Chapter 3 - Forty-Seventh FloorThe emergency lights flickered red.
She had learned their moods.
Their silences.
Their ways of threatening without ever saying the words.
Dante Valenti was dangerous.
But Julian Cross?
Julian had always seemed safe.
That was the point.
He was thirty-five, polished, handsome, charming without trying too hard. He worked in private wealth management, wore expensive watches without making them the center of every conversation, and remembered how Elena took her coffee.
He opened doors.
He sent flowers.
He never raised his voice.
Most importantly, he had absolutely nothing to do with the world Dante lived in.
Or so Elena had believed.
Now she stood inside Dante’s private conference room staring at Julian's message.
Did Dante see the ring?
There was no innocent explanation.
Dante took Elena's phone from her hand.
She grabbed it back.
“Don't.”
“Elena.”
“It's my phone.”
“And he is using you.”
“You don't know that.”
Dante stared at her.
“You are wearing a dead man's stolen ring.”
The words struck harder than Elena expected.
She looked at the diamond.
Five days earlier, she had cried when Julian placed it on her finger.
Now it looked different.
Not romantic.
Contaminated.
Dante pulled a chair out.
“Sit.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
“Then consider it a heartfelt suggestion made under circumstances involving murder.”
She glared at him.
But she sat.
Dante pressed an intercom button.
“Marco.”
Thirty seconds later, Marco Bellini entered.
Elena knew him as Dante's head of security.
Everyone else knew him as the man who appeared whenever unpleasant situations needed to disappear.
Marco was forty-two, broad-shouldered, expressionless, and loyal to Dante in a way that made ordinary employment contracts irrelevant.
He looked at Elena's ring.
Then Dante.
“It's confirmed?”
Dante nodded.
Marco's face hardened.
Elena stood.
“Confirmed what?”
Dante didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he moved toward a concealed cabinet.
Inside were folders Elena had never seen.
He removed one.
The photograph inside showed a younger Dante standing beside an older man.
Dante's father.
Vittorio Valenti.
Vittorio wore a tuxedo.
On his right hand sat a distinctive platinum ring.
A large diamond.
Elena's diamond.
She felt sick.
“That can't be…”
“It is,” Dante said.
Marco placed another photograph beside it.
A crime scene.
Elena flinched.
Vittorio lay on the marble floor of what looked like a private club.
His right hand was visible.
Bare.
“The ring vanished that night,” Dante said.
“Why would your father wear an engagement ring?”
“It wasn't.”
Dante sat across from her.
“It belonged to my grandmother. My grandfather had it designed in Milan in 1954. When she died, she left it to my father. He wore it on special occasions.”
Elena looked at the crown engraving.
“VMC?”
“Valenti family mark.”
Elena swallowed.
“And Julian somehow has it.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he bought it.”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because whoever killed my father took the ring deliberately.”
Marco spoke for the first time.
“Along with a ledger.”
Elena looked between them.
“What ledger?”
Dante's expression became guarded.
“Something several people would kill to possess.”
“That's helpful.”
“Elena—”
“No. You shut down an entire building. You have armed guards outside. My fiancé apparently gave me jewelry stolen from your murdered father, and you're still giving me half-answers.”
Dante leaned forward.
“The ledger contained financial records linking several legitimate corporations to my father's criminal operations.”
Elena went quiet.
“There were names.”
“How many?”
“Enough to destroy political careers, banking families, judges, prosecutors, organized crime networks.”
“And it disappeared with the ring?”
“Yes.”
Elena looked at her phone.
Julian had sent another message.
Please answer me.
Then:
Don't let him scare you.
Then:
Leave the building and come home.
Elena's chest tightened.
“He knows the building is locked down.”
Dante looked at Marco.
Marco was already typing.
“How?”
“He could have someone inside,” Marco said.
Dante's face darkened.
Elena pushed her chair back.
“I need to talk to Julian.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You will not go near him.”
“He is my fiancé.”
“He proposed to you so you would walk into my office wearing evidence from my father's murder.”
“You don't know that.”
Dante stood.
“I know he asked whether I had seen the ring before he asked if you were safe.”
That silenced her.
Dante walked closer.
“Think, Elena.”
She hated when he said her name like that.
Low.
Soft.
As if anger required restraint.
“Friday,” Dante continued. “He proposes. Monday morning, you enter this building. He immediately asks whether I recognized the ring.”
Elena looked at the diamond.
“He wanted a reaction.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That is what I'm going to find out.”
Dante extended his hand.
“Give me the ring.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“If it's evidence, then it stays with me.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You want to keep wearing it?”
“No.”
She removed it and closed it inside her fist.
“But it's mine now.”
“It belonged to my family.”
“It also may be the only thing keeping Julian interested in talking to me.”
Dante's stare sharpened.
