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🕑 Added 2025-03-01 05:06:55 +0000 UTCWind in the Smoke
Chapter 154 - The Truth
Dante sat on the wooden fence, slightly turned to the side, waiting patiently for Beth to continue, vaguely sensing that the next topic wasn’t going to be simple.
Beth's eyes lingered on the ranch again, as if she were observing or reminiscing. "I know you love this place and that everything you've done is to protect the family. But, Dante, no one asked you to do this."
Was she really worried about him, or was she just interested in protecting the Dutton ranch?
The truth was that Dante couldn't doubt his sister’s words—she truly loved him, and she had proven that this love wasn’t just words.
Among all his siblings, Dante could tell that Beth was the one who loved him the most.
She was the only one aware of everything he had done for the family in silence.
"You should just ignore what you saw. That was never supposed to be there, and if you check again, you'll see that I've completely cut ties with that company," Dante admitted to this mistake.
The income and expense pattern of the account was too perfect, too clean.
There were no obvious irregularities, but that was precisely the real red flag: the absence of imperfections. Any legitimate business had fluctuations, unexpected expenses, taxes, administrative payments. However, this account operated like a pure conduit, receiving money and redirecting it with surgical precision.
Then, Beth, who was very smart, understood.
It was a laundering account.
The funds came in from different sources, some of them companies that, upon investigation, seemed to exist only on paper. Then, those same funds were strategically moved through investments in Dante's businesses, disguised as legitimate income. But where did the money really come from?
Beth reviewed the linked companies, and her stomach dropped. Some were tied to suspicious government contracts, while others seemed to be intermediaries in the purchase and sale of goods of dubious origin. She even found records suggesting connections to the trafficking of confidential information and the financing of operations off the radar of the authorities.
If she was right, her brother wasn’t just using this account to launder illicit money. He was operating in the shadows of a network that spanned corporate crime, corruption, and possibly something much worse.
And the most unsettling part: someone else had to know.
If she found this account, who else was watching? How deep did the danger really go?
"Do you want me to tell Dad?" Beth threatened Dante with information she hadn’t shared with anyone else. She hoped her brother would trust his sister.
Dante smiled, looked around, and said, "When I was in college, I got really interested in debates. There was one that caught my attention—one about our country’s war veterans."
"Dante..." Beth stepped closer to Dante, listening carefully to everything he was about to say.
The truth was that Dante had lost count of how many times he had twisted the story, but here he went again, with a little more of the same. "There are bad people in every institution, legal or illegal, so at first, I set out to see if I could be part of one of them."
"I wasn’t always the man you see now, little sister. There was a time when I only saw what was in front of me, without questioning the order of things. But life isn’t kind to the naive, and I quickly learned that if you don’t find a way to control the game, you end up as one of its disposable pieces."
"Over time, I started seeing details others overlooked. Every system has its cracks, every structure its weak point. I learned to detect them, exploit them, use them to my advantage. It wasn’t easy. It took years, beatings, betrayals, and losses. But in the end, I understood what really mattered: power isn’t in titles or empty speeches. It’s in the hands of those who know how to move in the shadows."
"I gathered the forgotten, the betrayed. Ex-military, marines, disgraced agents. People who served with honor only to be discarded by the same system they swore to protect. I gave them a purpose, a cause. That’s how SAMCRO was born. We weren’t just a group of renegades; they’re soldiers without a flag, mercenaries with a code. Now, they don’t fight for ideals, they fight for control."
"And with control came weapons. You know what they say? A man with a gun can change his destiny. Now imagine what an entire army armed to the teeth can do. We became the engine behind conflicts no one wanted to admit existed. We didn’t care who fought or why, as long as our weapons were in their hands."
"Look at me now. Years ago, I was just a kid who wanted to protect his loved ones. Today, I’m the one pulling the strings, the one who sees what others ignore, the one who takes advantage of every crack in a rotten system. And as long as the world remains weak, I’ll keep growing. Because in this game, only those who play it best survive."
Dante’s words had made it clear who he was, and Beth had imagined everything except that her brother was trafficking weapons.
"You’ve completely lost your mind..." Beth went into crisis. How was she supposed to protect Dante from all of this? "If the feds find out..."
"They don’t know who I am, but I’ve definitely worked with many U.S. government departments. Not officially, of course. But the agencies know who to turn to when they need a job that can’t appear in reports. The FBI, the CIA, the DEA... They’ve all needed a favor at some point. Weapons, information, silent eliminations. There’s always a price, and I make sure it’s worth it. It doesn’t matter what flag they fly—at the end of the day, everyone needs a man like me."
Dante was completely serious; his voice didn’t waver for a moment as he said, "I’m not in danger. I am the damn danger."
"Did you kill Dan?" Beth realized that her brother had taken action, and when Dan tried to contact his family, they had mentioned they would never go against SAMCRO’s orders.
"Yeah. The idiot ordered an assassination attempt on our father, so I responded with force. I was merciful—I didn’t kill his stupid daughters or send them to be prostituted until they died." Dante would never do that; he wasn’t that kind of person. But he needed to give his sister a harsher and more authoritative perspective of him.
"Who else knows?" Beth imagined many things, but as a strong woman, she focused and continued gathering information.
"Only Kayce. He’s now a member of SAMCRO. Of course, he’s only involved in the charity programs," Dante said, recalling the numerous things they did for those in need.
"I don’t know what to say..."
"Then don’t say anything. Forget what you heard, don’t dig any deeper into what I do, and I promise things will stay quiet."
"Go to hell. What the fuck about this makes sense?"
"Just forget it. I’m fine."
If Dante wanted to protect this family, he had to stop at this point. They didn’t need to know the whole story of what he did.
Comments
Nato J
Was Dante in the past a Yakuza member, since he knew special Japanese medicine? Would be good to have flash backs, about moments of his old life that helped and saved him, up till now.
Nato J
Something tells me, he won't hear end of it when trouble comes knocking, like Kayce being in trouble or Beck brothers making there move.
