Chapter 3 - The Blue BookSalvatore Bellini had been part of Dante Moretti’s life for twenty-six years.
That surprised everyone outside.
Eight black SUVs surrounded her bakery.
At least fifteen men were positioned along the sidewalk.
And Dante Moretti stood directly outside the glass, staring at his niece as if the entire world had narrowed to the seven-year-old girl behind Elena’s shoulder.
Still, Elena kept the deadbolt locked.
One of Dante’s men stepped forward.
Dante stopped him with one raised hand.
Then he looked at Elena.
“Open the door.”
Elena folded her arms.
“Tell them to back away.”
His expression hardened.
No one spoke to Dante Moretti that way.
At least, that was what Elena assumed from the reactions around him.
The man on Dante’s right actually looked offended on his behalf.
Dante didn’t.
His eyes moved toward Sophie.
The little girl had retreated behind Elena and was gripping the back of her sweater.
Dante saw it.
Something in his face changed.
He turned.
“Everybody across the street.”
The security men hesitated.
“Now.”
Within seconds, the sidewalk cleared.
Dante remained alone.
Elena unlocked the door.
He entered slowly.
The moment Sophie saw him up close, her strength seemed to disappear.
She ran.
Dante dropped to one knee.
Sophie crashed against his chest.
He wrapped both arms around her.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Elena had expected a crime boss.
A ruthless businessman.
Some terrifying legend from neighborhood whispers.
Instead she saw an uncle holding a child so tightly that his hands were shaking.
“Sophie.”
His voice cracked.
“I’ve got you.”
The girl buried her face against his shoulder.
Dante kissed her hair.
“Where’s your mother?”
Sophie did not answer.
Dante pulled back.
He spoke again.
“Sophie?”
The child looked at him helplessly.
Then raised her hands.
Dante stared.
Elena understood instantly.
“You don’t know sign language.”
His jaw tightened.
“My sister started teaching me.”
“Started?”
“I kept saying I’d learn properly when work slowed down.”
Elena said nothing.
The regret on his face was punishment enough.
Sophie began signing quickly.
Dante looked toward Elena.
“What is she saying?”
Elena watched the child carefully.
Mommy woke me up.
She said don’t make sound.
Men downstairs.
She put me in laundry room.
Sophie swallowed.
Her hands trembled.
Mommy gave me old key.
Back door.
Run to bakery.
Elena translated.
Dante went still.
“Which house?”
Sophie signed an address.
Dante’s head snapped toward the door.
One of his men outside was already watching.
Dante held up two fingers.
The man immediately spoke into his radio.
Four SUVs pulled away.
Elena noticed.
“You’re sending people there?”
“Yes.”
“Police?”
Dante gave her a look.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It is now.”
“My sister could be dying.”
“And if you turn her house into a war zone?”
His eyes darkened.
“My people know what they’re doing.”
“That sentence has probably preceded a lot of bad decisions.”
One corner of Dante’s mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then Sophie grabbed his sleeve.
She signed.
Dante looked to Elena.
“What?”
Elena’s expression changed.
“She says they knew about you.”
“Who?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Sophie signed again.
“She heard them tell her mother that if she called Dante, they would kill you first.”
Silence filled the bakery.
One of the refrigerators hummed behind the counter.
Outside, snow had begun drifting under the streetlights.
Dante stood.
“Vincent.”
The man nearest the entrance entered.
He looked like someone who had spent most of his adult life making dangerous situations disappear.
“What do we know?”
Vincent glanced briefly at Elena before answering.
“Gabriella missed two scheduled calls tonight. Her security detail was replaced three days ago at her request.”
“Replaced by whom?”
“Men recommended through Bellini Protective.”
Dante’s face tightened.
“And nobody checked?”
“We did. Their credentials were clean.”
“Obviously not clean enough.”
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Dante, there’s something else.”
Elena started walking Sophie toward the booth.
She did not need to hear criminal-family business.
Dante stopped her.
“Stay.”
Elena looked at him.
“She trusts you.”
That much was true.
Sophie had not released Elena’s sweater.
Dante gestured to Vincent.
“Say it.”
Vincent continued.
“Gabriella withdrew two hundred thousand dollars yesterday.”
Dante frowned.
“She wouldn’t need cash.”
“That’s what we thought.”
“Anything else?”
“She accessed files from Moretti Shipping.”
Dante’s expression sharpened.
“What files?”
“Port manifests. Customs records. Security rosters.”
Elena understood none of the specifics, but she recognized the conclusion forming in Dante’s eyes.
His sister had discovered something.
Something dangerous.
Sophie suddenly tapped Elena’s arm.
She signed:
Blue book.
Elena repeated it aloud.
Dante looked at her.
“What blue book?”
Sophie mimed opening something.
Mommy said people died because of book.
Dante’s face lost all color.
Vincent whispered, “Jesus.”
Elena looked between them.
“You know what she means?”
Dante ignored the question.
He crouched beside Sophie.
“Did your mother give you the book?”
Sophie shook her head.
“Did she tell you where it was?”
Another shake.
Then Sophie signed:
She said Uncle Dante would know the song.
Dante stared at her.
“What song?”
Sophie touched her chest.
Then made a rocking motion with her arms.
A lullaby.
Dante closed his eyes.
Something painful passed over his features.
Their mother.
Elena could see it without needing the explanation.
Vincent understood too.
“Dante?”
He opened his eyes.
“The song our mother sang when Gabriella couldn’t sleep.”
“What does that have to do with a book?”
Dante looked toward the bakery windows.
