Chapter 4 - The House With No Photographs
Dante’s home was not a home.
It was a fortress pretending to be a Manhattan penthouse.
Bulletproof windows.
Private elevator.
Security cameras.
Armed men stationed behind doors.
And absolutely no family photographs.
I noticed that first.
People displayed what mattered to them.
Dante displayed art.
Expensive, beautiful, impersonal art.
After the shooting, arguing about where I would stay seemed stupid.
My apartment window was destroyed.
The police explanation involved a “possible stray bullet,” which told me exactly how much influence Dante possessed.
At 2:00 in the morning, I stood barefoot in his kitchen wearing one of his white shirts because my suitcase had been forgotten during the evacuation.
Dante entered.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows.
There was blood on one cuff.
I stared at it.
“Yours?”
“No.”
I decided not to ask.
He opened the refrigerator.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I rarely do.”
“That explains the personality.”
He glanced at me.
I smiled.
After a second, he did too.
He made coffee.
“Coffee at two in the morning?”
“You work in a diner and judge me for coffee?”
“Fair.”
He handed me a cup.
Our fingers touched.
Neither of us moved away immediately.
“Who was the shooter?” I asked.
“Sanzaro’s people.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because they missed.”
I frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“They weren’t trying to kill you.”
Cold moved through me.
“Then what?”
“Frighten you.”
“Why?”
“To frighten me.”
I stared.
“It worked?”
Dante looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
The admission changed the room.
I put down my cup.
“Why?”
“Clare.”
“Why does some waitress you met four days ago frighten Dante Caruso?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I keep thinking about you.”
Silence.
No dramatic music.
No thunder.
Just a refrigerator humming and my heartbeat trying to escape my chest.
“That sounds inconvenient.”
“Extremely.”
I smiled despite myself.
He stepped closer.
“Do you think this is funny?”
“A little.”
His hand settled on the counter beside me.
“You have disrupted my concentration.”
“Tragic.”
“I changed three meetings because I wanted to return to your diner.”
“That sounds inefficient.”
“I had Nico find out which coffee shop near my office sold apple pie.”
I blinked.
“Why?”
“To determine whether I suddenly liked apple pie.”
“And?”
“I hate apple pie.”
I laughed.
Dante stared at me as if the sound itself fascinated him.
Then the laughter faded.
We were too close.
His eyes dropped briefly toward my mouth.
Mine did the same.
He leaned closer.
Stopped.
“Tell me no.”
I should have.
Instead I whispered, “Why?”
“Because I’m trying very hard to behave like a better man than I am.”
My hand touched his chest.
His heartbeat was surprisingly fast.
“You’re failing.”
“Completely.”
He kissed me.
Not violently.
Not possessively.
Almost cautiously.
That surprised me most.
The terrifying Dante Caruso kissed like a man afraid I might disappear if he moved too quickly.
When we separated, his forehead rested briefly against mine.
Then his phone rang.
He swore quietly.
I laughed.
“You should answer.”
“I’m considering throwing it out the window.”
“Bulletproof.”
He looked offended.
“You are enjoying this.”
“Very much.”
He answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“Nico found something.”
Twenty minutes later, we entered Dante’s office.
Nico placed photographs across the desk.
My apartment.
My diner.
Me walking to the subway.
Me buying groceries.
My blood chilled.
“How long?”
“Some photographs predate Dante visiting the diner,” Nico said.
I stared at him.
“What?”
Dante picked up one photograph.
The timestamp was six weeks earlier.
Someone had been watching me long before I met him.
“That’s impossible.”
Nico placed another item down.
A photograph of my mother.
Taken years earlier.
Dante’s face became unreadable.
“Where did you get this?”
“From the photographer’s apartment.”
I picked it up.
My mother stood outside St. Vincent’s Medical Center.
A man stood behind her.
Older.
Silver hair.
I recognized him.
“Dr. Warren.”
Dante looked at me.
“Who?”
“He treated Mom.”
Nico exchanged a glance with Dante.
“What?”
Nico slid another photograph across the table.
Dr. Warren was shaking hands with Victor Sanzaro.
My stomach turned.
“This isn’t about Dante,” I whispered.
“No,” Dante said.
“It never was.”
I stared at my mother’s photograph.
Memories returned.
Hospital bills.
Strange calls.
My mother refusing to explain why certain men had visited.
One sentence she had said near the end.
Clare, if anyone ever asks about your father, you know nothing.
At the time, I thought pain medication had confused her.
Now I wasn’t sure.
“My father,” I whispered.
Dante watched me.
“What about him?”
“I never knew him.”
Nico opened a folder.
“We think that may be the reason Sanzaro was watching you.”
Inside was a birth certificate.
My name.
My mother’s name.
And a father’s name I had never seen before.
Michael Moretti.
Dante’s face went completely still.
“You know him.”
He did not answer.
“Dante.”
“Yes.”
“Who was Michael Moretti?”
Dante looked at me with something dangerously close to pity.
“Twenty-five years ago, Michael Moretti controlled most of the docks between Brooklyn and Newark.”
My throat tightened.
“And now?”
“He’s dead.”
“How?”
May you like
Dante hesitated.
“My father killed him.”
