vasily Kane’s entire network. The money laundering accounts. The transport routes. The things the police had longed to obtain for years but had never been able to reach.

Dante said plainly that he was willing to surrender everything—including evidence against himself—in exchange for a lawful rescue operation that very night, and a promise that from this moment on he would leave the underworld forever.

Reyes understood that this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take down one of the most dangerous gangs in the city. And after a moment of consideration, she nodded.

When night fell, a coordinated operation was launched against the abandoned warehouse by the harbor, where Marco’s intelligence had confirmed Iris was being held. While Reyes’s special operations team surrounded the outer perimeter, Dante, Marco, and Otis quietly approached from the rear. Because no one understood how the underworld worked better than Dante himself.

And in that moment, the old dog once again proved why he was the most loyal creature in Dante’s life. In the maze of containers and thick darkness at the harbor, it was Otis who caught Iris’s scent and led Dante along paths the cameras didn’t sweep. And when a guard suddenly appeared and aimed a gun at him, Otis lunged out like a massive black shadow, knocking the man to the ground and pinning him there without Dante having to fire a single shot.

Dante found Iris tied up in a dark corner—terrified, but still unharmed. And when their eyes met in that instant, everything they had not yet managed to say to each other seemed to be understood completely.

The final confrontation was brief and decisive. Because when Reyes’s forces stormed in from every direction, Vasily’s men were quickly overwhelmed. And Dante, instead of killing his enemy in hatred the way his old self would have done, only disarmed Vasily with cold precision and handed him over to the police to be cuffed on the spot.

When the crime boss shouted bitterly that Dante would regret giving everything up, Dante only answered calmly that he wasn’t giving up anything at all. On the contrary—for the first time in his life, he was taking back what was truly worth having.

He took off his coat and draped it over Iris’s trembling shoulders, helped her stand. And Otis trotted over to nuzzle his head against her leg, as if in joy—completing the circle of loyalty that had been kept alive through all those years, amid the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars and the bitter cold lake wind.

Dante held the woman he loved, and for the first time in many years, he felt free.