Chapter 4 - A Taste of Bitter AlmondsDante locked down the penthouse before sunrise.
No employee was allowed to leave.
Every door was checked. Every camera was examined. Every member of staff was questioned individually.
Victor returned at six in the morning after Dante summoned him.
He entered the office without his usual security badge.
“You believe I came into the penthouse,” he said.
“I believe someone used your access code,” Dante replied.
“My access was suspended.”
“The code was entered before the suspension took effect.”
Victor glanced toward Mara.
She stood beside the desk with her arms crossed.
“You told her about the ring.”
“Lena said wolf,” Mara replied.
“She is a traumatized child who draws monsters.”
Dante’s voice became quiet. “Do not dismiss my daughter again.”
Victor’s expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But Mara saw it.
Dante saw it too.
Luca entered carrying a tablet.
“The stairwell camera captured movement at twelve forty-eight,” he said. “Face concealed. Similar height and build to six members of security.”
“Where did they go?” Dante asked.
“Service level fifty-nine. After that, nothing.”
The Aurelia was not simply a hotel.
It was a maze.
Private elevators, maintenance passages, sealed floors, old tunnels, kitchens, storage rooms, and executive corridors stretched beneath its polished surfaces. A person with enough knowledge could disappear without leaving the building.
Dante ordered Victor confined to a guarded suite while the investigation continued.
Victor smiled coldly.
“You would imprison the man who protected you after your father died?”
“I would imprison my own blood if Lena’s safety required it.”
Something almost admiring entered Victor’s eyes.
“You finally sound like a Moretti.”
The guards took him away.
Mara expected the danger to decrease.
Instead, the penthouse received a white box that afternoon.
It arrived with flowers from a charitable foundation hosting a gala at the Aurelia. Inside were twelve delicate pastries arranged beneath gold tissue paper.
A card read:
For Miss Lena, with warm wishes.
Mara disliked them immediately.
“Why?” Luca asked.
“They’re too perfect.”
“That is not usually considered suspicious.”
“It is in pastry.”
She lifted one tart and smelled it.
Butter.
Vanilla.
Apricot.
Then something faint beneath the sweetness.
Bitter almonds.
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“Don’t let anyone eat these.”
Luca reached for his radio.
The pastry was taken to the hotel laboratory used for food-quality testing.
The result confirmed contamination with a toxic substance.
The amount in one tart might have caused severe illness.
The amount in three could have killed a child Lena’s size.
Dante stared at the report.
Mara stood across from him, suddenly aware of how close death had come in a pretty white box.
“The delivery records?” Dante asked.
“Fake,” Luca answered. “The flowers never came through the hotel loading dock. Someone placed them on a service cart inside the building.”
“Victor?”
“He has been under guard.”
“Then he has help.”
Dante ordered Lena moved to a secure apartment on another floor.
Mara packed the child’s clothing while Lena sat on the bed clutching her stuffed rabbit.
“We’re having an adventure,” Mara said.
Lena did not look convinced.
“An extremely expensive adventure with men who refuse to wear normal colors.”
Lena glanced at the two guards by the door.
Both wore black.
One looked down at his suit as though noticing it for the first time.
Mara smiled. “See? They know I’m right.”
The child’s shoulders relaxed.
The secure apartment had steel-lined walls, private ventilation, and no direct elevator access. It also had no kitchen.
Mara considered that unacceptable.
By evening, she had convinced Luca to bring a portable burner, mixing bowls, and enough ingredients for cookies.
Dante arrived while Mara and Lena were rolling dough across the dining table.
“You turned my safe room into a bakery.”
“It needed improvement.”
He looked at Lena, whose cheek was dusted with flour.
“You should both be resting.”
“People always tell women to rest when they’re doing something useful.”
Dante removed his jacket.
Mara noticed a dark mark near his cuff.
“Is that blood?”
“It is not mine.”
“That is not comforting.”
Lena stopped rolling the dough.
Her eyes fixed on the stain.
Dante immediately moved his hand behind his back.
“It’s all right,” he said.
The child began breathing too quickly.
Mara stepped between them, blocking the sight.
“Lena, look at the dough.”
The girl could not.
Her gaze remained trapped on Dante’s sleeve.
He understood.
Without a word, he left the room.
Several minutes later, he returned wearing a clean white shirt.
He crouched beside his daughter.
“I’m sorry.”
Lena stared at him.
Dante placed his palms upward on the table, showing they were empty.
“No blood.”
The child touched one of his hands.
Mara’s chest tightened.
This man terrified half of New York, yet a seven-year-old girl could reduce him to a father begging forgiveness with two words.
They baked until nearly midnight.
After Lena fell asleep on the sofa, Dante carried her to bed.
Mara cleaned the table.
“You saved her life today,” he said.
“I smelled something wrong.”
“You knew because you are a baker.”
“My father taught me that ingredients speak before people do.”
Dante leaned against the counter.
“What would he think of you working here?”
Mara smiled sadly. “He would ask whether you tipped.”
“I pay you a salary.”
“He would not consider that an answer.”
“I would have liked him.”
“He would have pretended not to like you.”
“Why?”
“You’re wealthy, intimidating, and you probably don’t know the price of milk.”
Dante frowned. “Three dollars.”
Mara laughed. “You looked that up.”
“I did.”
Their eyes met.
The space between them grew smaller without either moving.
Mara became aware of the flour on her dress, her loose hair, and the softness of her stomach pressing against the table. She remembered the thin women who appeared beside men like Dante in magazines—elegant, controlled, untouched by ordinary life.
She stepped back.
He noticed.
“You do that whenever I come close.”
“Do what?”
“Retreat.”
“I’m standing in a fortified room with a mafia boss.”
“I have never called myself that.”
“You also never denied it.”
His gaze lowered briefly to her mouth.
Mara’s pulse stumbled.
Then a crash sounded from the bedroom.
They ran.
Lena stood beside the open vent near the floor.
A black envelope lay on the carpet.
It had been pushed through the ventilation shaft.
Dante opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Sofia Moretti standing beside a red metal door.
Next to her was Victor.
The silver wolf ring gleamed on his hand.
Across the photograph, someone had written:
SHE SAW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER MOTHER.
Below that was a second sentence.
THE BAKER WILL MAKE HER TALK.
Mara felt Dante’s hand close around her arm.
Not painfully.
Protectively.
“From now on,” he said, “you do not leave my sight.”
Mara looked at Lena.
The child pointed toward the photograph.
Then she touched Sofia’s face.
Her lips parted.
Nothing emerged.
But she drew one finger across her mother’s throat.
Dante went completely still.
Whatever happened two years earlier had not been a car accident alone.
May you like
Lena had witnessed murder.
And the person responsible knew she was beginning to remember.
