Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO DISAPPEARED
Leonardo’s safe house was not a house.
It was the top three floors of a converted warehouse overlooking Boston Harbor, protected by reinforced doors, bullet-resistant glass, and enough surveillance equipment to make Dora wonder whether Leonardo expected an army.
She stood in the enormous kitchen wearing her pink waitress uniform beneath a borrowed coat.
“This is ridiculous.”
Leonardo poured himself water.
“What is?”
“You have a kitchen bigger than Rusty’s.”
“Yes.”
“And you voluntarily eat our pie?”
He drank.
“I never said I had good judgment.”
Dora wanted to laugh.
She didn’t.
“Who is Isabella?”
The glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Go to sleep.”
“That violates condition number two.”
“I didn’t order you.”
“You used the rich-man version.”
Leonardo put down the glass.
Dante entered.
“Boss.”
“Not now.”
“We identified the shooter.”
Leonardo’s expression hardened.
“Who?”
“Victor Salerno.”
Leonardo looked genuinely surprised.
Dante nodded.
“His nephew.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Apparently it does to somebody.”
Dora looked between them.
“Who is Victor Salerno?”
Neither answered.
She threw up her hands.
“Fantastic. Kidnapped by organized crime and nobody gives me the orientation packet.”
“You weren’t kidnapped,” Leonardo said.
“Can I leave?”
“No.”
“Then we’re getting dangerously close on vocabulary.”
Dante almost smiled.
Leonardo noticed.
“Leave.”
Dante disappeared.
Dora crossed her arms.
“Isabella.”
Leonardo walked to the windows.
For nearly a minute, he said nothing.
“My sister.”
That was not what Dora expected.
“She died eight years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was twenty-two.”
His reflection stared back from the black glass.
“She wanted nothing to do with my father’s organization. She was studying architecture. She had an apartment in Cambridge and a boyfriend my father hated.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared.”
Dora frowned.
“You said she died.”
“I assumed she did.”
“You never found her?”
“No body. No ransom. Nothing.”
He turned.
“My father told me the Salernos took her because I refused one of their deals. Three months later, I killed Victor Salerno’s oldest son.”
Dora stared.
Leonardo’s voice remained flat.
“I was twenty-five and stupid enough to believe revenge could repair something.”
“And now Victor’s family is attacking you?”
“That would be the obvious conclusion.”
“But?”
“My father lied as naturally as other men breathed.”
Dora thought of the attacker’s words.
Your father should’ve killed you when he had the chance.
“What if the Salernos didn’t take her?”
Leonardo looked away.
Dora saw the possibility hurt him.
Before either could continue, Dante returned.
This time he did not knock.
“We have a problem.”
Leonardo turned.
“What?”
“Rusty’s.”
Dora’s stomach dropped.
“What about it?”
Dante held up his phone.
The security feed showed orange flames tearing through the diner windows.
Dora stopped breathing.
“No.”
She grabbed Leonardo’s coat from a chair.
He caught her wrist.
“You’re not going there.”
“Let go.”
“It isn’t safe.”
“That place is my job.”
“It’s a building.”
“It is seven years of my life!”
Her voice cracked.
Leonardo released her.
Dora looked again at the screen.
Fire consumed booth 6.
The counter.
The coffee machine.
Everything.
Her eyes filled.
“I hate that place.”
Leonardo said nothing.
“I complained about it every day.”
She wiped her face angrily.
“But it was mine.”
Leonardo looked at Dante.
“Anyone inside?”
“Night cook got out. Fire department says no casualties.”
Dora closed her eyes.
At least that.
Leonardo’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“You keep choosing women who burn beautifully.”
Leonardo’s face changed.
Dora could hear the words from where she stood.
The caller continued.
“First Isabella. Now the waitress.”
The line went dead.
Leonardo remained perfectly still.
Dante whispered, “Boss?”
Leonardo smashed the phone against the wall.
Dora flinched.
He immediately looked at her.
Regret crossed his face.
“Sorry.”
It was such an ordinary word from such an extraordinary man that Dora almost missed its importance.
Leonardo Costas apologized.
Dante apparently found it equally shocking.
Then Dora noticed something on the broken phone.
A message had arrived before the call.
A photograph.
“Leonardo.”
He picked up the damaged device.
The picture showed a young woman standing outside a train station.
Dark hair.
Pale hazel eyes.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Written across the bottom were four words.
SHE NEVER DIED.
Leonardo sat down.
Dora had never seen him sit because his legs could no longer hold him.
“Is that her?”
He stared at the photograph.
“It can’t be.”
But his voice said something different.
Dora crouched beside him.
“When was this taken?”
Dante checked the metadata on his own phone.
Then his expression changed.
“Three days ago.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Eight years of grief cracked open in Leonardo’s face.
Dora reached for his hand before she could think better of it.
He looked down at their joined fingers.
He did not pull away.
“Find her,” Leonardo whispered.
Dante nodded.
“Already working.”
Leonardo’s hand tightened around Dora’s.
Then Dante’s phone rang again.
He listened.
His face drained.
“What?”
Dante looked at Dora.
“Her apartment.”
Dora stood.
“What about my apartment?”
“Someone broke in twenty minutes ago.”
She swallowed.
“Did they steal anything?”
Dante hesitated.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“They left something.”
He turned the phone toward her.
On Dora’s bed sat an old photograph.
It showed a much younger Isabella Costas smiling beside another woman.
Dora stared at the second woman.
Her knees nearly gave out.
Because she knew that face.
May you like
She had spent her entire childhood looking at it.
“That’s my mother.”
