Chapter 4 - The Man She Almost MarriedNathan Cole had attended Elena’s birthday dinners.
Somewhere beyond the conference-room doors, people screamed.
Elena could hear furniture overturning.
Glass breaking.
Running footsteps.
Then another gunshot.
Dante pushed her behind the solid walnut conference table.
“Stay down.”
“I’m not five.”
“Today I wish you were.”
Marco moved toward the door.
He spoke quietly into his radio.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
“They're jamming communications.”
Dante pulled his pistol.
Elena stared at him.
Four years.
Four years working beside a suspected mafia boss, and somehow the strangest part of the morning was still that she had been planning a wedding six hours ago.
Now men were shooting their way toward her office.
Marco looked at Dante.
“Service stairwell?”
“Compromised.”
“How do you know?”
“Because whoever planned this knows the building.”
A heavy impact sounded outside.
Dante looked at Elena.
“Who knew your schedule today?”
She frowned.
“Everybody.”
“Specifically.”
“My assistant. HR. Julian.”
Dante's expression hardened.
“And?”
“Elena thought.”
“Calder's office. Catering. Your driver.”
A second impact.
Someone shouted.
Then silence.
Marco moved beside the wall.
Elena whispered, “What are they doing?”
Dante answered.
“Clearing rooms.”
Her mouth went dry.
“You mean looking for you.”
“No.”
His gaze dropped to her hand.
“They're looking for the ring.”
Elena instinctively touched her pocket.
Dante had been right.
The diamond wasn't romantic.
It was a target.
Marco opened a hidden panel near the bookcase.
Elena stared.
“A secret door?”
Dante glanced at her.
“You thought organized crime came without architecture?”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
“Move.”
They entered a narrow corridor behind the office walls.
Dante closed the panel.
Darkness swallowed them.
Marco switched on a small tactical light.
The passage smelled like concrete and dust.
“How many people know this exists?” Elena whispered.
“Three,” Dante said.
“Now four.”
He looked at her.
“You've known most of my secrets for years.”
“Not the murder tunnels.”
“Emergency corridors.”
“Murder tunnels sounds more accurate.”
Marco muttered, “I like her.”
“I've noticed,” Dante said.
They descended a hidden staircase.
On the forty-third floor, Dante stopped.
Noise below.
Footsteps.
Marco raised one finger.
Three men.
Maybe four.
Dante motioned Elena backward.
Before she could argue, he leaned near her ear.
“Whatever happens, you run upward.”
“What about you?”
“Upward.”
“Dante.”
His hand briefly touched her cheek.
The gesture shocked her more than the gunfire.
“Elena.”
His eyes held hers.
“Please.”
She had never heard him say that word to her.
Not once.
Then the men below reached the landing.
Everything happened fast.
Marco fired first.
A man shouted.
Dante stepped around the corner and fired twice.
Elena covered her ears.
Someone rushed up the stairs.
A shadow.
A gun.
Dante slammed the weapon aside.
The attacker struck him.
Dante drove his elbow into the man's ribs and threw him against the wall.
Marco kicked away another pistol.
Then it was quiet.
Elena stared.
One attacker groaned on the floor.
Dante crouched beside him.
“Who sent you?”
The man smiled through blood.
“You already know.”
Dante grabbed his jacket.
“Where is Santoro?”
The man's smile widened.
“Which one?”
Dante froze.
Marco turned sharply.
Elena whispered, “What does that mean?”
The attacker laughed.
“You think Julian is running this?”
Dante's eyes changed.
“Who?”
“Ask your uncle.”
Then the man bit down.
Marco lunged.
Too late.
The attacker convulsed.
Elena stepped back.
“What happened?”
“Poison capsule,” Marco said.
“This is insane.”
“Yes,” Dante replied.
“But now we know Julian isn't alone.”
They continued down.
At the thirty-eighth floor they reached a reinforced door.
Dante entered a code.
