Chapter 12 - The Man Outside the SchoolDante changed Sophia’s security overnight.
Sophia hated it by breakfast.
“I don’t need three men.”
“You have two.”
“Mr. Matteo counts like two.”
Matteo, standing beside the kitchen door, looked mildly offended.
Dante buttered toast.
“You’re going to school.”
“With everybody watching me.”
“Correct.”
“That’s embarrassing.”
“You’ll survive.”
Sophia climbed onto her chair.
“Mommy.”
Rosa drank coffee.
“I’m staying out of this.”
“Traitor.”
Dante almost smiled.
Marriage had not made Rosa easier to control.
If anything, the ring seemed to have convinced her that arguing with him was now a constitutional right.
She had refused his first suggestion that Sophia stay home.
“She needs normal,” Rosa said.
“She needs safe.”
“She needs both.”
So they compromised.
Sophia attended school.
Security doubled.
Dante personally drove her the first morning.
Sophia complained for fourteen minutes.
Then she forgot she was angry because a classmate had brought a turtle.
For three days, nothing happened.
On Friday, Rosa began believing the cemetery message might have been intimidation rather than preparation.
Then Sophia’s teacher called.
A man had been seen across the street from the school.
Gray coat.
Silver hair.
Approximately sixty.
He disappeared before security reached him.
Sophia identified him from the window.
“The flower man.”
Dante arrived eleven minutes later.
He walked through the school entrance with Matteo beside him and enough controlled fury in his face that the receptionist stood without realizing she had done it.
Rosa was already there.
She met him in the hallway.
“Sophia is safe.”
“Where?”
“Principal’s office.”
“Did he enter?”
“No.”
“Did he speak to her?”
“No.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
Rosa looked down.
Her hands were trembling.
Dante took them.
For years, his instinct when frightened had been anger.
Rosa had taught him that fear did not become weaker simply because a man dressed it in rage.
He lowered his forehead against hers.
“She’s safe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She is right now.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
That was enough for the next breath.
Inside the principal’s office, Sophia sat eating crackers.
She looked annoyed.
Dante crouched.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I saw him.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
“Did he wave?”
“No.”
“Did he speak?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
Sophia demonstrated.
She placed both hands behind her back.
Then walked slowly across the room.
Dante felt ice move through his chest.
The man had copied his old four-o’clock walk.
“He was making fun of you,” Sophia said.
“No.”
Dante stood.
“He was sending me a message.”
Security footage showed the man clearly enough to produce an image.
Daniel saw it that evening.
His face changed.
“Elias.”
Rosa stared.
“That’s Voss?”
Daniel nodded.
Dante looked at the photograph.
Elias Voss did not resemble the monsters people imagined when they heard words like criminal financier.
He looked like someone’s retired professor.
Silver hair.
Glasses.
Thin face.
Expensive but unremarkable coat.
The sort of man strangers might ask to watch their suitcase at an airport.
Dante remembered meeting him twice when he was young.
His father had called Voss “the accountant.”
Apparently everyone had underestimated what he counted.
“Why show himself?” Marina asked.
“Because he wants Dante frightened,” Daniel said.
Dante shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
“He wants me angry.”
Rosa understood.
“Because angry Dante makes mistakes.”
“Victor learned that from Carmela.”
Dante looked at the image again.
“Voss learned it too.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“What does he want?”
Dante thought about the dead rose.
The chess king.
The school.
“He wants something Victor lost.”
“The empire?”
“No.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Evidence.”
The answer came the following morning.
A package arrived.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph of Carmela.
Not the false photograph from the year before.
This one was real.
She was sitting beside Elias Voss at a restaurant.
The date was three months before her death.
Rosa turned it over.
One sentence.
SHE STOLE SOMETHING FROM ME.
Beneath it:
RETURN IT, OR THE CHILD LEARNS WHAT HER MOTHER NEVER DID.
Rosa went white.
Dante’s voice dropped.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel looked equally confused.
Then Marina whispered:
“Carmela had a second box.”
Dante turned.
“What?”
Marina swallowed.
“She called it insurance.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante stared at her.
“You’re telling me there is more evidence hidden somewhere?”
“I thought Victor’s conviction ended it.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
An elderly voice spoke.
“Good morning, Dante.”
Dante’s entire body became still.
“Voss.”
A soft laugh.
“So you do remember me.”
“If you come near Sophia again—”
“You still threaten before listening.”
Dante glanced at Rosa.
She shook her head.
Do not give him what he wants.
Dante forced himself silent.
Voss continued.
“Carmela took a ledger from me.”
“What ledger?”
“The one she died protecting.”
Dante’s hand tightened.
“I don’t have it.”
“Then find it.”
“And if I don’t?”
Voss paused.
Then said calmly:
“Ask Rosa why Daniel Bennett really chose her four years ago.”
The call ended.
Dante slowly lowered the phone.
Rosa looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked as though someone had opened a grave beneath his feet.
And Rosa knew immediately.
May you like
Whatever Elias Voss meant—
Daniel already knew.
Related Stories
