Chapter 5 - Four Minutes Missing
Dante called the estate.
Nobody answered.
He drove like a man outrunning death.
Rosa sat beside him, repeatedly calling Marina.
Nothing.
Then Sophia’s tablet connected.
Her small face appeared.
“Mommy?”
Rosa nearly collapsed.
“Sophia, where are you?”
“In the big closet.”
“Why?”
“Aunt Marina said hide.”
A crash sounded beyond the tablet.
Dante took the phone.
“Sophia, listen to me.”
She became quiet.
“Remember my walk?”
“Yes.”
“Be very still like me. No talking. No coming out until you hear your mother.”
Sophia whispered, “Okay.”
They reached the estate seventeen minutes later.
Greco’s men had disabled cameras and attempted to seize Sophia.
Marina had hidden her and been wounded protecting her.
She survived.
Greco disappeared.
But his betrayal uncovered something worse.
Four minutes were missing from the original security archive on the night Carmela died.
Four minutes Dante had never known existed.
Matteo finally confessed.
Carmela had survived the initial gunfire.
For four minutes.
She had spoken.
Matteo had been with her.
“What did she say?”
Matteo’s eyes filled.
“She told me not to tell you until Greco was exposed.”
Dante grabbed his brother.
“You let me mourn her for eighteen months while knowing—”
“She was trying to keep you alive!”
Rosa stepped between them.
Dante stopped.
Matteo produced an old phone.
Carmela’s final recording remained on it.
Her voice was weak.
“Dante will blame himself. Don’t let him.”
Dante closed his eyes.
“Greco ordered it. But he isn’t alone.”
Then Carmela coughed.
“The person above him is someone Dante will never suspect.”
The recording ended.
There was no name.
Later, Rosa found Dante alone outside Carmela’s sitting room.
Four o’clock.
He did not walk.
He simply stood.
Rosa joined him.
“I spent eighteen months punishing myself,” he said.
“You loved her.”
“That doesn’t make guilt useful.”
“No.”
Rosa’s shoulder touched his.
“It just makes it heavy.”
Dante looked at her.
Nobody had ever spoken to him like that.
Not with fear.
Not with worship.
Just truth.
He reached for her hand.
Rosa let him.
Then Sophia appeared behind them.
Both hands clasped behind her back.
Dante almost smiled.
She walked between them and grabbed one hand from each.
“Now nobody walks alone.”
For ten seconds, they stood like a strange little family.
Then Dante’s phone rang.
The caller ID showed a number he knew.
He answered.
A distorted voice said:
“You found Greco.”
Pause.
“Now ask yourself who convinced Carmela to take that road in the first place.”
Dante looked across the hallway.
May you like
Marina stood at the far end.
Watching him.
