Chapter 4 - The House Nobody Knew ExistedDante moved Claire to a property even most of the Moretti family did not know existed.
At least that was what everyone believed.
Isabella Moretti had supposedly died in a boating accident off the coast of Sicily when Dante was twenty-six.
Her body had never been recovered.
There had been wreckage.
Blood.
Her wedding ring.
Enough evidence for the Italian authorities to declare her dead.
For twelve years, Dante had visited an empty grave.
Now a would-be assassin had told him to ask her about Ethan Bennett.
Dante stared at the man in scrubs.
“What did you say?”
The attacker smiled.
“You heard me.”
Marco seized him by the collar.
“Who sent you?”
The man only laughed again.
Hospital security arrived seconds later, followed by police officers.
Dante stepped back.
He needed answers, but beating them out of a prisoner in an ICU hallway would create complications he didn’t need.
“Marco.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Alive.”
Marco nodded.
Dante returned to Claire’s room.
Doctors were stabilizing her.
The syringe had not reached the IV.
The attacker had failed.
Barely.
Afterward, Dante stood at the window overlooking Manhattan while Dr. Shaw checked Claire’s monitors.
“You need to move her,” Dante said.
The doctor glanced at him.
“She isn’t stable enough for a normal transfer.”
“I have a private medical facility.”
“Then your private facility needs an ICU transport team.”
“It has one.”
Dr. Shaw studied him.
“You really are a billionaire.”
“That’s the least interesting thing about me.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
Claire stirred.
Dante moved beside the bed.
Her eyes opened.
“What happened?”
“Someone tried to reach your IV.”
Fear flooded her expression.
“You’re safe.”
“No.” Her voice was rough. “Nobody is safe.”
“They won’t get another chance.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Claire glanced toward Dr. Shaw.
The doctor quietly stepped away.
Dante lowered his voice.
“The man who attacked you mentioned my mother.”
Claire’s face changed.
That was enough.
“You know something.”
She closed her eyes.
“Claire.”
“I never wanted this.”
“What do you know about Isabella Moretti?”
Claire’s hand tightened around the blanket.
“I saw her.”
Dante felt the room shift beneath him.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“Bellini’s.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother is dead.”
Claire looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw clenched.
“Describe her.”
“Dark hair. Gray streak near her right temple. Tall. Green eyes.”
Many women fit that description.
Then Claire added:
“She had a scar along the inside of her left wrist.”
Dante stopped breathing.
His mother had gotten that scar opening a broken window when Dante was seven.
Nobody outside the family knew about it.
Claire watched the realization enter his eyes.
“She came through the kitchen entrance after closing. Stefano was with her.”
“My uncle?”
Claire nodded.
“They went into the office. I was in the storage room.”
“What did they say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Tell me what you heard.”
Claire swallowed.
“Your mother asked if Ethan’s death had been cleaned up.”
Dante turned away.
For twelve years, grief had been one of the few things he considered absolute.
His mother was dead.
His father had mourned her.
Dante had mourned her.
His sister had cried herself to sleep for months.
And now Claire was telling him Isabella had been alive.
Not merely alive.
Involved.
“What else?”
“Stefano said the Bennett situation should never have reached me. Your mother told him I was a loose end.”
Dante looked back at Claire.
“That’s why they attacked you.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you put this in the video?”
“I didn’t know if you would believe me.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“That’s fair.”
There was no anger in her voice.
Only exhaustion.
Dante hated that.
“You should hate me,” he said.
Claire frowned.
“For what?”
“Your brother died because of my company.”
“He died because of whoever killed him.”
“My name was on the building.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It is to me.”
Claire studied him.
“Why?”
Dante had no answer he wanted to give.
So he asked a different question.
“Why did you trust me?”
“I didn’t.”
That surprised him.
She managed the faintest smile.
“I trusted the version of you I saw when nobody important was watching.”
Before he could respond, Marco entered.
“We have a problem.”
“Another?”
“Your father’s outside.”
Dante walked into the hallway.
Vittorio Moretti stood twenty feet away surrounded by family security.
He was sixty, silver-haired, broad-shouldered, and still carried himself like the man who had ruled the Moretti empire for three decades.
Luca stood beside him.
Celeste was behind them.
Vittorio pointed toward Claire’s room.
“You locked me away from my own son for a waitress?”
Dante stopped in front of him.
“I locked you away because someone tried to kill her.”
