Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Had Been Dead Twelve YearsDante’s mother had been dead for twelve years.
Dr. Shaw had warned him she needed rest.
“She lost a dangerous amount of blood. There are injuries consistent with a vehicle impact, but some of the bruising happened before she was struck.”
Dante looked up.
“Before?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone may have attacked her first.”
His jaw hardened.
Outside the intensive-care unit, Marco Salvi waited beside two guards.
Marco had been Dante’s head of security for twelve years and his closest friend for longer.
“What do we know?” Dante asked.
“Claire finished her shift at Bellini’s at eight forty-two. Security footage shows her leaving through the alley entrance at eight fifty-one.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Camera across the street caught a black SUV following her.”
“Plate?”
“Obscured.”
Dante’s expression didn’t change.
Marco knew him well enough to recognize the anger anyway.
“At nine fourteen,” Marco continued, “a cyclist found her near West Twenty-Ninth. Ambulance arrived seven minutes later.”
“And the SUV?”
“Gone.”
“Find it.”
“I already have twelve people working on it.”
Dante looked through the glass at Claire.
“Make it twenty.”
Marco nodded.
“And your family?”
“Still at the house?”
“Your father is furious.”
“He’ll survive.”
“Luca asked to speak to you.”
“No.”
Marco hesitated.
“There’s another problem.”
“There usually is.”
“Bellini’s cameras went offline eleven minutes after Claire left.”
Dante turned.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
That was not an accident.
Dante took the flash drive from his pocket.
“Get me a clean laptop. Nothing connected to our network.”
Ten minutes later, they occupied an unused consultation room.
Marco placed a new computer on the table.
Dante inserted the drive.
There were seven folders.
No passwords.
No encryption.
Claire had either been in too much of a hurry to protect the information or had deliberately wanted Dante to access it immediately.
The first folder was titled:
MORETTI INTERNATIONAL — PORT OPERATIONS
Dante opened it.
Shipping manifests appeared.
Hundreds.
Some legitimate.
Some definitely not.
Containers recorded as construction equipment had been rerouted through private warehouses Dante did not recognize.
Millions of dollars had been transferred through shell companies.
The signatures approving them belonged to senior Moretti executives.
Including his uncle Stefano.
Dante opened the next folder.
BELLINI PAYMENTS
The restaurant had apparently been used to move cash.
Claire had photographed handwritten ledgers.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Payoffs to inspectors.
Payments to politicians.
Money sent to companies Dante knew were connected to rival criminal organizations.
Marco leaned over the screen.
“This is bad.”
“This is theft.”
“From you.”
Dante clicked another file.
A scanned letter appeared.
At the top was Moretti International stationery.
At the bottom sat Vittorio Moretti’s signature.
The letter authorized the transfer of twenty-two million dollars through a company called Halcyon Maritime.
Marco swore quietly.
Dante said nothing.
His father had stepped away from daily operations three years earlier after heart surgery.
He should have had no involvement in secret transfers.
Unless he had never truly stepped away.
Another folder contained photographs.
Claire had taken them from somewhere inside Bellini’s office.
Uncle Stefano meeting with a man Dante recognized instantly.
Aleksandr Volkov.
Head of a Russian organization that had spent years trying to penetrate Moretti territory.
Marco stared at the image.
“If your uncle is working with Volkov—”
“He’s not doing it alone.”
The final folder was called:
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME
Dante’s hand stopped over the trackpad.
He opened it.
One video file.
Claire appeared on the screen.
She was sitting in what looked like her apartment.
No makeup.
Hair pulled into a loose ponytail.
Terrified.
“If you’re watching this, Mr. Moretti, I’m probably in trouble.”
Dante sat perfectly still.
“I know this sounds ridiculous because I’m just a waitress and you barely know me. But I didn’t know who else to trust.”
She looked away from the camera.
“My brother worked at Moretti Shipping.”
Dante glanced at Marco.
Neither man had known that.
“His name was Ethan Bennett.”
Marco immediately reached for his phone.
Claire continued.
“He died eleven months ago.”
Dante remembered.
Warehouse accident.
A forklift malfunction.
One employee killed.
He had approved compensation for the family personally.
Claire’s eyes filled with tears in the video.
“They said it was an accident. It wasn’t.”
She held up a small notebook.
“Ethan found something. He told me people inside the company were moving illegal shipments through Pier Seventeen and stealing money. He was going to report it.”
Her voice trembled.
“Two days later, he died.”
Dante’s expression changed.
“When I started asking questions, someone came to my apartment. They didn’t hurt me. They just left a photograph of Ethan on my pillow.”
Marco muttered, “Jesus.”
Claire took a breath on-screen.
“I should have stopped.”
She gave a small, sad laugh.
“But Ethan was my little brother. So I got a job at Bellini’s because Moretti executives eat there. They talk when they drink. They leave documents behind. They think waitresses are invisible.”
Dante remembered every morning she had served him.
Every conversation.
Every time she had smiled.
Had all of it been an investigation?
The thought bothered him more than it should have.
“I found out someone in your family is working with Volkov,” Claire said.
Then she leaned closer to the camera.
“And I think they’re planning to kill you.”
Marco looked sharply at Dante.
Claire continued.
“I heard two men talking in the restaurant office. They said everything would happen during the Moretti Foundation gala next month.”
Dante’s stomach tightened.
The gala would place nearly every influential Moretti associate in one ballroom.
Politicians.
Business executives.
Family members.
Security leaders.
A perfect opportunity.
“For weeks I couldn’t decide whether to tell you,” Claire said. “Because maybe you’re as terrible as everyone says.”
For the first time that night, Marco almost smiled.
Dante ignored him.
“But then I saw you pay for Mrs. Ramirez’s surgery.”
Dante blinked.
Mrs. Ramirez was an elderly dishwasher at Bellini’s.
Nobody was supposed to know he had covered her medical bills.
“She told me,” Claire said. “And I thought maybe a man who does something good when nobody is watching might still deserve a warning.”
The video became shaky.
“I found the final documents today. Someone saw me in the office.”
She looked toward a sound outside her apartment.
Her expression changed.
“If I don’t get the chance to give this to you…”
She swallowed.
“Don’t trust anyone named Moretti.”
The video ended.
For a long time, the room remained silent.
Then Marco asked, “What do you want to do?”
Dante removed the flash drive.
“Everything Claire did for the last eleven months was because her brother died inside my company.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“No.”
Dante looked toward the ICU.
“But someone using my name did.”
His phone vibrated.
Luca.
Dante ignored it.
A second message appeared.
Dad says if you don’t come home now, he’s coming into that hospital room himself.
Dante typed one response.
Try.
Then the hospital alarm sounded.
Marco’s head snapped toward the hallway.
A nurse shouted.
Someone screamed.
Dante was already running.
When he reached Claire’s room, one of his guards was on the floor.
The door stood open.
A man in hospital scrubs was leaning over Claire’s IV.
Dante hit him before the man could turn.
The attacker crashed into the medication cart.
A syringe fell from his hand.
Marco tackled him.
Two guards rushed inside.
Claire’s heart monitor began racing.
Dr. Shaw shouted for everyone to move.
Dante stared at the syringe.
Someone had reached Claire inside a guarded hospital.
Which meant whoever wanted her dead had resources.
Access.
And information.
As security dragged the attacker away, the man laughed.
Dante stopped.
“What?”
The attacker looked directly at him.
“You think the girl found your enemy?”
Dante walked closer.
The man smiled through bloodied lips.
“She found your family.”
May you like
Then he said something that made even Marco go still.
“Ask your mother what happened to Ethan Bennett.”
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