Inside was a private safe room.
Monitors covered one wall.
Marco activated the security feed.
Camera after camera appeared.
Armed men occupied the lobby.
Two elevators had been disabled.
Employees were being held inside conference rooms.
Elena searched frantically.
“Are they hurting anyone?”
“Not unless they resist,” Marco said.
Dante's gaze fixed on one screen.
A man stood in the lobby.
Gray hair.
Elegant overcoat.
Silver cane.
Dante went completely still.
“Impossible.”
Elena looked.
“Who is that?”
Marco swore.
Dante stepped closer.
The man's face was older than the photographs Elena had seen, but there was something unmistakably familiar.
“Dante?”
He didn't respond.
Marco did.
“Alessandro Valenti.”
Elena looked at him.
“Your uncle?”
Dante nodded slowly.
“My father's younger brother.”
“You said he lives in Sicily.”
“He does.”
“Apparently not today.”
Marco zoomed the camera.
Alessandro looked directly into it.
Then smiled.
As if he knew Dante was watching.
He raised a phone.
A moment later, the safe-room phone rang.
Dante answered.
“Uncle.”
Alessandro's voice came through the speaker.
“My boy.”
“You picked a strange week to visit.”
“I missed New York.”
“So you brought gunmen.”
“A man needs luggage.”
Elena looked at Dante.
There was history in his eyes.
Deep, ugly history.
“What do you want?”
Alessandro sighed.
“The ring.”
Dante glanced at Elena.
“No.”
“I wasn't asking you.”
The safe-room monitor changed.
A new camera appeared.
It showed Dante's mother.
Elena recognized Sofia Valenti immediately.
She sat inside a dark SUV.
A gunman beside her.
Dante stopped breathing.
Alessandro said softly, “Give me Vittorio's ring, and your mother goes home.”
Dante's face became stone.
“You touch her—”
“Please. She's my sister-in-law.”
“You murdered my father.”
Silence.
Elena stared at Dante.
Marco did too.
Alessandro laughed.
“Is that what you believe?”
“I have spent twelve years proving it.”
“Then you wasted twelve years.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Vittorio was killed because he discovered who really betrayed this family.”
Dante gripped the phone.
“And you expect me to believe you?”
“No.”
Alessandro's voice softened.
“I expect you to open the ring.”
Elena looked down.
“Open?”
Dante looked at her hand.
Alessandro continued.
“The diamond setting twists counterclockwise.”
Elena removed the ring.
Dante took it.
He twisted.
Nothing.
Again.
A click.
The stone lifted.
Inside the hollow band was something impossibly small.
A black memory chip.
Nobody spoke.
Alessandro said:
“Your father didn't lose the ledger.”
Dante stared at the chip.
“He hid it.”
“In the one object everyone would assume was merely sentimental.”
Elena whispered, “And Julian knew?”
Alessandro laughed.
“Julian knows almost nothing.”
Dante looked toward the camera.
“Then why give him the ring?”
“I didn't.”
“Who did?”
A pause.
Then Alessandro answered.
“Someone who wanted both Valenti and Santoro blood spilled before sunset.”
The screen changed again.
A photograph appeared.
Elena recognized the man immediately.
A familiar face.
A person she had seen in Dante's office hundreds of times.
Dante's chief financial officer.
Nathan Cole.
Alessandro said:
“Your father's murderer has been working ten offices away from you for eleven years.”
Dante's expression emptied.
Elena whispered, “Nathan?”
And then every monitor inside the safe room went black.
From behind them came a mechanical click.
The door unlocked.
Dante turned.
Too late.
Nathan Cole stepped inside holding a pistol.
And beside him stood Julian.
Elena's fiancé looked at her.
Then at Dante.
Then at the ring.
“I'm sorry,” Julian said.
Nathan smiled.
“Don't be.”
May you like
He raised the gun.
“This was always going to end with one of them betraying the other.”
Related Stories
