Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Should Have Been Dead
Dante moved Mara behind him before the elevator doors were fully open.
Marco reached beneath his jacket.
“Don't,” Dante ordered.
A woman stepped into the penthouse.
She appeared to be in her late fifties, elegant despite the exhaustion carved into her face. Gray threaded through dark hair pulled tightly behind her head.
Her eyes went directly to Dante.
“My God,” she whispered.
Dante looked as though he had seen a ghost.
“Mama?”
Mara stared at him.
Dante Moretti's mother had died twenty-two years ago.
At least that was what he had told her.
The woman began crying.
Dante didn't move.
Marco looked equally stunned.
“Isabella?”
She nodded.
Dante's voice became harder.
“My mother is dead.”
“I know what they told you.”
“Who are you?”
Isabella opened her handbag.
Marco immediately raised a hand.
“Slowly.”
She removed an old photograph.
Dante didn't take it.
She placed it on the marble counter.
The photograph showed a younger Isabella holding a boy of perhaps twelve.
Dante.
On the back was handwriting.
To my Dante. Whatever they tell you, I loved you.
Dante stared at it.
Mara saw his fingers curl.
“Where have you been?”
“Trying to stay alive.”
Isabella's gaze moved to Mara.
Then to Mara's stomach.
Fear crossed her face.
“You're pregnant.”
Mara froze.
“How do you know?”
Isabella looked at Dante.
“We don't have much time.”
Dante's voice sharpened.
“Answer her.”
“I wasn't the person who sent those threats.”
Mara felt cold.
“You know about them?”
“I sent the first photograph.”
Dante stepped toward her.
“You threatened her?”
“No. I warned her.”
“By writing that she didn't belong with me?”
“I didn't write that.”
Isabella opened her bag again and removed several photographs.
They showed Mara.
At work.
Outside her apartment.
Walking beside Dante.
But beneath them was another photograph.
A man.
Mara recognized him immediately.
Vittorio Moretti.
Dante's uncle.
The man who had raised Dante after his mother's supposed death.
Mara had met him twice.
He had been charming both times.
“Vittorio knows,” Isabella said.
Dante laughed once without humor.
“Knows what?”
“That she's pregnant.”
Mara's knees weakened.
Dante reached for her automatically.
She let him steady her.
“How?” he demanded.
“Because someone followed her to the pharmacy.”
Dante looked toward Marco.
Marco was already making a call.
Isabella continued.
“You think your uncle built your family after your father died.”
“He did.”
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“He took it.”
Dante stared at her.
Twenty-two years earlier, Dante's father, Antonio Moretti, had died when his car exploded outside a warehouse.
Three weeks later, Isabella supposedly died in a boating accident.
Twelve-year-old Dante was left with Vittorio.
Vittorio became father, teacher, guardian.
Eventually Dante inherited the Moretti organization.
But according to Isabella, none of that history was true.
“Your father discovered Vittorio was stealing from him,” she said. “Antonio planned to remove him.”
Dante's expression didn't change.
“Then my father died.”
“Yes.”
“You're saying Vittorio killed him.”
“I know he did.”
“Proof?”
“I had it.”
“Had?”
“They found out.”
Isabella's eyes filled.
“I was supposed to die next.”
Instead, one of Antonio's oldest friends helped Isabella escape.
She disappeared under another identity.
She believed Dante would be safer if Vittorio thought she was dead.
Years passed.
Vittorio became powerful.
Isabella stayed hidden.
Until six months ago.
“What changed?” Mara asked.
Isabella looked directly at her.
“You.”
Mara frowned.
“Me?”
“Dante changed.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
Isabella almost smiled.
“Don't look offended. Even dangerous men fall in love.”
Mara's cheeks warmed despite the fear.
Dante said nothing.
Isabella continued.
“Vittorio tolerated relationships because he assumed none mattered. Then Dante started changing business arrangements. Closing certain operations. Cutting people out.”
Mara looked at Dante.
He had never told her.
“I've been moving everything legitimate,” he said.
“Why?”
Dante's eyes met hers.
He didn't need to answer.
The baby made the reason obvious now.
But the changes had begun months before the pregnancy.
Because of her.
Isabella placed another document on the counter.
“Vittorio thinks Mara is making you weak.”
Dante's expression hardened.
“He's mistaken.”
“He doesn't care. He believes if she disappears, you'll become the man he trained you to be again.”
Mara felt nauseated.
Dante noticed.
“Sit.”
“I'm fine.”
“Mara.”
“Stop ordering me.”
“Then please sit.”
She did.
Isabella approached cautiously.
“You need to leave the city.”
Dante shook his head.
“No.”
“Dante—”
“I've spent my entire life running someone else's empire because I believed their lies.”
His voice remained quiet.
“I'm done running.”
Mara stood.
“What does that mean?”
Dante turned to her.
“It means I finish this.”
“No.”
“Mara—”
“You promised.”
“I promised nobody would get hurt over photographs.”
“This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
Dante softened.
“I know.”
“You don't solve this by starting a war.”
“No.”
He looked at Isabella.
“We solve it with proof.”
Isabella nodded slowly.
“There may still be proof.”
“Where?”
“Your father's old house.”
Dante frowned.
The Moretti family home had been abandoned for almost twenty years.
Isabella explained that Antonio had kept duplicate financial records inside a hidden office.
If those records survived, they could prove Vittorio had stolen millions and connect payments to the men involved in Antonio's murder.
“Why didn't you retrieve them?”
“Because Vittorio watched the property.”
Marco ended his phone call.
“He still does.”
Everyone turned.
“Two men stationed nearby twenty-four hours a day.”
Dante smiled faintly.
“Then there's something worth protecting.”
Mara knew that expression.
It meant he had already decided.
“You're not going.”
He looked at her.
“I'm not asking permission.”
“Neither am I.”
“Mara.”
“If all this is happening partly because of me, I'm not sitting somewhere wondering whether you're alive.”
Dante approached.
“You're pregnant.”
“Not made of glass.”
“That isn't what I meant.”
“I know.”
Their eyes held.
Finally Dante sighed.
“You stay with Marco.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“Don't.”
Isabella unexpectedly laughed.
Dante looked at her.
“What?”
“You found exactly the woman you deserved.”
For one strange second, tension broke.
Then Marco's phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“Dante.”
“What?”
“The house isn't empty anymore.”
He turned the phone around.
A surveillance photograph showed a black sedan outside the abandoned Moretti property.
Three men stood beside it.
And between them was someone Mara recognized.
Eddie.
The dishwasher from Bell Street Diner.
Her closest friend at work.
His hands were bound.
Mara stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“No.”
Another photograph arrived.
Eddie was being forced toward the front door.
Then a message appeared beneath it.
BRING THE GIRL.
Dante looked at Mara.
Before either could speak, another message arrived.
This one contained only an address.
May you like
And a deadline.
Thirty minutes.
