Chapter 2 - THE DEAD WOMAN’S ACCOUNT
Vincent Rizzo entered the executive floor at 12:17 p.m.
Emily knew because she watched the digital clock above reception change at the precise moment the private elevator doors opened.
12:16.
12:17.
Vincent stepped out smiling.
He was sixty-three, silver-haired, broad-shouldered despite his age, and wore custom Italian suits with the relaxed confidence of a man who had never once checked a price tag.
He carried no visible weapon.
Vincent never needed one.
For nearly forty years, his name had opened doors across Chicago and closed mouths just as efficiently.
He had been Dante’s father’s closest friend.
After Giuseppe Marino died of a stroke, Vincent became Dante’s mentor.
After Clara died, Vincent became something more dangerous.
Indispensable.
Emily sat behind her desk with both hands resting beside her keyboard.
Dante’s instructions had been simple.
Behave normally.
Emily had discovered long ago that behaving normally while armed men quietly locked down forty-two floors of a corporate tower was easier when you had payroll due the following morning.
Vincent approached her desk.
“Emily.”
“Mr. Rizzo.”
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
“You always look tired.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled.
Most people laughed when Vincent smiled.
Emily did not.
“Dante available?”
“He’s in a meeting.”
“With Sal?”
Emily met his gaze.
“One of them is definitely in the meeting.”
Vincent chuckled.
“You have no fear, do you?”
“I have invoices.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s my answer.”
He studied her for several seconds.
Then his gaze dropped toward her phone.
The phone containing the anonymous photograph.
Emily kept her expression neutral.
Vincent looked toward the oak doors.
“Tell him I’m here.”
“He knows.”
Something small changed in Vincent’s face.
Not surprise.
Calculation.
The doors opened.
Dante stood inside.
No gun visible now.
That meant very little.
“Vincent.”
The older man smiled.
“Dante.”
Neither embraced.
Emily noticed.
She also noticed that Vincent’s right hand stayed outside his jacket.
People in Dante Marino’s world communicated as much with their hands as their mouths.
Dante stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Vincent crossed the threshold.
Emily returned her eyes to her monitor.
The doors shut.
She waited six seconds.
Then slipped an earbud into her left ear.
Dante had authorized access to the executive conference audio system six months earlier after becoming irritated that Emily repeatedly interrupted meetings to ask who had agreed to what.
He had forgotten to revoke it.
Emily had not forgotten anything.
Inside the office, Vincent poured himself water.
“Sal stole from you?”
“So it appears.”
“Three million?”
“Yes.”
“Unfortunate.”
“That’s one word.”
“You called me here to discuss what to do with him?”
“No.”
Silence.
Emily stopped typing.
Dante continued.
“I called you because Sal says he took the money to buy information connected to Clara.”
Vincent did not answer immediately.
Emily counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
“What information?”
“A bank account.”
Another pause.
Shorter.
“I wasn’t aware Clara maintained foreign accounts.”
“Neither was I.”
“Sal could be lying.”
“He could.”
“I assume you checked.”
“Emily is checking.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“Your secretary handles Swiss banking now?”
“She handles anything everyone else fails to handle.”
Emily almost smiled.
Then Vincent said something that erased it.
“Be careful with that one.”
Dante’s voice cooled.
“Explain.”
“She sees too much.”
“She sees what I authorize.”
“No secretary should understand your financial architecture.”
“No capo should steal three million dollars either, yet here we are.”
Vincent sighed.
“You’ve changed.”
Dante went silent.
Vincent continued.
“I heard something downstairs.”
Emily’s fingers froze.
“Heard what?”
“A story.”
“What story?”
“That Dante Marino laughed today.”
Silence.
This time, even Emily felt it.
Vincent’s voice became gentler.
“Is it true?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Clara would have liked that.”
Emily stared at the screen.
There was something wrong with the sentence.
Not the words.
The delivery.
Too smooth.
Prepared.
Dante apparently felt it too.
“How did you hear?”
“What?”
“The floor is locked.”
Emily looked toward the doors.
Dante’s voice sharpened.
“No one has left since it happened.”
Vincent answered easily.
“Security chatter.”
“My security uses encrypted internal channels.”
“Dante—”
“So how did you hear?”
Emily’s pulse accelerated.
Vincent stopped speaking.
Three seconds later, Emily’s desk phone lit.
A message from Dante.
TRACE VINCENT’S PHONE.
Emily opened the internal security dashboard.
She had access because Dante believed administrative assistants should be able to locate executives during scheduling emergencies.
Vincent’s registered phone appeared immediately.
Offline.
Emily frowned.
Everyone on the executive floor used company-managed encrypted devices.
Offline meant powered down.
Or replaced.
She searched the guest network.
Thirty-seven devices.
Laptops.
Tablets.
Smartphones.
She sorted by signal strength.
One device was inside Dante’s office.
Unknown manufacturer.
No registered user.
Emily copied the MAC address.
Then she noticed something else.
The device had connected to the network previously.
Twenty-three days earlier.
The exact date Clara’s Swiss account had been accessed.
Emily’s skin prickled.
She opened historical records.
The device had first connected from the executive floor.
Then from Marino Freight.
Then from a Lake Michigan warehouse.
Then—
Evanston.
Emily stopped breathing.
The connection coordinates were less than half a mile from Havenbrook Residential Center.
Owen’s facility.
She stood so quickly her chair rolled backward.
Inside Dante’s office, voices rose.
Not shouting.
Dante never shouted.
Vincent did.
“You’re accusing me because Sal panicked?”
“I haven’t accused you of anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Emily called Havenbrook.
A receptionist answered.
“Havenbrook Residential Center, this is Julia.”
“This is Emily Davies. I need to speak to Dr. Patterson about my brother.”
