Chapter 3 - THE ENGAGEMENT THAT NEVER EXISTEDI did not sleep.
At 5:40 a.m., I found Dante in the kitchen making espresso.
The sight was so normal it annoyed me.
“Do mafia bosses make their own coffee?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Only terrifying ones.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
Then I remembered the photographs.
“My father. Tell me.”
Dante's expression became serious.
He carried two cups to the island.
“Thomas Hale worked for my father twenty years ago.”
“As what?”
“Financial controller.”
“So he was an accountant.”
“He was also the man who discovered somebody was stealing from the Russo organization.”
I sat down.
“Who?”
“We never learned.”
Dante pushed the old photograph toward me.
“My father was killed before Thomas could finish his investigation.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“Car bombing.”
“And my father?”
“Disappeared.”
I remembered the version Dad had told me.
We had moved suddenly when I was nine because his company transferred him.
Another lie.
“He took you and vanished.”
“Why didn't you find us?”
“We did.”
I looked up.
Dante's face tightened.
“Years later. By then your father was sick. He refused contact.”
“Why?”
“He said approaching him would put you in danger.”
My anger came quickly.
“And you ignored that?”
“No. My father owed him his life. I respected his request.”
Dante reached into his pocket.
The velvet ring box appeared.
I stared at it.
“Who's she?”
He frowned.
“The woman you're proposing to.”
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
“There is no woman.”
“What?”
“The ring wasn't an engagement ring.”
He opened the box.
“I was selling it.”
I stared.
“To whom?”
“A man named Vincent Calder.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Dante continued.
“The diamond belonged to my mother. Calder has been trying to buy it because he believes something is hidden inside its setting.”
“Is there?”
Dante's eyes darkened.
“I don't know.”
He removed the ring.
Under the morning light, I noticed a tiny irregularity beneath the stone.
“May I?”
He hesitated before placing it in my palm.
My father had repaired watches as a hobby. As a child, I spent hours beside him while he worked.
I turned the ring.
There.
A microscopic hinge.
“Do you have a pin?”
Dante handed me one.
I pressed the mechanism.
The setting opened.
Something smaller than my fingernail fell onto the counter.
A microSD card.
Neither of us spoke.
Dante summoned Luca.
Minutes later, they inserted it into an isolated laptop.
There was only one file.
A ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Judges.
Police officers.
Shipping executives.
And one recurring set of initials.
T.H.
My heart hammered.
“My father.”
Dante shook his head.
“Look.”
Beside T.H. were payments marked refused.
Then warnings.
Then a final entry dated nineteen years earlier:
HALE HAS COPY.
Dante leaned back.
“Your father stole evidence.”
“To expose them?”
“Probably.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Dante scrolled.
At the bottom appeared a name.
Vincent Calder.
The man who wanted the ring.
The man Dante had been scheduled to meet.
My skin chilled.
Then Luca's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Dante stood.
Luca lowered the phone.
“Marco is dead.”
Silence.
“How?”
“He never reached the holding location.”
Dante's voice became dangerously soft.
“Explain.”
“The transport route was compromised.”
“Who knew it?”
“Six people.”
Dante's eyes hardened.
Someone inside his own organization had betrayed him.
Then Luca added, “There's more.”
He placed a tablet before us.
Security footage showed Marco being transferred into an SUV.
The timestamp was 11:43 p.m.
Another vehicle appeared.
Someone stepped out.
I leaned closer.
My heart stopped.
I recognized him.
Not from Dante's world.
From mine.
“That man works at La Stella.”
Dante turned.
“Who?”
“Our manager.”
The same manager who had ordered me to serve table 7.
The same man who had supposedly chosen me because I didn't make small talk.
Suddenly I understood.
I had not been randomly assigned to Dante.
May you like
I had been placed there.
And whoever wanted Dante dead had wanted me standing beside him when it happened.
Related Stories
