Chapter 3 - The Debt That Never ExistedLucy did not sleep.
At 3:17 in the morning, she sat in Dante’s library wearing the same gray uniform while 2 armed guards stood outside.
Not guarding her.
Guarding everyone else from reaching her.
Dante entered carrying a folder.
He placed it before her.
“Your debt is fake.”
Lucy stared at him.
“What?”
“There was never a $50,000 loan.”
She opened the folder.
Bank records.
Contracts.
Signatures.
Her father’s signature.
Or something resembling it.
Dante sat opposite her.
“Sanz manufactured the debt 3 weeks after your father died.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You’ve paid him for 4 years.”
Lucy’s face burned.
“Why?”
“That’s what I intend to discover.”
She flipped through the pages.
Her hands shook harder with every sheet.
Four years of fear.
Four years of double shifts.
Four years of living in tiny apartments and skipping meals because a man appeared every Friday to collect money she believed her father owed.
“What did my father have?”
Dante was silent.
“Tell me.”
“A linguistic archive.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means something to Sanz.”
Dante slid another photograph across the table.
Lucy recognized the man beside her father.
Micaia Levanov.
The Russian boss from the recording.
The photograph had been taken 12 years earlier.
Lucy looked up.
“My father knew him?”
“Apparently.”
Dante leaned forward.
“I think your father was translating negotiations for several criminal organizations.”
Lucy laughed bitterly.
“That sounds like him. Brilliant enough to understand everybody. Foolish enough to believe understanding them made him safe.”
Dante studied her.
“You loved him.”
“He was my father.”
“That wasn’t my observation.”
Lucy looked away.
Dante’s phone rang.
He answered in Italian.
Lucy listened.
His accent was good.
His grammar was not.
Despite everything, she said, “Wrong tense.”
Dante stopped speaking.
Slowly, he looked at her.
Lucy covered her mouth.
The man on the other end apparently asked something.
Dante disconnected.
“You corrected me during a security call?”
“You were using the past conditional incorrectly.”
“You have a remarkable survival instinct.”
“So people keep telling me.”
And then Dante laughed.
It was barely a sound.
But Lucy stared.
She had never heard it before.
Neither had the guard who opened the door.
The poor man looked terrified.
Dante’s expression immediately hardened.
“Car downstairs. Ten minutes.”
Lucy stood.
“Where are we going?”
“To meet Levanov.”
“You said tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
She glanced at the clock.
3:42 a.m.
“I’m wearing a maid uniform.”
Dante’s eyes traveled over it.
Something changed in his expression.
“Not anymore.”
Twenty minutes later, Lucy emerged wearing black trousers, a cream blouse, and a borrowed coat.
Dante was waiting.
His gaze lingered for half a second too long.
Lucy noticed.
Neither mentioned it.
The meeting took place in a closed Ukrainian restaurant near the river.
Levanov was enormous, silver-haired, and surprisingly cheerful.
When Lucy entered, his smile vanished.
He stared at her as though he had seen a ghost.
“Anna?”
Lucy stopped.
“My mother’s name was Anna.”
Dante’s head turned.
Levanov whispered something in Russian.
Lucy translated automatically.
“He says I have her eyes.”
Levanov stood.
Then he told Lucy the truth.
Her father had not been a gambler.
Not originally.
Dr. Samuel Warren had been a translator trusted because he refused allegiance to any one organization.
He had recorded negotiations.
Not to blackmail anyone.
To protect himself.
Then he discovered something hidden inside ordinary shipping contracts: a network trafficking vulnerable people through legitimate cargo routes.
Victor Sanz had financed it.
Samuel intended to expose him.
He disappeared 2 days later.
Lucy’s chest tightened.
“My father died in a car accident.”
Levanov’s expression told her everything.
“No,” she whispered.
Dante reached toward her.
Stopped.
Lucy appreciated that he did not touch her without permission.
Levanov continued.
Samuel had hidden copies of his archive.
Nobody knew where.
Sanz believed Lucy did.
That was why he had created the debt.
That was why he had kept her poor.
Watched.
Predictable.
And eventually guided her into the Moretti estate.
“But why here?” Lucy asked.
Dante answered.
“Because he wanted you near me.”
Levanov nodded.
Sanz expected Lucy to unknowingly locate something Samuel had hidden years ago in property once owned by Dante’s father.
Lucy felt sick.
“I was a key.”
“No,” Dante said. “You were bait.”
Gunfire exploded outside.
Dante moved before Lucy understood what was happening.
He pulled her down behind the table.
Glass shattered.
Levanov’s guards returned fire.
Dante covered Lucy with his body.
“Stay down.”
A bullet punched through the wall.
Lucy smelled plaster and gunpowder.
Then she saw something.
A red laser moved across Dante’s back.
“Dante!”
She shoved him.
The shot hit the chair where he had been.
Dante rolled, drew his weapon, and fired once toward the kitchen window.
The laser vanished.
Thirty violent seconds later, silence returned.
Dante looked down.
Blood covered Lucy’s sleeve.
His face changed.
“You’re hit.”
“It’s glass.”
He grabbed her arm.
“Lucy.”
“I’m fine.”
He examined the shallow cut himself.
His hands were unexpectedly gentle.
Levanov watched them.
Then said something in Russian.
Lucy’s cheeks warmed.
Dante narrowed his eyes.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Translate.”
“No.”
“Lucy.”
She glared at Levanov.
The Russian smiled.
“He said,” Lucy muttered, “that you looked less frightened when someone tried to shoot you than when you thought I was hurt.”
Dante became very still.
Levanov laughed.
Back at the estate, Dante personally bandaged Lucy’s arm.
“You have doctors,” she said.
“They’re asleep.”
“You have servants.”
“So were you, until yesterday.”
His fingers secured the bandage.
Lucy looked at him.
“Why do you care?”
Dante raised his eyes.
For once, he had no immediate answer.
Then a guard entered.
“Boss.”
He placed a recovered phone on the desk.
“The shooter had this.”
Dante opened the last message.
His expression hardened.
Lucy read it over his shoulder.
DO NOT KILL THE GIRL.
Below it:
SHE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN OPEN WARREN’S ARCHIVE.
Lucy whispered, “I don’t know where it is.”
Dante looked at her.
Then at the bandage around her arm.
“I believe you.”
The guard hesitated.
“There’s another message.”
Dante scrolled.
Three words appeared.
CHECK HER LOCKET.
Lucy instinctively touched the small silver necklace she had worn since childhood.
Dante stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father.”
Her fingers opened the locket.
Inside was the tiny photograph she had seen a thousand times.
Dante took it gently.
He examined the backing.
Then pressed his thumbnail beneath its edge.
A hidden panel opened.
Something metallic dropped into his palm.
A tiny key.
Lucy stared.
May you like
Her father had left her $50,000 in imaginary debt.
And one very real secret.
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