Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Erased
“Where?”
The question hung between them.
Emma Caldwell looked toward the closed door.
For the first time since stepping into the private dining room, she appeared genuinely frightened.
“Why do you want to know?”
Dante Romano had spent twenty years watching people lie to him.
He knew the familiar signs.
The nervous smile.
The unnecessary explanation.
The eyes searching for an escape.
Emma displayed none of them.
She simply wanted to know why a powerful stranger was asking about her dead mother.
“Because,” Dante answered, “your mother may have known mine.”
Emma folded her arms.
“That doesn't explain why you need her belongings.”
“No. It doesn't.”
He glanced toward Mateo.
“Give us a moment.”
Mateo hesitated.
“Boss—”
“Outside.”
The security chief left without another word.
Dante waited until the door closed.
“My mother died when I was nine.”
Emma's expression softened.
“I'm sorry.”
“Everyone told me she died from complications of a long illness. For years, I believed that.”
“And now?”
Dante looked toward the dining room.
“Now I remember things I wasn't supposed to remember.”
He had spent most of his childhood in a mansion overlooking Lake Michigan.
The Romano estate was enormous, surrounded by iron gates and guarded by men who rarely smiled.
His father, Salvatore Romano, ruled Chicago's criminal underworld with an authority few dared challenge.
His uncle Vincent handled the family's legitimate businesses.
And his mother, Elena, was the only person who made the mansion feel like a home.
She played piano in the evenings.
She grew rosemary in the greenhouse.
She insisted that the household staff eat at the same table as everyone else whenever Salvatore traveled.
Then she became ill.
Doctors came and went.
Her bedroom remained locked.
And one winter morning, Dante woke to discover she was gone.
Three weeks later, his father announced that the family cook had stolen jewelry and disappeared.
Dante remembered crying for the cook almost as much as he cried for his mother.
Her name had been Rose.
He looked at Emma.
“Did your mother ever work in Lake Forest?”
Emma's face changed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before I was born. She told me she worked for a wealthy family near the lake.”
“Did she tell you why she left?”
Emma looked down.
“She said some houses have too many doors that lock from the outside.”
Dante felt cold.
He remembered one of those doors.
It belonged to his mother's bedroom.
“Where is the storage unit?” he asked again.
Emma hesitated before answering.
“On West Grand Avenue. But I don't have access to it tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm three months behind on the payments.”
Dante reached inside his jacket.
Emma immediately stepped backward.
“Please don't.”
He stopped.
“I was going to offer to pay the balance.”
“I know.”
“Then what's wrong?”
“I don't want to owe you anything.”
For a moment, Dante said nothing.
People owed him money, loyalty, favors, and sometimes their lives.
He could not remember the last time someone had refused a harmless offer.
“You don't have to owe me,” he said.
“That's easy for someone like you to say.”
Someone like you.
He almost smiled.
Instead, he removed his hand from his jacket.
“Then I'll make you a proposal.”
Emma raised an eyebrow.
“I'll pay you for your time. You open the storage unit. We examine anything related to my family. You keep everything that belongs to your mother.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You go back to work.”
She studied him.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Emma considered the offer.
Then she shook her head.
“Tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. I'll meet you there.”
Dante nodded.
“Agreed.”
She moved toward the door.
“Miss Caldwell.”
Emma turned.
“One more question.”
“What?”
“Did your mother ever tell you why she named you Emma?”
The color drained from her face.
“How do you know that matters?”
Dante went still.
Emma swallowed.
“She told me that before I was born, a woman named Elena saved her life.”
Silence filled the room.
“And?”
“She promised that if she ever had a daughter, she'd give her the name Elena wanted for her own little girl.”
Dante gripped the back of a chair.
His mother had been pregnant shortly before she died.
At least, that was what he remembered.
His father had always insisted Dante imagined it.
“What name?” he whispered.
Emma looked confused.
“Emma.”
Outside the room, a glass shattered.
Neither moved.
Then Dante's phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen.
STOP ASKING ABOUT ROSE CALDWELL. YOUR MOTHER WAS NOT THE ONLY WOMAN WHO DIED THAT WINTER.
Dante read it twice.
When he looked up, Emma was staring at his face.
“What happened?”
He turned the screen toward her.
She covered her mouth.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Emma whispered something that made Dante's blood run cold.
“My mother received a message like that three days before she died.”
By midnight, Dante was standing in his private office overlooking the Chicago River.
The skyline glittered beyond the windows.
A glass of untouched whiskey sat on his desk.
Mateo stood opposite him.
“Someone knew you were going to ask questions tonight,” Mateo said.
“Vincent.”
“Possibly.”
“Don't protect him because he's family.”
Mateo's expression hardened.
“I protect you because your father asked me to.”
“My father has been dead eleven years.”
“His last order hasn't expired.”
Dante turned toward the city.
“Find out who paid for Rose Caldwell's medical treatment.”
Mateo frowned.
“Why?”
“Cancer treatment isn't cheap. Emma works two jobs. Her mother had no savings.”
“And you think someone helped?”
“I think someone paid to keep her quiet.”
Mateo nodded.
“I'll look into it.”
He reached the door before Dante spoke again.
“And Mateo?”
“Yes?”
“Have someone watch Emma's apartment.”
“Protection?”
“Nothing else.”
Mateo studied him.
“Understood.”
Across the city, Emma climbed the stairs to her second-floor apartment.
She locked the door behind her.
The apartment was small but warm, filled with mismatched furniture and photographs of her mother.
Emma placed her keys on the kitchen counter.
Then she noticed the envelope.
It lay beneath her door.
There was no stamp.
No address.
Only her name.
She opened it.
Inside was an old photograph.
Two women stood in a garden beside a stone fountain.
One was Rose Caldwell.
The other was Elena Romano.
Both were smiling.
Both appeared pregnant.
Emma turned the photograph over.
Four words had been written in faded blue ink.
THE CHILDREN WERE SWITCHED.
May you like
And beneath them, in her mother's handwriting:
Forgive me, Elena.
