Chapter 6 - THE RECORDINGIsabella had hidden the recording in the most ordinary place imaginable.
She screamed and dropped behind the stone planter exactly as Dante had taught her only hours earlier.
“If something scary happens,” he had told her, “you get low, you stay still, and you wait for me.”
At the time, Elena had accused him of frightening a child.
Now the lesson saved her life.
Dante fired twice.
The man advancing toward Rosie fell behind the fountain.
“Rosie!”
“Daddy!”
The word cut through the gunfire.
Dante moved.
Marco covered his left side while two Moretti guards pushed from the veranda.
The attackers were organized.
Not street soldiers.
Not amateurs.
They knew the estate layout.
One headed directly toward the security panel near the greenhouse.
Another tried to cut power to the east wing.
Inside information.
Again.
Dante reached Rosie.
She threw both arms around his neck.
“I did what you said.”
“You did perfectly.”
Her entire body shook.
Dante lifted her.
“Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
For once, she did not argue.
He carried her behind the stone wall as bullets struck the courtyard.
Marco shouted.
“Dante!”
One attacker appeared on the balcony.
Dante ducked.
Marco fired.
The man dropped.
“Move!” Marco yelled.
They reached the service entrance.
Two guards rushed Rosie inside.
Dante held on.
“Take her to Elena.”
“Boss—”
“To Elena.”
Rosie gripped his jacket.
“You’re coming?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Dante hated promises.
Promises created debts the future might not let a man pay.
But fatherhood had apparently turned him into someone willing to gamble.
“I promise.”
Rosie let go.
The guards disappeared with her.
Dante turned back toward the courtyard.
Marco reloaded.
“You know,” Marco said, “I was having a very peaceful evening before you called.”
Dante checked his weapon.
“Complain tomorrow.”
“If we have a tomorrow.”
“We will.”
Marco grinned grimly.
“There’s the arrogance I remember.”
They pushed outside.
The battle lasted eleven minutes.
It felt like an hour.
Four attackers escaped through the eastern gate.
Six were captured.
Three died.
Two Moretti guards were wounded.
One would require surgery.
Dante lost no one.
That mattered.
But when the final shot ended, he felt no victory.
He walked through broken glass and blood toward the safe room.
Elena reached him first.
“Rosie?”
“With you.”
Rosie ran from behind her.
“Daddy!”
Dante caught her.
For a man feared for his ability to remain emotionally unreadable, Dante failed spectacularly.
He held his daughter too tightly.
Buried his face in her hair.
Closed his eyes.
Rosie patted his cheek.
“You’re squishing me.”
He loosened his grip immediately.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Elena stared at him.
Something had changed in her expression.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But certainty.
Dante loved the child.
There could no longer be any doubt.
Rosie touched a scratch near his eyebrow.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Mama says men always say that when it’s not nothing.”
Elena almost smiled.
Dante looked between them.
He had missed five years, but apparently he had already inherited a collection of family sayings.
Luca entered.
“We have one willing to talk.”
Dante handed Rosie to Elena.
“I’ll be back.”
Elena caught his wrist.
“No executions.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re making assumptions.”
“I know you.”
“Used to.”
Her hand remained around his wrist.
“I know enough.”
Dante looked at Rosie.
Then back at Elena.
“All right.”
“You promise?”
“Apparently I make promises now.”
He left.
The captured attacker waited in the underground garage.
His name was Miles Carter.
Former military.
Private security contractor.
No known connection to organized crime.
Dante sat opposite him.
“Who hired you?”
Miles spat blood onto the floor.
“No idea.”
Dante smiled faintly.
“Wrong answer.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
Luca placed a tablet on the table.
“We already accessed your financial accounts.”
Miles said nothing.
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Luca continued. “Deposited through a company called Halcyon Strategic Services.”
Dante knew the name.
One of Vittorio’s consulting shells.
“Who gave you the job?”
“A woman.”
Dante frowned.
“What woman?”
“Never got a name.”
“Describe her.”
“Late forties. Maybe fifty. Dark hair. Gray streak. Expensive clothes. American accent.”
Dante looked at Luca.
Vittorio usually used men.
“Anything distinctive?”
Miles thought.
“She wore gloves.”
“Both hands?”
“Yes.”
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“Ring?”
“Couldn’t see.”
“Scar?”
“No.”
Miles hesitated.
“Actually…”
“What?”
“When she reached into her purse, the glove slipped.”
Dante waited.
“She had something on her wrist.”
“What?”
“A burn mark.”
Dante’s pulse changed.
A burn mark.
He knew a woman with one.
His aunt.
Vittorio’s wife.
Isabella Moretti.
Dante stood slowly.
Luca looked shocked.
“Aunt Isabella?”
“Maybe.”
Miles shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know.”
Dante left the garage.
He called Isabella.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
“Find her.”
Luca started typing.
Five minutes later, they had a location.
LaGuardia Airport.
Isabella was preparing to board a flight to Rome.
Dante looked at the time.
“Stop her.”
“How?”
“Call airport security.”
“On what grounds?”
Dante gave him a look.
Luca sighed.
“Right.”
Fifteen minutes later, Isabella was escorted from the boarding line after an anonymous report claimed she carried stolen jewelry.
She did not.
But the delay was enough.
Dante’s men reached her before she could leave the terminal.
Two hours later, Isabella sat in the Moretti library.
She wore a camel-colored coat, pearls, and the expression of a woman deeply offended by everyone around her.
“This is outrageous.”
Dante closed the door.
“You hired men to attack my house.”
She looked at him.
“No.”
“Do not lie.”