“Of course. Is everything all right?”
“I need to confirm Owen is there.”
A pause.
“He should be in art therapy.”
“Please confirm.”
“Ms. Davies—”
“Now.”
Something in Emily’s tone changed the receptionist’s mind.
“One moment.”
Emily looked toward Dante’s office.
Vincent’s voice came through the earbud.
“You think I killed Clara?”
Dante did not answer.
Vincent laughed once.
Not humorously.
“My God.”
“You knew she suspected someone.”
“She suspected everyone during that period.”
“She trusted you.”
“And I loved her like family.”
Emily’s phone clicked.
The receptionist returned.
“Ms. Davies?”
“Yes?”
“Owen isn’t in art therapy.”
Emily’s entire body went cold.
“Where is he?”
“We’re checking.”
“Check faster.”
“His nurse says a transport authorization came through forty minutes ago.”
Emily gripped the desk.
“What transport?”
“For an outside psychiatric consultation.”
“I didn’t authorize anything.”
Silence.
“Ms. Davies, the paperwork has your digital signature.”
“I’m standing in downtown Chicago.”
Another voice appeared in the background.
Muffled.
Urgent.
The receptionist returned.
“We’re calling security.”
Emily whispered, “Oh God.”
Dante’s office doors opened.
Vincent walked out.
His expression was calm.
Dante stood behind him.
Vincent adjusted his cuffs.
“Emily.”
She looked at him.
For one second, she considered pretending everything was fine.
Then Vincent glanced at the phone in her hand.
And smiled.
Not warmly.
Knowingly.
Emily understood.
Her brother was not collateral.
He was leverage.
She looked past Vincent.
“Dante.”
Something in her voice made him move instantly.
Vincent reached inside his jacket.
Dante’s guard stepped from the hallway.
Chaos erupted.
Emily dropped behind the desk.
A gunshot cracked through the reception area.
Glass shattered.
Vincent disappeared toward the elevator.
Dante shouted, “Don’t let him leave!”
Two guards chased him.
Emily stayed crouched.
Dante came around the desk.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
He grabbed her shoulders.
“Emily. Look at me.”
“My brother.”
“What happened?”
“They took Owen.”
Dante went completely still.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
She held up the device trace.
“This phone connected near his facility twenty-three days ago.”
Dante stared at the screen.
Then toward the elevators.
His expression became something Emily had never seen before.
Not cold.
Not empty.
Furious.
The elevator indicator dropped.
41.
42.
43.
Vincent was escaping.
Dante reached for his phone.
Emily caught his sleeve.
“If he has Owen—”
“He won’t hurt him.”
“You don’t know that.”
Dante looked down at her hand gripping his jacket.
Then at her face.
For nine years, Dante Marino had built his life around one rule.
Never give anyone something they could use against you.
Now the terror in Emily’s eyes felt like a blade beneath his ribs.
He turned toward his security chief.
“Find Vincent.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Find the vehicle that left Havenbrook.”
“Yes.”
Dante’s voice dropped.
“And nobody touches Rizzo until we know where Owen is.”
Emily looked at him.
He placed his hand over hers.
“We’ll bring your brother home.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
His thumb moved once against her knuckles.
“But I can promise this.”
His eyes hardened.
“Whoever took him just made the worst mistake of their life.”
Emily’s phone buzzed.
Both of them looked down.
A video message.
Unknown number.
She opened it.
Owen sat inside the back seat of a vehicle.
He appeared frightened but physically unharmed.
A man beside him remained outside the frame.
Owen looked directly into the camera.
“Em?”
Emily covered her mouth.
“I’m okay.”
His voice trembled.
“They told me to say that.”
Someone offscreen handed him a card.
Owen read.
“Bring Dante Marino to the old St. Agnes church at seven tonight.”
He looked away from the card.
Then back toward the camera.
“Emily?”
His voice changed.
Urgent.
“The man keeps calling you Margaret.”
The video ended.
Emily stared.
Dante frowned.
“Margaret?”
“My mother’s name was Margaret.”
“Was?”
“She died twelve years ago.”
Dante looked at the frozen image of Owen.
Then at Emily.
“Who knew your mother’s name?”
Emily thought.
The answer should have been dozens of people.
Medical forms.
Employment records.
Tax files.
But then she remembered something.
When she had first been hired, there had been a background interview.
Not with HR.
With one of Dante’s senior executives.
A man who had asked about her family.
Her parents.
Her brother.
Her financial pressure.
A man who had smiled kindly and promised that Marino Corporation took care of loyal employees.
Emily felt the blood leave her face.
“Vincent.”
Dante closed his eyes.
The confirmation hurt more than suspicion.
Vincent Rizzo had not merely betrayed him.
Vincent had chosen Emily because he knew exactly what she could not afford to lose.
When Dante opened his eyes again, the last remnants of the man who had laughed fifteen minutes earlier were gone.
But something else had replaced the emptiness.
Purpose.
“Seven o’clock,” he said.
Emily nodded.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“Emily.”
“Owen is my brother.”
“And Vincent wants me.”
“Then congratulations. We both have appointments.”
Dante almost argued.
Instead, despite everything, the corner of his mouth moved.
Emily glared.
“Do not laugh.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“For the first time in nine years, apparently I’m allowed.”
She should not have smiled.
Not now.
But she did.
Only for a second.
Then Dante’s security chief approached.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found something in the vehicle records.”
He held out a tablet.
“The van that took Owen is registered to a foundation.”
Dante looked at the name.
His face changed.
Clara Marino Memorial Foundation.
Emily stared at him.
The foundation had been inactive for eight years.
Someone had brought it back to life.
May you like
And whoever had done it was using Dante’s dead wife to declare war.
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