Chapter 2 - The Man Everyone Feared
Dante took me to a hotel that didn’t look like a hotel.
There was no glowing sign.
No taxis lined outside.
Only an old limestone building on the Upper East Side with brass doors and two men in dark suits standing beneath a canopy.
They recognized Dante immediately.
One opened the door without speaking.
The other looked at me.
Dante noticed.
“She stays with me.”
Four words.
That was apparently enough.
We entered a private elevator.
I stood as far from Dante as possible.
“Where are we?”
“A place I own.”
Of course he owned it.
The elevator opened directly into a penthouse.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Manhattan.
The apartment was enormous and almost painfully elegant.
Dark wood.
Cream stone.
Original paintings.
Everything looked expensive enough that I was afraid to touch it.
A woman in her sixties appeared from a hallway wearing a robe.
“Dante?”
Her eyes moved to me.
Then to the blood on my knees.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“I’m okay.”
“You are absolutely not okay.”
Dante sighed.
“Mrs. Bellini—”
“Kitchen.”
“I need—”
“Kitchen.”
To my amazement, he obeyed.
Ten minutes later, I sat at a marble island while Mrs. Bellini cleaned my knees.
Dante stood by the window speaking quietly into his phone.
“No hospital,” he said.
I glared at him.
“I can decide whether I need a hospital.”
He covered the phone.
“You don’t.”
Mrs. Bellini slapped his arm.
“Stop frightening the girl.”
“I’m not frightening her.”
“You look like you’re attending your own execution. Of course you’re frightening her.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
Dante looked over.
For the first time that night, his expression softened.
Only slightly.
Then he returned to his call.
Mrs. Bellini whispered, “He looks worse than he is.”
“I heard that.”
“You were supposed to.”
She wrapped my knee.
“Who is he?”
Her hands stopped.
She studied me.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
She glanced toward Dante.
“That might be a blessing.”
Later, I learned why.
Dante Rossi wasn’t simply wealthy.
His family name had appeared in newspapers for decades beside words like organized crime, racketeering, corruption, and conspiracy.
But Dante himself had never been convicted of anything.
He controlled legitimate construction companies, restaurants, hotels, shipping contracts, and half a dozen investment firms.
Rumor claimed he controlled considerably more.
When I confronted him in the study, he didn’t deny it.
“You’re mafia.”
He leaned against his desk.
“People enjoy simple words for complicated organizations.”
“That is the most mafia answer imaginable.”
His mouth almost twitched.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No.”
“I want to go to the police.”
“You already spoke to them.”
“Then the FBI.”
“You can.”
That surprised me.
“You’re not stopping me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because keeping you here against your will would make me exactly what you think I am.”
I stared at him.
“Then take me home.”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I said I won’t imprison you. I didn’t say I’d personally deliver you to people waiting to kill you.”
“Kill me?”
Silence.
Until then, everyone had carefully avoided that word.
I lowered myself into a chair.
Dante crossed the room but stopped several feet away.
“The man you served was named Victor Hale.”
“Who was he?”
“An accountant.”
“For criminals?”
“For several businesses.”
“That means yes.”
Dante didn’t argue.
“He discovered money was being diverted through shell corporations. More importantly, he discovered what the money funded.”
“What?”
“Bribery. Smuggling. People disappearing.”
I felt sick.
“Why would he leave anything with me?”
“He didn’t intend to.”
Dante placed a photograph on the desk.
Security footage from Vespers.
Victor at table twelve.
Me standing beside him.
“He had a small brass key. According to the footage, he placed it beneath his napkin.”
I leaned closer.
“He asked for another whiskey.”
“You brought it.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone approached him.”
I remembered.
A man in a navy suit.
Victor had suddenly become pale.
“They talked for maybe thirty seconds.”
“Forty-three.”
“You counted?”
“I count everything.”
Of course he did.
Dante continued.
“You cleared the table immediately afterward.”
“I dumped everything into a tray.”
“Exactly.”
“Then the key could be anywhere.”
“Except the garbage was searched.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
I looked at him.
“You searched our garbage?”
“People have done stranger things for less important objects.”
“And you didn’t find it.”
“No.”
“Neither did the men who attacked Vespers.”
“No.”
“So they think I took it.”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because if you had it, you would have handed it to me approximately twenty minutes ago to make me leave you alone.”
That was annoyingly accurate.
A knock came.
One of Dante’s men entered.
“Police downstairs.”
My stomach dropped.
“For me?”
Dante nodded.
“Detective Cole.”
“Good.”
I stood.
“I’ll tell him everything.”
Dante’s expression became unreadable.
“You should.”
We went downstairs.
The private lounge on the second floor was empty except for Detective Cole and another officer.
Cole looked surprised when he saw Dante.
“Rossi.”
“Detective.”
“You two know each other?”
“Manhattan is a small island,” Dante said.
Cole ignored him.
“Elena, are you here voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
Dante said nothing.
Cole studied me.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He asked me about Victor.
I told him everything.
Then he asked whether I had found the key.
“No.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
“Mind if we search your apartment?”
“Someone already broke into it.”
“We know.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“No one was there when officers arrived.”
Cole looked at Dante.
“You know anything about that?”
“No.”
The answer came too smoothly.
Cole clearly thought so too.
Then another officer entered and whispered something.
Cole’s expression changed.
“What?”
The officer hesitated.
Cole looked at me.
“They found your coworker.”
“Tasha?”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s alive.”
My knees weakened.
“What happened?”
“She was taken from outside Vespers.”
I covered my mouth.
“They questioned her about you.”
Dante went completely still.
“Where is she?”
“Bellevue.”
I turned toward Dante.
“We’re going.”
Cole interrupted.
“Elena, whoever is doing this believes you have something valuable.”
“I don’t.”
“That may not matter.”
Dante spoke quietly.
“It doesn’t.”
Cole’s eyes hardened.
“This isn’t your investigation.”
“No.”
“Stay out of it.”
Dante’s face revealed nothing.
“Of course.”
Cole actually laughed.
“You’ve never stayed out of anything in your life.”
Twenty minutes later, Dante and I were in his car heading to Bellevue.
“You lied to him,” I said.
“About?”
“Staying out of it.”
“Yes.”
At the hospital, Tasha looked small beneath white blankets.
She had bruises on her arms but managed to smile when she saw me.
“You look terrible.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
“So do you.”
Dante remained outside.
Tasha squeezed my hand.
“They kept asking about the key.”
“I know.”
“I told them you didn’t have it.”
“Thank you.”
“Elena.”
Her fingers tightened.
“There was something else.”
“What?”
“The man who questioned me knew about your father.”
I froze.
“My dad?”
“He asked whether Daniel Voss had ever told you about Victor Hale.”
The room seemed to tilt.
My father was a retired high-school history teacher in Connecticut.
He spent weekends repairing antique clocks.
“What exactly did he say?”
Tasha swallowed.
“He said, ‘Ask Elena what her father buried twenty years ago.’”
I stared at her.
When I stepped into the hallway, Dante knew immediately.
“What happened?”
“They mentioned my father.”
His face changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
That terrified me.
“You know something.”
“Elena—”
“You know my father.”
Dante said nothing.
“Tell me.”
People moved through the hospital corridor around us.
Nurses.
Doctors.
Families.
But suddenly there were only the two of us.
Finally Dante said, “I knew his name before tonight.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“Because Daniel Voss wasn’t always a teacher.”
“What was he?”
Dante looked directly at me.
May you like
“Twenty-two years ago, your father worked for mine.”
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