Chapter 5 - The Dead ManDante Moretti had attended Michael Hart’s funeral.
Dante stared at Vincent.
Vincent stared back.
Elena stood between shelves of flour and sugar holding her breath.
“Give me your gun,” Dante said.
Vincent didn’t move.
“Dante—”
“Your gun.”
Vincent slowly reached beneath his jacket.
Elena’s pulse jumped.
Instead of drawing the weapon, he removed it carefully with two fingers and placed it on a wooden table.
Then another from his ankle.
Then his phone.
“Anything else?”
Dante’s expression remained cold.
“Why would Gabriella tell me not to trust you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I’ve protected your family for sixteen years.”
“And Salvatore stood beside me for twenty-six.”
Vincent flinched.
Dante stepped closer.
“Tonight I learned that history is not evidence.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Then search me. Search my apartment. Search every account I have.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Elena watched him closely.
He looked angry.
But not frightened.
There was a difference.
She signed mentally through possibilities the way her brother Marco had taught her when solving problems as children: observe hands, shoulders, eyes, breathing.
Vincent’s hands were open.
His breathing steady.
His anger directed toward the accusation, not toward being caught.
It proved nothing.
But Elena did not think Gabriella had meant what Dante thought she meant.
“She may have been interrupted,” Elena said.
Both men turned.
“What?”
“The call.”
She looked at Dante.
“Your sister said three words.”
“Don’t trust Vincent.”
“Maybe.”
Dante frowned.
“You heard her.”
“I heard a frightened woman trying to communicate quickly.”
Vincent said, “You think there was more?”
“Maybe she meant don’t trust Vincent with something. Or don’t trust Vincent’s phone. Or don’t trust Vincent because he has been compromised.”
Dante looked toward Vincent’s phone.
Vincent followed his gaze.
“I changed devices two weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Battery issues.”
Elena almost laughed.
“You men run a security empire and blame everything on batteries?”
Vincent ignored her.
Dante picked up the phone without touching the screen.
“Who supplied it?”
Vincent’s face changed.
“Bellini Protective.”
There it was.
Not guilt.
Realization.
Dante placed the phone inside an empty metal cake tin.
Elena stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Improvising.”
“With my grandmother’s cookie tin?”
“Would you prefer they track us?”
She considered.
“Use the ugly Christmas one.”
Despite everything, Vincent laughed.
The tension broke slightly.
Only slightly.
Dante’s own phone rang again.
He did not answer immediately.
Unknown number.
Vincent pointed.
“That could be tracked too.”
Dante answered anyway.
“Gabriella?”
A man spoke.
“Not quite.”
Salvatore.
Dante’s face became unreadable.
“What do you want?”
“What I’ve always wanted. Stability.”
“You kidnapped my sister.”
“She became unstable.”
“You grabbed a seven-year-old.”
“I specifically ordered them not to touch Sophie.”
Dante’s eyes moved toward the bruise on Sophie’s wrist in his memory.
“Your orders failed.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Neither was losing her.”
A pause.
Salvatore’s voice hardened.
“Gabriella took something that belongs to people far more dangerous than either of us.”
“The blue book?”
Salvatore laughed.
“You always were sentimental.”
“What’s in locker 231?”
Elena glanced sharply at Dante.
Why tell him they knew?
Then she understood.
He was testing the reaction.
Salvatore went silent.
Only for half a second.
But it was enough.
Dante smiled without humor.
“Thank you.”
He hung up.
“You just confirmed it,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
Vincent looked toward the stairs.
“Then we move now.”
Dante handed him neither gun.
“You stay.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“You still don’t trust me.”
“I trust you enough not to tie you to a chair.”
“Touching.”
“I don’t trust your communications or anyone who knows you’re with me.”
Vincent sighed.
“Fair.”
Elena followed Dante upstairs.
He stopped.
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re staying.”
“We already discussed your tendency to issue adorable commands.”
“Elena.”
“You don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“I know how lockers work.”
“And I know how Gabriella communicates.”
“She barely knows you.”
“She sent her daughter to my bakery.”
“That was because of the name.”
“Exactly. Your family built a breadcrumb trail through things you thought didn’t matter anymore.”
Dante stared at her.
Then nodded reluctantly.
“Stay beside me.”
“I was planning to stay several feet away from the man currently wanted by police.”
“That hurts.”
“Survive it.”
They left separately.
Dante disguised himself beneath a baseball cap and old jacket.
Elena found the sight absurd.
“You still look like someone who owns eight black SUVs.”
“I own twelve.”
She stared.
He glanced over.
“That was a joke.”
“I genuinely can’t tell.”
They reached the 36th Street station shortly after six.
Commuters were beginning to fill the platforms.
No locker 231 existed in the modern station.
But the transit card contained another clue: an old freight facility near the waterfront.
They walked there.
A faded row of storage lockers remained beneath an elevated section.
Number 231.
Dante opened it using the key from Gabriella’s box.
Inside was a cheap backpack.
Elena removed it.
Nothing exploded.
“That’s encouraging,” she whispered.
