Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Knew My Father’s Secret
“My mother is dead.”
Nobody answered.
I stared at the guard.
“She died nine years ago.”
The man handed Dante a wallet recovered from the intruder.
Inside was a photograph.
A woman leaving a grocery store.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
My mother.
I sat down because my legs stopped working.
“That’s impossible.”
Dante crouched beside me.
“Emma.”
“No.”
I took the photograph.
My mother had supposedly died in a highway accident in Vermont.
Closed casket.
Marcus had handled most of the arrangements because I had been barely functional after losing Dad two years earlier.
A terrible thought entered my mind.
“Marcus.”
Dante understood.
“You think he knew.”
“He arranged the funeral.”
We questioned the intruder.
His name was Paul Serrano.
He was not an assassin.
He was a private investigator.
The gunshot had come from Dante’s security after Serrano climbed the wall.
He had been carrying an unloaded pistol.
“My client told me to reach Emma Bennett before Vale did,” he said.
“Your client is my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante leaned forward.
Serrano looked at him and reconsidered.
“She contacts me through intermediaries.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard Vale has been searching for her for nine years.”
The story that followed rewrote my childhood.
My father had discovered that Vale was laundering money through redevelopment projects.
Bennett Design had unknowingly prepared architectural documents connected to several properties.
When Dad realized what was happening, he copied records.
He intended to go to federal investigators.
Then he died.
Heart attack.
At least, that was what we had been told.
My mother did not believe it.
“She disappeared to protect you,” Serrano said.
“She let me think she was dead.”
“She thought grief was safer than being hunted.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“No.”
My voice broke.
“You do not call that protection.”
Dante watched me but said nothing.
“She left me with Marcus.”
Serrano looked genuinely sorry.
“She didn’t know what he was.”
Neither had I.
That night, I could not sleep.
At two thirty, I found Dante outside on the terrace.
Boston glowed across the water.
He was alone.
“You knew about my mother?”
“No.”
I believed him.
That was becoming dangerous.
I stood beside him.
“Everyone keeps deciding what truth I can survive.”
He looked at me.
“My father. My mother. Marcus.”
“And me.”
I appreciated that he included himself.
“Yes. You.”
He nodded.
“I won’t again.”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t.”
The answer surprised me.
“Trust should cost more than promises, Emma.”
I studied his face.
“You’re strange for a mobster.”
His mouth twitched.
“I prefer businessman.”
“Of course you do.”
A pause.
“Are you?”
“A businessman?”
“In the mafia.”
He looked toward the harbor.
“My father built an organization that survived through fear. I inherited parts of it I wish I hadn’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
He met my eyes.
“I have done things I am not proud of. I have also spent eight years moving every legitimate company I own away from the criminal structure my father created.”
“Why?”
“Because fear is an expensive inheritance.”
For the first time, I saw something beneath Dante’s control.
Weariness.
Loneliness.
“Then leave.”
“It is not that simple.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“No.”
We stood in silence.
Then he reached into his pocket.
A small velvet box appeared.
I stared.
“What is that?”
His expression changed.
Almost embarrassment.
“I was supposed to give it to Teresa.”
I laughed.
“That explanation somehow makes this worse.”
“It was my mother’s.”
He opened the box.
Inside was a diamond ring.
Old.
Elegant.
Nothing like the flashy engagement ring Marcus had once given me.
Dante lifted it.
“My mother asked Teresa to keep this after she died. Teresa returned it yesterday because she believes I have spent too many years behaving like furniture.”
I laughed again.
“She said that?”
“She used less polite Italian.”
I touched the edge of the box.
“Why are you showing me?”
“Because Marcus made you feel ashamed of an empty finger.”
His expression became serious.
“A bare hand is not evidence that nobody chose you.”
My throat tightened.
“It means you belong to yourself.”
I looked at him.
He closed the box.
No proposal.
No performance.
Just understanding.
And somehow that was more romantic than anything Marcus had done in seven years.
“Dante.”
“Yes?”
I kissed him.
It was not dramatic.
No crashing music existed outside our heads.
My fingers simply touched his jaw.
His eyes widened slightly.
Then his hand settled at my waist.
He kissed me back slowly.
Carefully.
Like he was afraid that wanting too much would frighten me.
When we separated, his forehead rested against mine.
“You’re going to regret that.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m going to want another one.”
I smiled.
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It is becoming one.”
The terrace door opened.
Teresa stood there.
She looked at us.
Then at the tiny distance between our bodies.
“I see nothing,” she announced.
Dante closed his eyes.
I laughed.
For one minute, the world felt normal.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a woman began crying.
My entire body went cold.
“Emma?”
I knew that voice.
Older.
Shakier.
But I knew it.
“Mom?”
A sob.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
I gripped Dante’s arm.
“Where are you?”
“Listen carefully. I don’t have long.”
“Mom—”
“Your father did not die from a heart attack.”
My breath stopped.
“He was murdered.”
A door slammed somewhere on her end.
She whispered urgently.
May you like
“And Dante’s father ordered it.”
The line went dead.
