Chapter 3 - THE SECRET MARCO FORGOT
Dante read the message twice.
Sienna read it five times.
Then she laughed.
It was the wrong reaction, but fear sometimes came out sideways.
“My father fixed elevators.”
Dante said nothing.
“He worked maintenance his whole life.”
Still nothing.
“He forgets what month it is, Dante. You think he secretly robbed your family?”
“I think someone wants us to believe he did.”
Lucia took the photograph.
The color drained from her face.
Sienna noticed.
“You recognize him.”
Lucia looked up.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Dante turned.
“Mother?”
Lucia sat slowly.
“That photograph was taken outside the old Halsted warehouse.”
Dante’s expression changed.
Sienna caught it.
“What warehouse?”
“My father’s headquarters,” he said. “Before it burned.”
“When?”
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
Sienna’s breath stopped.
She had been born twenty-seven years ago.
Lucia stared at the photograph.
“Marco worked there.”
Sienna shook her head.
“No.”
“He wasn’t Valente,” Lucia said. “Not exactly. He repaired machinery. Electrical systems. Anything that broke.”
“That’s not what you were about to say.”
Lucia remained silent.
Dante stepped closer.
“Mother.”
Lucia finally sighed.
“Marco Moretti saved your father’s life.”
Dante froze.
Sienna did too.
During a failed ambush at the warehouse, Lucia explained, Marco had discovered that men loyal to another family had planted explosives beneath the building. He warned Antonio Valente minutes before detonation.
Antonio escaped.
Marco disappeared afterward.
“Why?”
Lucia looked toward Sienna.
“Because someone accused him of planting the bomb.”
Sienna’s stomach turned.
“My father?”
“He was innocent.”
“How do you know?”
“Antonio knew.”
“Then why didn’t he clear his name?”
Lucia’s eyes became heavy.
“He tried.”
Something about the answer felt unfinished.
Dante noticed too.
But before he could press, Sienna spoke.
“I want to see my father.”
Dante objected immediately.
“Not tonight.”
“Now.”
“Sienna—”
“You just told me my father was involved with your family before I was born. I’m not sleeping until I hear whatever he can remember.”
An hour later, an armored SUV carried them through the snow.
Dante sat beside her.
This time he did not take her phone.
The nursing facility looked even worse beside Dante’s convoy.
Peeling paint.
Flickering hallway lights.
An exhausted nurse handling too many patients.
Sienna felt embarrassed until Dante’s expression changed from judgment to anger.
Not at her.
At the place.
Marco was awake.
He sat near the window wearing a cardigan Sienna had bought him for Christmas.
“Dad.”
He smiled.
For one beautiful second, he knew her immediately.
“There’s my girl.”
Sienna hugged him.
Dante remained by the door.
Marco noticed him.
His smile vanished.
“Antonio?”
Dante went still.
“No, sir.”
Marco stared.
Then terror entered his eyes.
“No.”
He began shaking.
“No, no. Antonio, I told you I didn’t take it.”
Sienna knelt.
“Dad, look at me.”
“They said I took it.”
“What?”
“The book.”
Dante stepped closer.
“What book?”
Marco recoiled.
Sienna glared.
“Back off.”
Dante did.
She took her father’s hands.
“Dad. What book?”
Marco’s breathing slowed.
“A ledger.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“What was in it?”
Marco looked past Sienna.
For a moment, clarity returned.
“Names.”
“What names?”
“Judges. Cops. Aldermen. Men Antonio paid. Men Santoro paid.”
Dante and Lucia’s old story suddenly became something else.
Sienna whispered, “Where is it?”
Marco looked at her.
Then smiled sadly.
“Your mother knew.”
“My mother?”
His fingers tightened around hers.
“She made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“To keep you away from them.”
Sienna felt Dante behind her.
“The Valentes?”
Marco shook his head.
“The man inside the Valentes.”
Silence filled the room.
Dante spoke carefully.
“Who?”
Marco’s eyes moved toward him.
Fear transformed his face.
He lifted one trembling finger and pointed.
Not at Dante.
At someone standing behind him.
Dante spun.
The doorway was empty.
Marco whispered a name.
“Victor.”
Dante stopped breathing.
Sienna looked at him.
“Who is Victor?”
“My uncle.”
Victor Valente was Antonio’s younger brother.
And Dante’s most trusted adviser.
They returned to the estate shortly before dawn.
Dante summoned security.
Victor’s bedroom was empty.
His car was gone.
His phone had been abandoned.
Then a guard discovered the north gate camera had been disabled for eleven minutes.
Victor had left.
Lucia sat in the library, stunned.
“He has been beside us for thirty years.”
Dante stared into the fireplace.
“That’s exactly why nobody looked at him.”
Sienna understood something then.
The Santoros might not be the only enemy.
Someone inside the Valente family had known her father’s past.
Someone had sent the photograph.
Someone wanted Dante suspicious of Marco.
And perhaps suspicious of her.
Sienna walked toward him.
“Dante.”
He turned.
“You need to cancel the engagement.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because if Victor knows what my father knows, he doesn’t need the Santoros to kill me.”
A phone rang.
Not Dante’s.
Sienna’s new phone.
Everyone looked at it.
Only four people had the number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
Static.
Then a man spoke.
“Your father remembered too much.”
Sienna’s blood froze.
She looked at Dante.
The voice continued.
“You have until sunrise to bring Lucia’s emerald ring to Union Station.”
“Why the ring?”
A soft laugh.
“Because it was never Lucia’s.”
The line disconnected.
Sienna slowly looked at the emerald on her finger.
Lucia stood.
For the first time since Sienna met her, the older woman looked truly frightened.
Dante saw it.
“Mother.”
Lucia did not answer.
“Whose ring is it?”
Lucia closed her eyes.
May you like
And whispered:
“Sienna’s mother’s.”
