Chapter 2 - The Photograph
Emma did not remember agreeing to leave the Bellamy Grand.
One moment she was staring at her mother’s medallion.
The next she was walking through the service corridor beside Dante Romano while snow hammered the alley outside.
She stopped before the exit.
“I want an explanation.”
“You’ll get one.”
“Here.”
“No.”
Emma crossed her arms.
“I am not climbing into some tinted-window kidnapping machine.”
Dante glanced toward the black SUV waiting outside.
“It’s an armored Range Rover.”
“That does not improve the kidnapping part.”
Marco looked away, clearly hiding another smile.
Dante seemed less entertained.
“Someone photographed us in the lobby.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“So?”
“So there are people who have spent fifteen years believing Isabella Carter’s daughter disappeared.”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You changed countries, names, schools, and eventually neighborhoods.”
“My mother remarried. Carter was my stepfather’s name.”
“Exactly.”
Emma stared at him.
Dante opened the door.
“You want answers? Get inside.”
Five minutes later, Manhattan passed beyond bullet-resistant glass.
Emma sat as far from Dante as physically possible.
The Saint Michael medal rested in her palm.
“How did your father know my mother?”
Dante watched the city.
“They grew up together.”
“In Sicily?”
“Yes.”
“My mother never mentioned your family.”
“She had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
Dante was silent.
Emma snapped.
“You drag me out of my workplace and tell me my mother might have been murdered. You don’t get to become mysterious now.”
His eyes moved toward her.
“My father, Vittorio Romano, loved your mother.”
Emma almost laughed.
“My mother was married.”
“Later.”
“To my father.”
“Not the man who raised you.”
That stopped her.
Emma had always known Daniel Carter was her stepfather.
Her biological father, according to Isabella, had died before Emma could remember him.
“Who was my father?”
Dante looked toward the driver.
“Take the bridge.”
Emma noticed.
He had avoided the question.
“Who was he?”
Dante said nothing.
Her fear became anger.
“You know.”
“I know what I was told.”
“Then tell me.”
“Your biological father was named Salvatore Russo.”
Emma searched her memory.
Nothing.
“He worked for my family.”
“What does that mean?”
Dante met her eyes.
“You already know what my family is.”
She did.
She simply did not want him to say it.
Romano.
Organized crime.
Old money built over older violence.
“You’re Mafia.”
Marco turned from the front passenger seat.
“We usually prefer logistics consultants.”
Dante gave him a look.
Marco faced forward again.
Emma stared at Dante.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A criminal.”
“Would any answer make you feel better?”
“No.”
“Then concentrate on what matters.”
Emma looked at the medal.
“My mother.”
Dante nodded.
“Fifteen years ago, Salvatore Russo discovered someone inside our organization was selling information. Names. Locations. Financial records.”
“Your organization.”
“Yes.”
“Criminal records?”
“Some.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“This is insane.”
“Your father tried to expose the traitor.”
“And?”
“He disappeared.”
Emma opened her eyes.
“My mother said he died.”
“He probably did.”
“Probably?”
“No body was recovered.”
The SUV suddenly turned sharply.
Marco looked into the side mirror.
“Dante.”
Dante’s entire posture changed.
“What?”
“Black Tahoe. Two cars back.”
The driver accelerated.
Emma looked behind them.
“What’s happening?”
Dante pulled her down.
“Stay below the window.”
“Why?”
Glass exploded.
Emma screamed.
A bullet had struck the rear side window but failed to penetrate.
The SUV surged through traffic.
Another impact.
Marco drew a handgun.
Emma stared at it.
This was no longer a story about her mother.
This was real.
“Who are they?”
Dante pushed her lower.
“People proving my point.”
The driver made a hard right.
Horn blasts erupted around them.
The Tahoe followed.
Marco lowered the window slightly and aimed.
Dante stopped him.
“Not here. Too many civilians.”
Emma heard that.
It surprised her.
They raced toward an underground garage beneath an office building.
Security gates lifted before them.
The Range Rover shot inside.
The gates dropped.
The pursuing Tahoe continued past.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Emma’s hands shook violently.
Dante noticed.
He took off his overcoat and handed it to her.
She stared at it.
“I’m not cold.”
“You’re trembling.”
“I was just shot at.”
“They shot at the vehicle.”
“That distinction is not comforting.”
For the first time, something human appeared in Dante’s expression.
“Fair.”
The garage elevator carried them underground another level.
When the doors opened, Emma expected concrete.
Instead she saw a private operations floor filled with monitors, offices, security staff, and a wall-sized map of Manhattan.
“This is your house?”
“No.”
“Office?”
“One of them.”
“You have an underground fortress?”
“New York real estate is competitive.”
Emma gave him an incredulous look.
Dante almost smiled.
Then Marco approached with a tablet.
“We got the plate.”
“Who?”
“Registered to a shell tied to Adrian Vale.”
Dante’s face hardened.
Emma recognized the name.
“Vale?”
Both men looked at her.
“Senator Adrian Vale?”
Marco nodded.
Emma frowned.
“He’s staying at the Bellamy.”
Silence.
Dante turned slowly.
“In which room?”
Emma’s pulse jumped.
“The Presidential Residence.”
The room went still.
The suite Dante had demanded.
The private elevator.
The secret meeting.
It had all been connected.
Dante took the tablet.
“Vale wasn’t supposed to know I was arriving.”
Emma remembered the hotel reservation.
“He checked in under an aide’s name.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
Dante stared at the screen.
Emma suddenly understood.
“That’s why you needed the penthouse.”
“I needed access to him without appearing in the public elevators.”
“Why?”
Dante looked at her.
“Because Senator Vale has spent seven years pretending to investigate my family.”
“Pretending?”
“He isn’t trying to destroy us.”
Dante paused.
“He’s trying to inherit what remains after someone else does.”
Emma’s mouth went dry.
“And my mother?”
“We don’t know yet.”
A security technician interrupted.
“Boss.”
He enlarged a surveillance image.
The photograph taken in the Bellamy lobby appeared on the monitor.
Dante beside Emma.
Under it was a message intercepted from an encrypted network.
The technician read it aloud.
“Isabella’s daughter is alive.”
Emma felt the floor disappear beneath her.
A second message appeared.
“Bring her to Vale.”
Dante turned toward her.
His voice was quiet.
“Now you understand why you couldn’t stay at the hotel.”
Emma looked down at her mother’s medal.
For nine years she had believed she was alone.
Now strangers wanted her because of a woman buried nearly a decade ago.
“Why?”
May you like
Dante stared at the photograph.
“That,” he said, “is what your mother died protecting.”
