Chapter 2 - SOMEWHERE BETTER
The black car waiting outside the Velvet Lounge had tinted windows and an engine that barely made a sound. Dante opened the rear door and waited.
Elena did not move.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked again.
“To dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then you can watch me eat.”
“That doesn’t make me feel safer.”
For the first time, something like genuine amusement touched his face. “Good. You should be careful around men you don’t know.”
“You’re Dante Vancel. I know enough.”
His smile vanished. “What do you know?”
“That people are afraid of you.”
“People are afraid of what they imagine I can do.” He stepped away from the open door. “You can refuse. The envelope stays with you either way. Your manager already accepted that you were off the clock, and my driver will take you home if you ask.”
Elena glanced at the envelope still visible through the club’s glass doors. Ten thousand dollars could move Toby’s surgery from a desperate hope to a possibility. But money from a man like Dante never arrived without a price.
“Why me?” she asked.
“I’ll explain when we’re somewhere private.”
“That sounds like something a kidnapper would say.”
“Then don’t get in.”
He meant it—or was skilled enough to make her believe he did. Elena thought of Toby in his hospital bed, trying to make her laugh while monitors measured every beat of his fragile heart. She could not afford pride. She also could not afford to be careless.
“I’ll go to dinner,” she said. “One hour. Then your driver takes me home.”
“One hour,” Dante agreed.
She entered the car on her own, leaving enough space between them to make the boundary clear. Dante did not object.
The vehicle slipped into Manhattan traffic. Two security cars followed, their headlights reflected in rain-dark pavement. Elena watched the city move beyond the window, rehearsing the address of the hospital and the emergency number she had memorized. Dante sat opposite her, studying a slim folder instead of her.
“You work every Friday?” he asked.
“Most nights.”
“Always at the Velvet Lounge?”
“For the last eight months.”
“And before that?”
“Restaurants. A grocery store. Whatever paid.”
“Your brother is at NYU Langone.”
Her whole body went still. “How do you know about Toby?”
Dante closed the folder. “Your name appeared on a charity application three weeks ago. A hospital liaison asked one of my foundations whether we could help with pediatric cardiac expenses. The application was incomplete, and the contact number was disconnected.”
“I never applied to your foundation.”
“Someone did on your behalf.”
“Who?”
“That is what I’m trying to find out.”
The car turned beneath a stone archway and entered a discreet courtyard behind a historic townhouse. No sign marked the building. Inside, a private dining room glowed with amber lamps, dark wood, and a single vase of white lilies. A woman in a black suit waited by the door.
“Mr. Vancel,” she said. Then she looked at Elena. “Miss Vance.”
Elena’s suspicion sharpened. “Everybody seems to know me tonight.”
“Not everybody,” Dante said. “Only people who have been looking.”
He ordered tea for Elena and dinner for himself. When the staff withdrew, he placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a young woman with dark wavy hair standing outside a hospital entrance, holding a small boy’s hand. The picture was old and grainy. The woman looked unmistakably like Elena.
But Elena had never seen the photograph.
“That’s my mother,” she whispered.
“Her name was Mara Vance,” Dante said. “She came to me six years ago with a warning. Two days later, she disappeared.”
Elena pushed the photograph away as if it had burned her. “My mother died when I was seventeen.”
“That’s what your family was told.”
“My family? I was there when they buried her.”
“I’m not saying the woman in the ground wasn’t your mother. I’m saying the last time I saw Mara, she was terrified of someone inside my organization. She asked me to protect her children.”
Elena stood so abruptly her chair scraped the floor. “You don’t get to use my mother to make me trust you.”
“I’m not asking you to trust me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Dante looked down at the photograph. For one moment, the controlled man everyone feared seemed exhausted by a regret he had carried too long.
“I’m asking you to tell me whether anyone has contacted you about your brother’s surgery.”
Before Elena could answer, Dante’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and rose.
The woman in the black suit appeared in the doorway, her face pale. “Sir, we have a problem at the hospital.”
Elena’s blood turned cold.
“What happened to Toby?” she demanded.
The woman hesitated.
Dante took the phone from her hand, listened for three seconds, and looked directly at Elena.
“Someone just tried to transfer your brother to another facility,” he said. “The authorization carries your signature.”
May you like
Elena stared at him. She had signed nothing.
And whoever had forged her name knew exactly how to reach the one person she could not afford to lose.