Dante gave her a look.
Inside were three items.
A flash drive.
A second photograph.
And a child’s stuffed rabbit.
Dante picked up the rabbit.
“Sophie’s.”
A note was pinned beneath one ear.
IF SOPHIE IS WITH YOU, SHE KNOWS THE PASSWORD.
Elena stared.
“Gabriella trusted her daughter with the password?”
“Not consciously.”
Dante examined the rabbit.
Then understood.
“When Sophie was little, Gabriella created a bedtime game. Every night she’d ask a silly question and Sophie would answer with a nonsense word.”
“Same word?”
“Different every month.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“A password disguised as a game.”
“My sister is smarter than all of us.”
They returned to the hotel.
Sophie woke at seven thirty.
The moment she saw the rabbit, she grabbed it.
Dante sat beside her.
He signed awkwardly:
Bedtime game.
Sophie’s face brightened.
Then she signed a word.
Elena read it.
“Mooncake.”
Dante smiled.
“That’s the password.”
The flash drive contained spreadsheets.
Hundreds of shipments.
Containers.
Companies.
Payments.
Names.
Elena did not understand most of it.
Dante did.
His face darkened as he scrolled.
“These companies don’t exist.”
Vincent, now working on a disconnected laptop, leaned closer.
“They exist on paper.”
“Shell companies?”
“Yes.”
Elena pointed at repeated initials.
“SB.”
Dante stared.
“Salvatore Bellini.”
Then another column.
Payments to someone identified only as R.M.
Dante went pale.
“No.”
“What?”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Oh, God.”
Elena looked between them.
“Who is R.M.?”
Dante stood.
“Raffaele Moretti.”
“Your father?”
“My uncle.”
Dante’s father had died nine years earlier.
Raffaele was his older brother.
Family patriarch.
The man who had supposedly retired to Florida.
Elena felt the entire story shift.
“You think your uncle is involved?”
Dante looked at the records.
“These transactions go back eleven years.”
Vincent whispered, “Before Salvatore controlled anything.”
Meaning Salvatore wasn’t the beginning.
He was part of something older.
The penthouse door opened.
Everyone turned.
One security officer stepped inside.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes?”
“We have someone downstairs insisting on seeing you.”
“Name?”
“Camille Voss.”
The prosecutor from the photograph.
Dante and Elena exchanged a look.
Camille entered ten minutes later wearing a navy suit beneath a winter coat.
She looked exhausted.
Her eyes immediately found Sophie.
Relief flooded her face.
“Thank God.”
Dante blocked her path.
“You spoke to Gabriella?”
Camille nodded.
“Three days ago.”
“And?”
“She told me she had evidence linking your companies to weapons trafficking.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“She knew it wasn’t me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why am I wanted?”
“Because someone gave police evidence designed to make you look responsible for her disappearance.”
“Salvatore.”
Camille hesitated.
“What?”
Dante stepped closer.
“You think Salvatore is behind this.”
“I know he’s involved.”
Camille’s expression changed.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Salvatore Bellini came to my office yesterday morning.”
Dante stopped.
“He was trying to make a deal.”
Nobody spoke.
Camille continued.
“He claimed someone inside the Moretti organization had discovered his role and that he feared for his life.”
Dante laughed darkly.
“Convenient.”
“He offered names.”
“Whose?”
Camille looked at Sophie.
Then at Elena.
Finally at Dante.
“Your uncle Raffaele.”
Vincent swore.
Camille continued.
“But before Salvatore could sign anything, he disappeared.”
“He didn’t disappear. He attacked us two hours ago.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It happened.”
Camille shook her head slowly.
“Then someone is moving faster than we thought.”
Dante crossed his arms.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Camille looked toward Sophie again.
“Gabriella wasn’t investigating weapons because of your company.”
“Then why?”
“Because she discovered the shipments while searching for something else.”
“What?”
Camille hesitated.
“Her husband.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
Gabriella’s husband, Michael Hart, had supposedly died in a boating accident three years earlier.
Sophie’s father.
Camille lowered her voice.
“Gabriella believed Michael was murdered.”
Dante went still.
“And she believed the person responsible was someone she trusted.”
Elena felt Sophie’s little hand slide into hers.
Camille reached into her briefcase.
“I have one more thing.”
She removed an envelope.
“Gabriella mailed this to my office yesterday.”
Dante opened it.
Inside was a photograph taken outside a restaurant.
Michael Hart.
Alive.
The date stamped in the corner was six months after his supposed death.
Standing beside him was Raffaele Moretti.
And Salvatore Bellini.
Dante stared at the image.
Then Sophie began making a strange sound.
A soft frightened whimper.
She pointed at the photograph.
Elena crouched.
“What is it?”
Sophie signed quickly.
Elena’s blood ran cold.
“She says that man came to her house last night.”
Dante pointed at Salvatore.
“Him?”
Sophie shook her head.
Then touched Michael’s face.
Her father.
The man everyone believed had been dead for three years.
May you like
And Sophie signed:
Daddy took Mommy.
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