Chapter 3 - Her Father’s Last Bottle
At 6:03 the next evening, Sophie walked into Dante’s private dining room wearing the only black dress she owned and immediately regretted agreeing to everything.
Twelve bottles waited on the table.
So did Dante.
“You’re late.”
“Three minutes.”
“Late has numbers?”
“Apparently rich people have upgraded clocks.”
His eyes traveled over her dress for half a second before returning to her face.
“You’re not wearing the uniform.”
“You asked for a wine consultant.”
“I did.”
“My pink apron lacks authority.”
Dante pulled out a chair.
Sophie stopped.
“You’re pulling out my chair?”
“Don’t make it historic.”
She sat.
For the next hour, Dante watched her transform.
Sophie tasted without swallowing most samples, made notes, rejected four bottles immediately, identified two suspicious vintages and correctly guessed that one bottle had been stored improperly.
Dante had invited his longtime wine broker, Arthur Bellini, to test her.
Bellini began the evening amused.
He ended it sweating.
“This 1998 Château isn’t authentic,” Sophie said.
Bellini laughed.
“Miss Bennett, I’ve authenticated wine for thirty years.”
“Then you’ve been wrong for at least five minutes.”
Dante hid a smile.
Bellini bristled.
Sophie turned the bottle.
“The sediment is wrong. The cork is too new. And the label was artificially aged.”
Bellini looked at Dante.
“She’s household staff.”
Dante’s expression cooled.
“She asked about the wine.”
Sophie pushed the bottle toward Bellini.
“If I’m wrong, drink it.”
Silence.
Bellini didn’t.
Dante leaned back.
“Interesting.”
By eight, the tasting had become an interrogation.
Three bottles were fraudulent.
Two had falsified provenance.
All five had passed through Bellini Imports.
Bellini stood abruptly.
“I won’t be insulted by a servant.”
Dante’s voice dropped.
“Sit.”
Bellini sat.
Sophie had never seen obedience happen so quickly.
Dante slid the fraudulent bottle toward him.
“You sold me this.”
“I bought through intermediaries.”
“Names.”
“I’ll get them.”
“Tonight.”
Bellini left fifteen minutes later with two Romano security men.
Sophie stared after him.
“What happens now?”
“He gets me names.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Dante met her eyes.
“You don’t want that answer.”
“Probably true.”
She began collecting her notes.
“Wait.”
Dante placed yesterday’s bottle on the table.
Her father’s crest faced her.
Sophie’s hands stopped.
“What?”
Dante showed her the hidden code.
TB-17.
All color left her face.
“No.”
“You recognize it.”
Sophie touched the letters.
“My father marked experimental barrels with his initials.”
“What does seventeen mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Dante sat opposite her.
“Three days before your father died, he contacted my family.”
Sophie looked up.
“He what?”
“He believed someone was laundering money through wine distribution.”
“No.”
“He promised evidence.”
“My father hated organized crime.”
“He had excellent instincts.”
“You expect me to believe he contacted the Romanos?”
“I expect nothing.”
Her chair scraped backward.
“You hired me because of him.”
“No.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Not until yesterday.”
“Convenient.”
“Sophie.”
She stood.
“My father died because he fell asleep driving.”
“The police report said that.”
“Because it happened.”
“The brake line had been cut.”
Everything inside her went silent.
Dante slid a photocopy across the table.
An old forensic report.
Sophie did not touch it.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Why wasn’t this in the investigation?”
“It was removed.”
“By whom?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
Her eyes filled, but she refused to blink.
For seven years she had blamed her father.
For driving tired.
For leaving her.
Sometimes, secretly, for choosing the vineyard over sleep one final time.
Now a stranger was ripping that grief open and telling her someone else had chosen for him.
Sophie grabbed the report.
She read it.
Then again.
Her knees weakened.
Dante stood.
She backed away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Good.
He respected that much.
“Who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who benefited?”
“Several people.”
“Your family?”
His jaw tightened.
“Possibly.”
That answer frightened her more than denial would have.
A crash sounded downstairs.
Dante’s head turned instantly.
Another crash.
Then shouting.
He crossed the room, opened the door and immediately pushed Sophie behind him.
“What happened?”
A guard ran up the stairs.
“Fire in the east garage.”
Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Sophie could hear only fragments.
Bellini.
Car.
Explosion.
Dante ended the call.
“Bellini’s dead.”
Sophie stared.
“You sent men with him.”
“They’re alive. Someone hit his car after he left them.”
“Someone knew he talked to us.”
Dante looked at the burning glow visible through the windows.
Then at Sophie.
Someone had set the garage fire as a distraction.
He suddenly turned toward the dining table.
The TB-17 bottle was gone.
Sophie followed his gaze.
“No.”
Dante rushed into the hall.
A service door slammed downstairs.
He ran.
Sophie followed despite his order to stay behind.
They reached the kitchen.
The back door stood open.
Cold Chicago air rushed inside.
A figure disappeared beyond the garden wall.
Dante’s guards pursued.
Sophie stopped beside the prep table.
Something glittered on the floor.
She bent.
A cuff link.
Silver.
Engraved with a tiny Roman numeral.
III.
Dante saw it.
His face hardened.
“You know whose that is,” Sophie said.
He did not answer.
She grabbed his wrist.
“Dante.”
He looked at her hand.
Then her face.
“Whose?”
Dante slowly picked up the cuff link.
“My cousin’s.”
“Luca?”
“Yes.”
Sophie stepped back.
The man who had smiled at her yesterday.
The man who had known her surname.
Dante called security.
“Find Luca.”
A guard answered through his earpiece.
Then hesitated.
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Say it.”
“Mr. Luca left the property twenty minutes ago.”
“For where?”
“We don’t know.”
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
Sophie looked toward the empty table upstairs.
Her father’s bottle had survived seven years.
Then disappeared within minutes of Dante showing it to her.
That meant somebody was afraid of what it contained.
But Sophie remembered something.
“The wine.”
Dante looked at her.
“What?”
“My father used to say the bottle mattered less than what survived after it was empty.”
She rushed upstairs.
Dante followed.
Sophie grabbed the crystal decanter.
A small amount of yesterday’s wine remained inside.
She held it toward the light.
Something tiny rested at the bottom.
Not sediment.
Metal.
Dante brought a lamp closer.
A miniature waterproof capsule had been concealed inside the original cork and fallen into the decanter when Sophie knocked it across his desk.
Sophie stared.
Her ridiculous accident had done what seven years of searching had not.
She had opened her father’s last secret.
Dante carefully removed the capsule.
Inside was a tiny memory card.
And written on a strip of paper around it were four words.
Sophie recognized her father’s handwriting immediately.
TRUST NO ROMANO MAN.
She slowly raised her eyes to Dante.
He had read it too.
May you like
For the first time since meeting him, Sophie saw something unmistakable on Dante Romano’s face.
Pain.
