Chapter 3 - The Key Michael Died Protecting
Dante smiled back at Julian.
It was the smile he used when he wanted a man to believe he was safe.
“Nothing important.”
Emma looked at him.
Dante gave her the smallest shake of his head.
She understood.
Julian entered.
“Marco said you were looking into a security issue.”
“Was I?”
“He mentioned the service entrance.”
Interesting.
Dante had specifically told Marco to keep quiet.
Either Marco had betrayed him within twelve hours, or Julian had surveillance deep enough to notice the investigation himself.
“Lily saw somebody outside,” Dante said casually.
“A child?”
“She has an imagination.”
Julian glanced at Emma.
“Kids usually do.”
Emma lowered her eyes.
Dante changed the subject.
“Meeting downstairs in twenty minutes.”
Julian nodded and left.
Only after the door shut did Emma breathe again.
Dante waited.
“Now,” he said, “tell me why you’re afraid of him.”
Emma stared at the doorway.
“I don’t know if I am.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m trying not to get my daughter killed.”
The words struck harder than Dante expected.
He lowered his voice.
“Then stop protecting the people threatening her.”
Emma pressed both palms against the counter.
“Michael said there were people inside the Valenti organization who were stealing from your father. Not small amounts. Millions.”
“My father is dead.”
“Michael said the theft continued after you took control.”
Dante felt cold.
“Who?”
“He never told me.”
“But he gave you a key.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“In Lily’s rabbit.”
Dante stared at her.
Emma almost smiled through her fear.
“Michael sewed it inside before he died. He said nobody searches a child’s toy.”
Dante thought of the battered rabbit Lily carried everywhere.
“Bring it to me.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“If I give you that key and you’re wrong about who you trust, Lily and I become disposable.”
“You already are to whoever is threatening you.”
She flinched.
Dante regretted the harshness but not the truth.
“I can protect you.”
“Michael believed powerful men could protect him too.”
“And?”
“He died.”
That silenced him.
Dante had spent most of his life believing power solved fear.
Emma was reminding him that power also attracted it.
“Give me twenty-four hours,” he said.
“For what?”
“To prove you can trust me.”
That afternoon, Dante changed nothing publicly.
He attended meetings.
Approved contracts.
Ate lunch with two attorneys.
Argued over a construction project.
At six, he dismissed most of his staff.
At seven, Marco entered the library.
Dante locked the door.
“You told Julian.”
Marco looked genuinely confused.
“Told him what?”
“The service entrance.”
“I didn’t.”
Dante watched him carefully.
Marco had worked for him eight years.
If he was lying, he was excellent.
Dante removed the hidden camera from his drawer.
“Trace it.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“It feeds into a private network.”
“Where?”
Marco hesitated.
“Inside this building.”
“Whose terminal?”
“I need more time.”
“You have until midnight.”
Marco left.
At 8:40, Lily appeared wearing dinosaur pajamas.
She climbed onto the chair opposite Dante.
“Mommy says I bother you.”
“You do.”
Her face fell.
Dante added, “I’m beginning to tolerate it.”
She considered that.
“Okay.”
He almost smiled.
Her rabbit was beneath her arm.
Dante looked at it differently now.
“What happened to his eye?”
“It fell off.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Sir Hops.”
“Of course he does.”
Lily placed the rabbit on his desk.
“He protects me.”
Dante stared at the worn toy.
“Your father gave him to you?”
She nodded.
“Daddy said brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared.”
Dante looked at her.
“What does it mean?”
“You do the thing anyway.”
For a five-year-old, she had an irritating talent for saying things grown men avoided understanding.
“Your father sounds smart.”
“He’s in heaven.”
“I know.”
“Do you have a daddy?”
“I did.”
“Is he in heaven too?”
Dante looked toward the Manhattan lights.
“I’m not sure heaven would take him.”
Lily giggled.
Then she leaned forward.
“Mr. Dante?”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask something?”
“You usually do without permission.”
“If you get muscles, does your heart get strong too?”
He stared at her.
“Why?”
“Mommy cries when she thinks I’m sleeping.”
Dante had no answer.
Lily hopped down and disappeared.
At 11:16, Marco called.
“Come to security room three.”
Dante arrived alone.
Marco had dismantled the camera.
“I traced the signal.”
“To Julian?”
“Not exactly.”
Marco turned a monitor.
A map of the building’s internal network appeared.
“The camera transmits to a terminal registered to Julian’s security office, but there’s a second outgoing relay.”
“Where?”
“An external server.”
“Owned by?”
Marco clicked.
Victor Sloane Security Consulting.
Dante stared.
Julian and Victor were connected.
“How long?”
“I checked archived network logs.”
Marco swallowed.
“Five years.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Why didn’t we know?”
“Someone with administrator access buried the traffic.”
Only two people had that access.
Marco.
And Julian.
Dante looked at him.
Marco understood immediately.
“You think it was me.”
“I think believing people without proof is how men get buried.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“Fair.”
“Leave.”
When Dante returned upstairs, the penthouse was quiet.
He found Emma waiting outside his library.
She held Lily’s rabbit.
“I changed my mind.”
Dante unlocked the door.
Inside, Emma took a tiny sewing kit from her pocket and cut three stitches beneath the rabbit’s left arm.
Her fingers disappeared into the stuffing.
She removed a brass key.
A number was engraved on it.
Dante recognized the logo beneath the number.
Grand Central Terminal.
A private storage facility beneath the station.
Michael Harper had hidden something in locker 417.
Dante took the key.
A sound came from the hallway.
Both turned.
Nothing.
Dante opened the door.
Empty corridor.
But when he returned, Emma was staring at his desk.
At Lily’s drawing.
“Dante.”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He followed her gaze.
The paper had been moved.
Neither of them had touched it.
May you like
And written across the black figure in red ink were four words.
THE CHILD TALKS TOO MUCH.
