Chapter 4 - Don’t Trust VincentFor three seconds, silence became a weapon.
Long enough to know where the Moretti family buried its secrets.
Long enough to know which doors in their childhood home squeaked.
Long enough to understand that if Gabriella left a clue connected to their mother’s lullaby, Dante would eventually come looking.
What Salvatore had not expected was Elena Russo.
The baker.
The woman standing in Gabriella’s childhood bedroom with flour still dusted across one sleeve of her sweater.
The woman who, less than two hours earlier, had been making cannoli.
Now she was helping hide the most important witness in Brooklyn.
Dante motioned toward the closet.
“There’s another way out.”
Vincent stared.
“You didn’t mention another exit.”
“You never asked.”
Dante pushed aside several old boxes and pressed his shoulder against the closet wall.
A narrow wooden panel swung open.
Elena blinked.
“What kind of childhood did you have?”
“A complicated one.”
“That explains absolutely nothing.”
“It explains enough.”
Behind the panel was a steep service staircase.
Dante went first.
Elena guided Sophie behind him.
Vincent covered the rear.
The staircase led through the adjoining building’s basement.
Dante’s father had apparently bought both properties decades earlier and connected them secretly during a period of gang violence.
Elena decided not to ask why.
Some questions had answers she did not need.
They emerged through an alley.
One of Dante’s backup vehicles waited two blocks away.
A driver jumped out.
Dante stopped him.
“Where are the others?”
“Bellini’s people hit both sides of the block. We lost communications.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Two men. Alive.”
Dante nodded once.
Relief, brief but visible.
“Get them medical attention.”
They drove away without headlights until reaching a major avenue.
Only then did Dante breathe normally again.
Elena sat across from him.
“You were friends with that man?”
“More than friends.”
“He betrayed you?”
Dante looked out the window.
“He betrayed my sister.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Elena waited.
Dante finally answered.
“He was my best friend.”
Sophie leaned against Elena and fell asleep before they crossed into Manhattan.
The safe location turned out to be the penthouse of a luxury hotel overlooking the East River.
Elena almost refused to enter when she saw the lobby.
“My sneakers have flour on them.”
Dante looked down.
“So do mine.”
She followed his gaze.
White streaks marked his black shoes.
For some reason, that made her laugh.
The sound startled both of them.
It was nearly four in the morning.
They were exhausted.
Someone was missing.
Someone else had betrayed them.
Yet Dante stared at the flour on his shoes as though it were the strangest problem of the night.
Sophie slept in a bedroom protected by two female security officers.
Elena refused to leave until the girl was settled.
When she returned to the living room, Dante was standing over the photograph they had taken from the metal box.
It showed six people at a summer barbecue fifteen years earlier.
Dante.
Gabriella.
Salvatore.
Two older men.
And a woman Elena didn’t recognize.
Dante tapped her face.
“Camille Voss.”
“Who is she?”
“Federal prosecutor.”
Elena stared.
“Your family hung out with federal prosecutors?”
“She wasn’t one then.”
“What was she?”
“My sister’s roommate at Columbia.”
Vincent entered.
“She’s now deputy U.S. attorney for the Eastern District.”
Elena looked between them.
“You think Gabriella trusted her?”
Dante turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
Three numbers.
Vincent frowned.
“Date?”
“No.”
“Combination?”
Dante shook his head.
Elena took the photograph.
The numbers had been written beside different people.
17 near Gabriella.
4 beside Camille.
29 beside Dante.
“Could be pages,” Elena said.
Both men looked at her.
“What?”
“You’re looking for a blue book. Numbers beside people might be pages.”
“Pages of what?”
Elena shrugged.
“Whatever book your sister expected you to remember.”
Dante stared at the image.
Then his expression changed.
“The cookbook.”
Vincent looked confused.
Dante turned toward a bookshelf.
“Our mother had a blue cookbook. Handwritten recipes. Gabriella took it when our mother died.”
“Where is it?”
Dante grabbed his phone.
“At Gabriella’s house.”
The same house where men had taken her.
They couldn’t return.
Not yet.
Elena looked again at the photograph.
“Maybe you don’t need the physical cookbook.”
Dante stopped.
“Your mother’s recipes. Did you ever make them here?”
“No.”
“At your house?”
“Gabriella made them.”
“Did she photograph them? Share them? Put them online?”
Dante almost smiled.
“My sister posting our mother’s recipes online would have caused a family civil war.”
“Then maybe there’s another copy.”
He thought.
Then slowly looked at Elena.
“The bakery.”
“What bakery?”
“Your bakery.”
Elena stared.
“Excuse me?”
“Moretti Bakery belonged to my grandparents.”
Silence.
Elena’s mouth fell open.
“You’re joking.”
“My grandfather started it in 1958.”
“You mean your family owned my bakery?”
“Technically my mother’s family.”
Elena pointed at him.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know you owned it until tonight.”
“Why does everyone act like that name is just coincidence?”
“In Brooklyn?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Moretti isn’t exactly rare.”
Elena ignored him.
“What does the bakery have to do with the cookbook?”
“Our grandmother taught our mother every recipe there. There used to be duplicates of everything in the office.”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“I have boxes downstairs I never opened.”
Dante immediately reached for his jacket.
Vincent stepped in front of him.
“No.”
Dante glared.
“Not again.”
