Chapter 4 - The Man Inside the House
Maya locked Sophia's bedroom door.
Then she called Dante.
He answered on the first ring.
"Maya?"
"Someone's upstairs."
Silence.
Then his voice became terrifyingly calm.
"Lock the door."
"Already did."
"Take Sophia into the bathroom. Lock that too."
Maya heard movement outside.
A shadow passed beneath the bedroom door.
Sophia grabbed her hand.
"Daddy?"
"He's coming."
The doorknob moved.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
Dante spoke through the phone.
"Maya, listen carefully. Security is coming upstairs. Don't open the door unless you hear my voice or Marco Bellini's."
"You're not here."
"I will be."
The call ended.
Less than a minute later came shouting.
Running footsteps.
A crash.
Then silence.
Maya held Sophia against her chest.
Finally—
"Maya."
Dante.
She opened the door.
He stood there breathing hard, rain on his coat.
Two guards were behind him.
"Where is he?"
"Gone," Marco said grimly. "Service staircase."
Dante's expression promised somebody would pay for that failure.
Sophia ran into his arms.
"Daddy!"
He caught her.
That one word nearly broke him.
For several seconds, Dante simply held his daughter.
Then Sophia whispered, "Uncle Carlo."
Dante became motionless.
Marco's face changed.
Maya noticed.
"Who's Carlo?"
"My cousin," Dante said.
The betrayal was worse than an outside enemy.
Carlo Russo had been inside Dante's organization since they were boys. He controlled several legitimate businesses and had unrestricted access to the house.
He also knew every security protocol.
By sunrise, they discovered he'd vanished.
His apartment was empty.
His accounts had been drained.
Dante wanted Maya and Sophia moved to another property.
Maya refused to let Sophia hear the argument.
They stood inside Dante's study.
"You can't keep ordering me around."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"Then tell me why Carlo knew my name."
Dante hesitated.
That was enough.
"You know something."
"I know Carlo investigated you."
"When?"
"Two days after you met Sophia."
"Why?"
"Because I asked him to."
Maya stared.
"You investigated me?"
"I investigate anyone near my daughter."
"You could have asked me."
"People lie."
"And background checks don't?"
Dante looked genuinely ashamed.
"I was wrong."
That surprised her enough to extinguish some of her anger.
"What did he find?"
"Your work history. Your apartment. Your mother died when you were nineteen. Your father died four years later. Culinary school for eighteen months before money ran out."
Maya's chest tightened.
"And?"
Dante opened a drawer.
He removed an old photograph.
Maya stared at it.
Her father stood outside a bakery she'd barely remembered from childhood.
Beside him was a younger Tony Martinelli.
And beside Tony—
Dante's father.
"What is this?"
"Your father knew mine."
"No."
"His name was Daniel Carter."
"I know my father's name."
"He wasn't only a baker."
Dante slid another document across the desk.
Twenty-two years earlier, Daniel Carter had worked as an accountant for several Russo-owned businesses while running his bakery.
Then he'd abruptly quit.
Dante's father had allowed him to walk away.
That almost never happened.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Maya picked up the photograph.
Her father's smile suddenly felt like evidence from someone else's life.
"My father hated organized crime."
"Maybe that's why he left."
"Then why keep this?"
Dante's gaze lowered.
"Because my father trusted him."
Maya looked at him.
"How much?"
"Enough to give him something important."
Dante produced a small brass key.
"This was found in Elena's car."
Maya recognized it immediately.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
"What?"
"My father had one exactly like it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I have the other one."
She rushed home.
Dante followed despite her protests.
In her tiny Queens apartment, Maya dragged an old wooden recipe box from the back of her closet.
Inside were her father's handwritten recipes.
At the bottom lay a brass key.
Identical.
Dante stared.
Maya felt suddenly cold.
"My father gave me this when I was sixteen. He said it opened something I'd need when the right person came looking."
Dante lifted his eyes.
"Did he say who?"
"No."
She swallowed.
"He said I'd know because he'd have the matching key."
Neither spoke.
Then Maya remembered something else.
She pulled out her father's oldest recipe notebook.
The last page contained no recipe.
Only an address.
Dante read it.
"Grand Central."
"There's a number underneath."
"Three-seventeen."
A station locker.
They reached it before noon.
Two keys were required.
Maya inserted hers.
Dante inserted his.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
A flash drive.
And a photograph.
Maya picked up the picture.
It showed Dante's father standing beside Daniel Carter.
Between them was a woman.
Elena.
Except the photograph had been taken twenty years ago.
Maya looked at Dante.
"That's impossible."
Dante stared at the woman's face.
"No."
His voice was hollow.
"That's Elena's mother."
He turned the photograph over.
May you like
Three words had been handwritten on the back.
If I disappear, Carlo.
