“That was a different situation.Now I’m here not as Juanita Banks, investigator.But as Nita so Gonzo, I’m Nita.”
The man grinned.“Well damn.You’re really made for this shit.”
Tower nodded once, respectful.“Ma’am.”
“Please don’t call me that,” I replied.“I’ll start looking for a badge.”
That broke the ice.Someone laughed.Someone else relaxed.Dante’s shoulders dropped a fraction, like he’d been holding his breath without realizing it.
They didn’t treat me like glass.They didn’t test me either.They just accepted me.Like I was another truth they had already folded into their understanding of Dante or as they called him Loco.
The house Dante brought me to wasn’t flashy.A cabin halfway up a mountain facing the Tennessee state line.Clean lines.Worn leather couch.The kind of place that felt lived in, not staged.He hovered as I unpacked, watching me take up space in his space like he was afraid it might trigger an alarm.
I set my books on the shelf.Hung my jacket by the door.Plugged in my laptop on the desk that would become my temporary command center.
“This okay?”I asked.
He nodded slowly.“Yeah.I want you comfortable.Make the place your own.”
“I don’t need to erase you to belong here,” I explained and he smiled.“This is gonna work, Dante.”
That night, lying beside him in a bed that no longer felt like borrowed time together, I realized how deeply he had been braced for loss.Every touch still careful.Every kiss like it might be the last because the distance between us would return.
That thought gutted me.So I made up my mind, no matter what I was in this.I planned to stay.
In time, I found my rhythm.
Remote work didn’t feel like exile the way I had feared.If anything, the distance gave me clarity.The senator’s name stopped appearing in official channels, replaced by quiet reassignment memos and sealed indictments that never made headlines.
The case didn’t die.
It dissolved.The way many government cases did.
Dante never asked for details.
He didn’t need to.
Because the club was moving too.
Subtle at first.A few phone calls.Old favors collected.A financial trail rerouted.The kind of pressure that didn’t leave bruises but closed doors.
The senator resigned citing “health concerns.”
No press conference.No defiance.
Just absence.And then a man who no longer existed in the cyber world leading me to wonder if the man existed at all anymore.
I asked Dante about it one night while we cooked dinner together, his hip pressed to mine, my hands steady on the cutting board.“You didn’t do anything illegal,” I said carefully.
He smiled faintly.“Nita, baby, don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.That’s how this works.”
“But you did something.”
“We reminded people that some problems don’t stay contained,” he said.“That power doesn’t always sit where you think it does.”
“And now?”I asked.
“And now he’s not a problem for you,” he said simply.“and he won’t ever be in the future either.”