“Bellini knows the bakery. It’s the first place he’ll watch.”
Elena picked up her keys.
“It’s also my business.”
“You’re not going.”
She stared at Dante.
“That’s adorable.”
“You nearly got attacked twenty minutes ago.”
“Your friend attacked us.”
“Former friend.”
“Congratulations on the promotion.”
Dante rubbed his forehead.
“Elena.”
“I know every hidden corner of that building better than you do.”
He opened his mouth.
She cut him off.
“And Sophie came there because her mother told her to. Gabriella expected something to be there.”
That ended the argument.
At 5:12 a.m., Elena returned to Moretti Bakery through a neighboring building’s basement entrance she had used during renovations.
Dante followed.
Vincent remained outside coordinating security.
The bakery appeared untouched.
Chairs neatly stacked.
Cake still sitting on Sophie’s table.
Elena stopped when she saw it.
The strawberry slice.
One bite missing.
Seven-year-old fingerprints in the frosting.
Dante saw her looking.
“She’ll finish it.”
Elena turned.
“That sounded almost like a promise.”
“It was.”
They went downstairs.
The basement smelled of flour, coffee beans, and ancient brick.
Elena pulled open a storage cage.
Inside were dozens of boxes left from the previous owners.
“You never checked these?”
“I was busy trying to keep the place from going bankrupt.”
Dante looked around.
“It was struggling?”
“People don’t line up to invest in a bakery run by a woman who inherited debt instead of money.”
He looked at her.
“You saved it?”
“I’m still saving it.”
They searched.
Twenty minutes.
Thirty.
Nothing.
Then Elena saw an old metal recipe box beneath a stack of Christmas decorations.
She opened it.
Inside were index cards.
Italian pastries.
Bread.
Sauces.
Cookies.
At the bottom was a blue cloth-bound notebook.
Dante stopped breathing.
“That’s it.”
Elena handed it to him.
The front read:
ROSA MORETTI — FAMILY RECIPES
Dante’s thumb brushed the letters.
“My mother’s handwriting.”
For a moment, the dangerous man disappeared again.
He became someone’s son.
Elena looked away.
Dante opened to page seventeen.
A recipe for almond biscotti.
Nothing unusual.
Page four.
Sfogliatelle.
Page twenty-nine.
Strawberry layer cake.
The same cake Sophie had chosen.
Dante frowned.
“Why these?”
Elena inspected the pages.
“Wait.”
Each recipe contained one oddly capitalized ingredient.
Page seventeen: SUGAR.
Page four: FLOUR.
Page twenty-nine: SALT.
“SFS?” Dante said.
Elena shook her head.
“Maybe not letters.”
She touched the measurements.
Seventeen: two cups.
Four: three.
Twenty-nine: one.
2-3-1.
Dante stared.
“A locker number?”
“Could be.”
Then Elena noticed faint writing in the page margins.
Pencil.
Almost erased.
She angled the book toward the light.
Three words became visible.
SUNSET. PLATFORM. EAST.
Dante looked at her.
“Sunset Park.”
“Subway?”
“Maybe.”
Elena turned another page.
A folded transit card fell out.
On it someone had written:
36 STREET — LOCKER 231
Vincent appeared at the basement door.
“Dante.”
Something in his voice silenced them.
“What?”
“We found Gabriella’s car.”
Dante stood.
“Where?”
“Red Hook.”
“And Gabriella?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Not inside.”
Relief.
Then:
“There was blood on the driver’s seat.”
Dante closed his eyes.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Elena saw his fingers curl.
Vincent continued.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“Police just issued an alert.”
“For Gabriella?”
Vincent shook his head.
“For you.”
Dante slowly looked up.
“They’re saying you kidnapped your sister after an argument last night.”
Elena stared.
“That makes no sense.”
Vincent’s phone vibrated.
He checked it.
His expression darkened.
“It’s everywhere now.”
He turned the screen toward them.
A news headline filled it.
BROOKLYN BUSINESSMAN DANTE MORETTI SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING IN DISAPPEARANCE OF SISTER.
Below the headline was security footage.
Dante entering Gabriella’s building the previous afternoon.
Elena looked at him.
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We argued.”
“About?”
“Her investigation into my companies.”
Elena’s stomach dropped.
Vincent said what all of them were thinking.
“Bellini isn’t just hiding Gabriella.”
“He’s framing Dante for whatever happens to her.”
Dante looked toward the notebook.
Then at the stairs leading back toward the bakery.
Outside, morning was beginning.
Millions of people would soon wake up.
News stations would repeat his name.
Police would hunt him.
Enemies would move.
And somewhere in the city, Gabriella Moretti was still missing.
Dante tucked the blue notebook beneath his jacket.
“What’s at locker 231?”
Elena asked.
He looked at her.
“The reason someone was willing to take my sister.”
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Dante answered.
Silence.
Then a woman’s weak voice.
“Dante?”
He gripped the phone.
“Gabriella?”
Elena watched every trace of color leave his face.
“Sophie is safe,” he said immediately.
A broken sob came through the speaker.
Then Gabriella whispered:
“Don’t trust Vincent.”
The call disconnected.
Nobody moved.
Slowly, Dante turned.
Vincent stood six feet away.
His expression unreadable.
May you like
And for the first time that night, Elena realized the most dangerous person in the room might not be the man everyone feared.
It might be the man standing behind him.
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