CORRUPT

DANTE'S POV

I told Kent everything. And by everything, I mean fucking everything. He wanted to know didn't he? So I gave him all the juicy parts of who I am, where I come from, what I do and why I do what I do. I told him how I got involved with Adeline and I told him about knowing who Adrian was. I told him everything from A to Z.

"And in all your years of being a self-proclaimed vigilante, you didn't think that you might need help? Taking people down one by one is one thing Dante, but an entire organization of extremely powerful people is a reach. You're not superman." Kent says in a condescending tone. You see, I like Kent. He's my type of person.

He's focused, intelligent and observant. I know he'll be able to help me with erotica but the thing s, too much time spent being and FBI agent has made him think he can just go around treating everyone like one of his fucking suspects.

"The authorities are useless Kent. You know that. If the FBI forces were any good, you won't be here socializing with a bunch of criminals now would you? I mean don't get me wrong, the FBI has the resources and the spirit. There are sone good people in the forces but we all know all the higher ups are corrupted. Which is why nothing ever gets done." I say with a deep and final voice and from the look in Kent's eyes, I'm sure he thinks the same as me.

He takes a step forwards and nods his head silently. "You're right." He says silently.

I remember when my sister got killed. I remember when I saw her body. I didn't want to look away from the state of her dead body. I wanted to see what those fuckers did to her and I wanted it to make me angry. I wanted it to fuel me and so it did. I remember being so naïve. I went to the police, no one helped me. They shut down the case after barely even a week.

I was so fucking angry that everyone in the position to help civilians were so fucking useless. Since that day, I decided to take care of things by myself. I may not have brought down erotica by being a serial killer, but I am more than a hundred percent sure that I helped in one way or the other.

"I suspect my director of being linked to erotica." Kent says.

"How can you be so sure?" Liam butts in.

"Because he shut down the case every time I tried to bring it up and mind you, he knew how important the case was. He still knows how important it is and despite all the evidence I showed him, it took him a lot to give me the go ahead to work on this case. I don't know if he's directly linked to erotica or not but there must be some reason as to why he keeps shutting the case down. If I don't deliver results to him about this soon, he'll shut it down again under the pretext of me wasting FB resources."

"Well then let's do something about it." I say with an evil smirk on my face.

"What do you mean?" Kent asks, completely lost and confused. But Liam knows what I'm talking about and the rest of the men in the room with me know what I'm talking about.

"You're out of your mind." Liam says a scoff.

"We'll get answers." I state.

"Nope. Just no. We're not going to try and solve one problem by creating another." Liam protests. The rest of the men just look at me with amusement in their eyes.

"May I know what you all are talking about?" Kent asks, folding his arm across his chest and raises his brow at me.

"We're going to kidnap him, bring him here and then torture him until he fesses up." I say with no emotion in my voice. I've tortured people a lot of times before and all of those times, they deserved it. I know Kent doesn't just talk to talk. He's the best FBI agent there is so if he suspects his director then I do too and anyone who is complicit in what erotica does, deserves any bad luck coming at them.

"Are you out of your mind?" Kent asks, widening his eye at me.

"Do you want answers or not?" I shrug.

"We don't have to be violent about it." Kent says but I just scoff and roll my eyes at him. I mean I'm not denying that there are other ways to deal with his director. I just want a reason to beat someone up and since I can't exactly touch Adrian right now, I want to take it out on someone else.

"Fine. We'll track his calls then. If he's really involved with erotica, then he'll panic and try to warn the people he's working with." I state and Kent's face immediately relaxes. Liam shakes his head at me and the other men just look disappointed that they're not going to be able to beat someone up.

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds doable but I don't know anyone on my team who would want to track our director without asking questions." Kent says.

"Am I a joke to you?" I ask with a frown on my face and Liam snickers with the other men in the room.

"If you need a computer nerd, Dante's the one." Headshot says with a smile on his face. "You know when I think about it, I don't think there's anything the old lad can't do."

"Oh…" Kent says staring at me like he just saw a ghost and for the first time since we met, he looks scared of me.

"I'll get you the necessary information you'll need." Kent says.

"Good." I finish.

"You know the good thing about all this is that I didn't show all of the evidence to the director. I didn't reveal the faces of Adeline and Naomi to him so he doesn't know that I know about them. That is a good thing in case he wants to rat me out to erotica. He doesn't have the more relevant details about the information you sent to me." Kent says and I must admit, that was smart of him.

"Now, about this meeting with this Veronica lady." Kent starts. "You're going to need back up on that day. You can't just go to her blindly expecting to trust the fact that Adrian is actually safe."

"I've thought about that. We obviously don't have enough man power but it's a good thing we have you now. You know about the meeting so set up a team. You'll raid the place when I give my signal."

Kent folds his arms across his chest and smirks at me. "So, you're going to give me orders, is that it?"

"Exactly. I might have let you in on this but it is still my plan and I can take you out of it as easily as I let you in." I say seriously and stare at him with a death stare.

"I know you have this personal vendetta going on and I'm willing to turn a blind eye to it because I know I need you. But thus, case is serious and it is an official FBI matter so it only makes sense that I handle it because I've done this kind of thing before and I know the rules to follow and most importantly, I know what you need and what you need not do in order to not get caught."

I scoff. I actually almost laugh. "I don't think you know who you're talking to. If I don't want to get caught, I won't and that in no way depends on you."

"You could have easily gotten caught today." Kent argues. "Admit it. You didn't know Liam was being followed by me. You didn't know that I would be here. I totally took you by surprise and if I really wanted to lock you away today, I would have done it. But I didn't."

"Take a look at where you are detective." I say moving so dangerously close to him. I'm reasonably taller than him so I stare down at him as I speak. "You are in no position to make threats."

The room is quiet as Kent and I stare at each other in a play of dominance. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife in a millisecond.

"Okay guys." Lima interrupts us before this fight for dominance turns into a fist fight. "That's enough. We all want the same thing here. We're trying to save the people that are important to us. So, both of you cut it out and get your shit together."

"He started it." I say in a deep voice as I groan and walk out of the room. I walk outside of the house and then into my garden. Adeline used to love this garden. The chrysanthemums I planted for her have bloomed already. Pink and white chrysanthemums fill the garden and memories of her with a huge smile on her face as she stares at them floods my mind and I can't help but fall down to my knees.

I want to scream. I want to cry. I hate myself for feeling any kind of pain from her absence because I'm not the one who should be hurting right now when she must be going through unimaginable pain because of me. I don't have the right to cry or miss her because she's hurting more than I am and there's nothing I can do about it for now so all she can do is just sit wherever she is right now and wait for salvation from the f person who put her in hell.

She'll never forgive me and I have accepted that. I mean, how the hell do I expect her to look me in the eye and not blame me for the fact that she was kidnapped. Everyone thinks it's my fault and I have accepted that fate. The only thing I have to do now is save her. I have to find a way to save her and get her out of the cell I put her in. 

I have to save her or I won't be able to live with myself for the rest of my life.