“When we were kids, Gabriella and I had a hiding place in our parents’ house. We used the first line of that lullaby as a code.”
Vincent’s posture changed.
“The old house in Bensonhurst?”
Dante nodded.
“Send a team.”
“No.”
The single word came from Sophie.
It was the first sound she had made.
Barely more than air.
Everyone froze.
Sophie’s hands began moving frantically.
Elena watched.
Then translated.
“She says her mother told her only Dante can go.”
Vincent immediately shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
Dante stood.
“I’m going.”
“That could be exactly what they want.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
Dante turned toward him.
“My sister is missing and someone chased her seven-year-old daughter through Brooklyn in winter.”
His voice never rose.
That made it worse.
“I am going.”
Vincent stared at him.
Then reluctantly nodded.
Elena expected them to leave.
Instead Dante looked at her.
“Come with us.”
She laughed once.
“No.”
“Sophie communicates with you.”
“She needs a hospital.”
“She needs someone she trusts.”
“She met me twenty minutes ago.”
“And she’s currently holding your hand instead of mine.”
Elena looked down.
He was right.
Sophie had wrapped both hands around Elena’s fingers.
Elena sighed.
“I’m not joining some midnight mob convoy.”
Dante’s eyebrows lifted.
“We’re not—”
“You arrived with eight identical SUVs.”
Vincent coughed into his fist.
Dante gave him a look.
Elena pointed toward Sophie.
“She goes to a doctor first.”
“Agreed.”
“And no guns around her.”
Dante looked at Vincent.
“Make it happen.”
Elena studied him.
“You always get what you want?”
“Usually.”
“That’s going to become annoying.”
“I suspect you already find me annoying.”
“Very.”
For the first time, Dante Moretti smiled.
It vanished quickly.
Forty minutes later, a private physician confirmed that Sophie was cold, exhausted, mildly dehydrated, but otherwise physically unharmed except for bruising on one wrist.
The bruise had likely come from someone grabbing her.
Dante stared at it for so long Elena eventually stepped between him and Sophie.
“Don’t.”
He looked up.
“Don’t what?”
“Make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that tells a seven-year-old she needs to feel guilty because grown men are about to destroy the city over a bruise.”
Dante’s jaw flexed.
Then he softened.
He knelt beside Sophie.
“You did nothing wrong.”
She studied his face.
He repeated it in awkward sign language.
Not your fault.
The sign was clumsy.
Sophie smiled faintly anyway.
Then she touched his cheek.
They drove to Bensonhurst.
Elena sat beside Sophie in the center SUV while Dante sat across from them.
Nobody spoke.
The house they reached was narrow, dark, and old, squeezed between two newer buildings.
“This was yours?” Elena asked.
“Until I was eighteen.”
They entered through the rear.
No lights.
No sounds.
Dante moved upstairs without hesitation.
He stopped inside a small bedroom decorated in faded blue wallpaper.
“This was Gabriella’s room.”
He crossed to a radiator.
Then crouched.
His fingers traced the baseboard.
“There.”
A section of wood slid free.
Inside was a metal box.
Dante removed it.
Vincent opened it carefully.
No blue book.
Only a photograph.
A key.
And an envelope.
Written across the envelope were two words.
FOR DANTE.
Dante tore it open.
Inside was one handwritten page.
He read silently.
Then again.
Elena watched his face harden with every line.
“What does it say?”
Dante lowered the paper.
“My sister discovered someone has been using my companies to move illegal weapons through the port.”
Vincent swore.
“She says the records prove somebody inside my organization has been doing it for years.”
“How high inside?”
Dante looked directly at him.
“High enough to alter security reports.”
Vincent went silent.
Dante continued reading.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Elena asked.
He looked at Sophie.
“My sister knew she might be taken.”
“Then why didn’t she call you?”
“Because she didn’t know who around me she could trust.”
That landed heavily.
Especially on Vincent.
Then headlights flashed through the bedroom window.
One pair.
Then another.
Vincent stepped toward the glass.
His hand went beneath his jacket.
“I thought our perimeter was secure.”
Dante moved Sophie behind him.
“How many?”
Vincent looked down.
His face changed.
“Too many.”
Elena heard engines outside.
Car doors.
Men shouting.
Then electricity throughout the house died.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Sophie grabbed Elena.
Dante whispered, “Stay behind me.”
A crash came from downstairs.
Then another.
Someone had entered the house.
Vincent spoke into his radio.
No answer.
Jammed.
Dante looked toward the photograph still lying inside the box.
Elena grabbed it.
“What are you doing?”
“If we get out, this may matter.”
He stared at her.
“You’re surprisingly calm.”
“I own a twenty-four-hour bakery in Brooklyn. This isn’t even my strangest Tuesday.”
A shadow moved in the hallway.
Vincent stepped forward.
Then a voice came from downstairs.
“Dante!”
Dante froze.
The voice laughed.
“You found Gabriella’s letter.”
Sophie buried her face against Elena.
Dante’s eyes turned cold.
He recognized the voice.
Elena could tell.
“Who is that?”
she whispered.
Dante didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said a name Elena had heard countless times on television.
A man who sat beside mayors at charity dinners.
A man who had attended Moretti family weddings.
A man newspapers described as Dante Moretti’s closest friend.
“Salvatore Bellini.”
And downstairs, Salvatore called again.
“Come down alone, brother.”
Dante stared at the doorway.
Then he looked at Sophie.
“No.”
May you like
His voice became quiet.
“He stopped being my brother tonight.”
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