“You think I did it?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Vittorio’s face darkened.
“Watch yourself.”
“No.”
The word landed harder than a shout.
Dante stepped closer.
“For twelve years, you told me my mother was dead.”
The color drained from Vittorio’s face.
Luca stared between them.
“What are you talking about?”
Dante watched his father carefully.
That reaction was not confusion.
It was fear.
“You knew.”
Vittorio said nothing.
“You knew she survived.”
Still nothing.
Luca grabbed his father’s arm.
“Dad?”
Finally, Vittorio spoke.
“This is not the place.”
Dante laughed once.
Coldly.
“That means yes.”
“I protected you.”
“From my mother?”
“From the truth.”
Dante stared at the man who had raised him.
“What truth?”
Vittorio looked toward Claire’s room.
Then at the cameras.
“Not here.”
Dante ordered the entire floor cleared except essential medical staff.
They entered an empty conference room.
Vittorio remained standing.
“Your mother did not die in Sicily.”
Luca sank slowly into a chair.
“Why would you tell us she did?”
“Because she wanted to disappear.”
Dante’s voice was quiet.
“And you helped her.”
Vittorio nodded.
“Why?”
“Because twelve years ago Isabella discovered something.”
“What?”
“That our family’s legitimate companies had become more valuable than the criminal network beneath them.”
Dante frowned.
“She wanted to dismantle the old organization?”
“No.”
Vittorio’s expression hardened.
“She wanted both.”
The answer chilled the room.
“She believed the Moretti name could control Wall Street during the day and the docks at night. No separation. No restraint.”
Dante understood.
His father had always maintained rules.
There were crimes the family tolerated.
Others it did not.
Drugs near schools.
Trafficking.
Violence against uninvolved families.
Those lines had been imperfect, morally compromised boundaries inside a criminal organization.
But they had existed.
“Your mother wanted expansion,” Vittorio continued. “I refused.”
“So she vanished.”
“She tried to kill me first.”
Luca stared at him.
“What?”
“The boat explosion was meant for both of us. I discovered the plan. She escaped before I could stop her.”
Dante’s anger sharpened.
“You knew she lived and never told us.”
“I wanted you children outside her war.”
“You let me bury her.”
“I let you survive.”
Silence.
Dante walked toward the window.
His entire childhood had shifted in twenty minutes.
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Claire saw her.”
Vittorio’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
“And that is why the waitress cannot remain here.”
Dante turned.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Move her somewhere secure.”
“I already am.”
“No. I mean somewhere nobody knows.”
“She stays under my protection.”
Vittorio studied his son.
Then quietly said, “That may be exactly what Isabella wants.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Your mother does nothing without purpose. If Claire found information, perhaps she was allowed to find it.”
Claire had risked her life.
Dante refused to believe she was part of some manipulation.
But Vittorio’s next words stayed with him.
“Sometimes the easiest way to get inside a fortress, Dante, is to convince the king he rescued you.”
That night, Claire was transferred to a private Moretti medical facility outside Manhattan.
Dante rode beside her in the ambulance.
She slept most of the way.
Halfway there, she opened her eyes.
“You look angry.”
“I am.”
“At me?”
“I haven’t decided.”
She looked away.
“That seems to be your favorite sentence.”
Dante noticed the sadness in her face.
“My father thinks you were deliberately placed near me.”
Claire laughed weakly.
“Your father sounds charming.”
“He thinks my mother may have allowed you to find those files.”
“So you think I’m working for her?”
“I think I don’t know enough.”
Claire nodded.
“Then ask me anything.”
“Did you start working at Bellini’s because I ate there?”
“Yes.”
The answer hit harder than expected.
“You targeted me.”
“I needed access to people around your company.”
“Every conversation?”
“Not every conversation.”
“Which ones were real?”
Claire turned her face toward him.
“All the ones after I stopped thinking of you as a target.”
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Claire said, “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“My brother left me a voicemail the night before he died.”
“You have it?”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“Someone deleted it from my phone.”
Dante waited.
“But I remember what he said.”
Claire reached for his hand.
“He said, ‘If anything happens to me, find the woman with the green ring.’”
Dante’s blood went cold.
His mother had worn an emerald ring every day of his childhood.
A Moretti heirloom.
Isabella’s favorite.
May you like
Claire whispered:
“When I saw your mother at Bellini’s, she was wearing it.”
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