“I didn’t.”
“A contractor described you.”
“He described a woman.”
“With a burn on her wrist.”
Isabella’s expression changed.
Dante saw it.
“Aunt.”
She looked away.
“What did Vittorio make you do?”
Her eyes filled unexpectedly.
Dante had seen Isabella cry twice in his life.
At his father’s funeral.
And at her daughter Sofia’s funeral.
Sofia had died at nineteen in a car accident.
Or so Dante had always believed.
Isabella whispered, “He’ll kill me.”
“Vittorio?”
She nodded.
Dante sat across from her.
“Tell me.”
“I didn’t hire them.”
“Then who did?”
“He did.”
“Why would they describe you?”
“Because I met with them.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“You were involved.”
“I was trying to stop it.”
“How?”
“I told the contractor the target had changed.”
“What target?”
“Elena.”
Dante went still.
Isabella continued through tears.
“Vittorio told them Elena and the child were being moved to the estate. He wanted everyone inside the east wing killed.”
“Why?”
“Because he knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you’re looking into Antonio’s death.”
Dante stared.
Isabella covered her face.
“I should have told you years ago.”
“Told me what?”
She began shaking.
“Your father wasn’t killed by the Bellini family.”
The room became unbearably quiet.
“Who killed him?”
Isabella looked at Dante.
“Vittorio.”
Dante felt nothing at first.
Then everything.
His uncle.
His mentor.
The man who had taught him to shoot.
The man who sat beside him at his father’s funeral.
The man who told him revenge would honor Antonio’s memory.
“Why?”
“Antonio discovered Vittorio was stealing from the family.”
Dante did not speak.
“Not thousands,” Isabella continued. “Millions. He was laundering money through international accounts and planning to split the organization.”
“Why didn’t my father expose him?”
“He planned to.”
“And Vittorio killed him first.”
She nodded.
“Then he framed the Bellinis.”
Dante looked toward the dark window.
Thirteen years of loyalty.
Built on murder.
“And Elena?”
“She discovered something.”
“What?”
“She overheard Antonio’s old accountant talking at a restaurant. The accountant recognized her as your girlfriend and warned her.”
“That was the anonymous caller?”
“Possibly.”
Dante thought about the man who had asked Elena whether she knew why Antonio died.
Vittorio must have realized Elena was too close to the truth.
But why let her live?
Dante asked.
Isabella answered.
“She was pregnant.”
“That should have made Vittorio more dangerous.”
“It did.”
“Then why not kill her?”
“Because I stopped him.”
Dante looked at her.
“How?”
“I told him if Elena or the baby died, I would give evidence of Antonio’s murder to the FBI.”
Dante stared.
“You had evidence?”
“I still do.”
“Where?”
Isabella hesitated.
“Somewhere Vittorio can’t reach.”
“What evidence?”
“A recording.”
Dante’s pulse pounded.
“Of what?”
“Vittorio ordering your father’s murder.”
Dante rose.
“Give it to me.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“When Rosie is safe.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“She will be.”
“No, Dante.”
Isabella looked terrified.
“You don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Vittorio has people inside this house.”
“We know.”
“No.”
She leaned closer.
“I mean inside your inner circle.”
Dante thought of Marco.
Luca.
His senior captains.
Isabella whispered, “Someone you trust has been reporting to him for years.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I swear.”
Dante studied her.
Then footsteps sounded outside.
The library door opened.
Marco entered.
“Dante, we found—”
He stopped when he saw Isabella.
She went white.
Marco frowned.
“What?”
Isabella stared at him as though seeing a ghost.
“No.”
Marco looked at Dante.
“What’s happening?”
Isabella backed away.
“No, no, no.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Aunt?”
She pointed at Marco’s hand.
More specifically—
his ring.
A simple silver signet ring bearing the Moretti crest.
Isabella whispered, “That was Antonio’s.”
Dante looked at Marco.
Marco looked down.
“I’ve had this for years.”
“Where did you get it?” Dante asked.
“My father gave it to me.”
“Your father is Vittorio.”
Marco went pale.
Isabella shook her head.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“Vittorio isn’t Marco’s father.”
Marco laughed nervously.
“What?”
Isabella started crying.
Dante felt the floor beneath his life shift again.
She looked directly at Marco.
“Antonio was.”
Silence.
Dante stared at his cousin.
No.
His brother.
Marco looked as if someone had punched him.
“That’s impossible.”
Isabella whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Dante could barely process it.
Antonio Moretti had fathered Marco.
Vittorio had raised another man’s son.
Had he known?
Isabella answered the question before Dante asked.
“He found out the week before Antonio was murdered.”
Marco sank into a chair.
Dante suddenly understood.
The theft.
The jealousy.
The murder.
The succession.
Vittorio had not simply wanted Antonio’s power.
He had hated him.
And now Dante and Marco—
Antonio’s two sons—
stood between Vittorio and the dynasty he believed should have been his.
Isabella looked at them both.
“He has spent thirteen years destroying everything Antonio left behind.”
Her eyes moved toward the ceiling.
Toward Rosie’s room upstairs.
“And Rosie is the last piece.”
Dante’s face became stone.
“No.”
He looked at Marco.
His brother.
A man he had nearly accused of betrayal.
“We end this.”
Marco lifted his head.
For the first time, they understood each other without speaking.
Not cousins.
Not rivals.
Brothers.
Marco stood.
“How?”
Dante looked at Isabella.
“Give me the recording.”
May you like
Then he looked toward the stairs where his daughter slept.
“And tomorrow morning, the Moretti empire changes forever.”
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