Marco almost smiled.
Dante noticed.
“Don't.”
Marco cleared his throat.
“She's right.”
Dante looked ready to fire him.
“Elena can draw Cross out.”
“No.”
Elena crossed her arms.
“Now who's being emotional?”
Dante stepped so close she could smell his cologne.
“You think this is jealousy?”
“I think some of it is.”
His jaw flexed.
Wrong answer.
But Elena had spent four years learning exactly how far she could push him.
Apparently she had finally found the edge.
Dante lowered his voice.
“Julian Cross has been investigated twice for financial crimes.”
Elena blinked.
“What?”
“He changed his surname nine years ago.”
“To what?”
“Cross.”
“What was it before?”
Marco turned his tablet around.
A passport photograph appeared.
Julian.
Younger.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Beneath it:
Julian Santoro.
Elena whispered the name.
Dante watched her.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because the Santoro family was my father's greatest enemy.”
Elena's knees weakened.
She sat again.
Dante continued.
“Julian's uncle controlled the Brooklyn docks twenty years ago. His father disappeared after a federal indictment. His older brother was killed in a warehouse fire.”
Elena stared at the photograph.
“Julian told me his parents died when he was a child.”
“His mother did.”
“And his father?”
Marco answered.
“Still alive.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
Elena laughed softly.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was crying.
“I was going to marry him.”
Dante's expression shifted.
The anger eased.
For one second, he looked like the man she occasionally glimpsed beneath the tailored suits.
“Elena.”
“Don't.”
She stared down at her hand.
“I spent fourteen months with him.”
Dante's voice became quieter.
“He was very good.”
“So was I stupid?”
“No.”
Her eyes rose.
Dante was looking directly at her.
“No,” he repeated. “You trusted someone you loved. Those are not the same thing.”
Loved.
Past tense.
Elena looked away.
Her phone rang again.
Julian.
Dante glanced at it.
This time he didn't tell her not to answer.
Elena did.
“Hello?”
“Thank God.”
Julian sounded breathless.
“Ellie, where are you?”
“At work.”
“Get out.”
“The building is locked.”
A pause.
“Dante doing that?”
“Yes.”
“Of course he is.”
Julian's tone changed.
Warm.
Concerned.
Perfect.
“Baby, listen to me. Dante is dangerous.”
Elena looked directly at Dante.
He stood ten feet away, completely still.
She activated speakerphone.
Julian continued.
“That man has wanted you for years.”
Dante's expression didn't move.
Elena's heart did.
“What?”
Julian sighed.
“You really never noticed?”
“Noticed what?”
“Elena, everyone notices.”
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
Marco found the ceiling fascinating.
Julian continued.
“He's obsessed with you.”
Elena swallowed.
“You're changing the subject.”
“What subject?”
“The ring.”
Silence.
Elena touched the diamond.
“Where did you get it?”
“Cartier.”
Lie.
She shut her eyes.
“Try again.”
“Elena—”
“I had it examined.”
Another silence.
“By Dante?”
“Does it matter?”
Julian's warmth disappeared.
“Elena, take the ring and leave.”
“Why?”
“I'll explain.”
“Explain now.”
“I can't.”
“Then we're done.”
Dante looked at her sharply.
Julian inhaled.
“You don't mean that.”
“Yes.”
“Elena.”
“You lied to me.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?”
No answer.
“Julian.”
His next words were barely audible.
“From him.”
Dante leaned toward the phone.
“You've got my attention, Santoro.”
Julian went silent.
Dante's voice was cold.
“Now tell me why you put my father's ring on her finger.”
Julian laughed.
One soft sound.
Then he said:
“Because I knew you'd recognize it.”
Elena's stomach dropped.
Dante's hand closed around the edge of the table.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing your family stole from mine.”
“The ledger?”
“No.”
Julian's voice sharpened.
“The truth.”
Dante looked at Marco.
Elena stepped closer to the phone.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Julian hesitated.
That hesitation terrified her.
“Julian.”
“I'm sorry, Ellie.”
“For what?”
“I didn't choose you randomly.”
She stopped breathing.
Julian continued.
“I knew who you worked for before we met.”
The room tilted.
Dante reached for Elena's arm.
She pulled away.
Julian's voice became softer.
“But loving you wasn't part of the plan.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After today.”
“Why today?”
Julian paused.
Then came the answer.
“Because by midnight, Dante Valenti was supposed to be dead.”
Dante's eyes hardened.
Marco's hand went immediately to his weapon.
And somewhere outside the conference room—
a gunshot exploded.
Then another.
The forty-seventh floor erupted in screams.
Dante grabbed Elena and pulled her behind him.
Marco drew his pistol.
The lights went out.
May you like
And in total darkness, Elena heard Dante whisper:
“They're already inside.”
Related Stories
