Chapter 14 - The Fire at Saint Gabriel’sThe first bullet came through the office door.
Dante shoved Rosa behind the safe.
Daniel returned fire.
“Back stairs!” he shouted.
Dante grabbed the ledger.
Smoke rolled beneath the door.
Rosa smelled gasoline.
“They’re burning the building.”
“Move.”
The old school became an inferno faster than anyone expected.
Dante kept one hand around Rosa’s wrist as they ran through the corridor.
Flames climbed the wooden stairwell.
Glass shattered.
Daniel kicked open a classroom door.
“Window.”
They were on the second floor.
Rosa looked down.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“Yes.”
“That’s fifteen feet.”
“Approximately.”
“That was not reassurance.”
Daniel threw a desk through the window.
Dante climbed out first, lowered himself from the ledge, then dropped.
He landed hard.
“Rosa.”
She stared down.
“Absolutely not.”
“Jump.”
“I hate you.”
“You can discuss it with me on the ground.”
Behind her, the hallway ceiling collapsed.
Rosa jumped.
Dante caught enough of her weight to keep her from breaking anything.
They both hit the grass.
Daniel followed.
Gunfire erupted.
Falcone security vehicles arrived from the road.
Voss’s men withdrew.
By the time firefighters reached Saint Gabriel’s, half the school was gone.
But the ledger survived.
At the estate, they opened it.
Names.
Payments.
Judges.
Shipping companies.
Police officers.
Politicians.
Businesses.
Some entries were thirty years old.
Dante found Antonio Falcone’s name.
His father had not merely known Elias Voss.
He had helped create the network.
Dante closed the ledger.
Everything he had spent a year dismantling suddenly looked smaller.
Victor had been a branch.
The roots went back a generation.
Rosa found Thomas Voss’s name repeatedly.
Then the entries changed.
Beside Thomas’s name appeared one word.
DEFECTOR.
Six months later:
DECEASED.
Rosa stared.
“He didn’t have a heart attack.”
Daniel said nothing.
“He was killed.”
Dante looked at her.
“Probably.”
Rosa stood.
“I need air.”
This time Dante let her go.
He found her twenty minutes later sitting on the floor of Carmela’s room.
Sophia slept upstairs.
Rosa held Carmela’s photograph.
“She knew everything.”
“Some of it.”
“She knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“She knew Daniel came into my life because of him.”
“Yes.”
Rosa looked at Dante.
“And she still protected me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dante sat beside her.
“Because that was Carmela.”
Rosa leaned against him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then she said:
“I used to hate women like her.”
Dante looked down.
“Wealthy women?”
“Beautiful women who looked like life had never embarrassed them.”
A sad smile touched Rosa’s mouth.
“I thought women like Carmela walked through rooms without ever wondering if people were judging their body or their clothes or whether they belonged there.”
“She wondered.”
Rosa looked at him.
“She once refused to attend a gala because someone photographed her eating a sandwich.”
Rosa laughed.
Dante smiled.
“She was furious for three days.”
“That helps.”
“Good.”
Rosa rested her head against his shoulder.
“I wish I’d met her.”
Dante looked at the photograph.
“I think she would have liked you.”
“Even knowing I married you?”
“Especially then. She would finally have someone else to complain to.”
Rosa laughed again.
Then Dante’s phone vibrated.
Matteo.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
Rosa sat upright.
Dante listened.
Then stood.
“We’re coming.”
“What happened?”
“Daniel.”
Rosa’s heart dropped.
“What about him?”
Dante grabbed his coat.
“He disappeared.”
They found Daniel’s car abandoned two miles from the estate.
Driver’s door open.
Blood on the steering wheel.
Sophia’s drawing lay on the passenger seat.
A stick figure labeled DADDY.
Rosa covered her mouth.
Dante searched the road.
His phone rang.
Voss.
Dante answered.
“Where is he?”
“Alive.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
Dante looked toward Rosa.
Voss continued.
“Your father helped build my world. Rosa’s father tried to destroy it. Carmela stole from it.”
A pause.
“And now you two imagine you can simply walk away.”
Dante’s voice became cold.
“We already did.”
“No, Dante.”
Voss laughed softly.
“You changed your business cards. That is not the same thing.”
“What happens if you get the ledger?”
“Daniel goes home.”
“And if you don’t?”
“You can explain to Sophia why fathers keep disappearing from her life.”
Dante’s face changed.
Rosa heard enough.
She took the phone.
“Elias.”
Silence.
Then:
“Rosa.”
Her stomach twisted.
“You killed my father.”
“I corrected his mistake.”
Dante reached for the phone.
Rosa stepped away.
“You want the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll get it.”
Dante stared at her.
Voss sounded pleased.
“Tomorrow. Midnight.”
“Where?”
“The place where your father learned loyalty.”
The call ended.
Rosa looked at Dante.
“Where is that?”
He already knew.
Falcone Shipping Terminal Number Nine.
The first warehouse Antonio Falcone and Elias Voss had ever owned together.
Dante shook his head.
“You’re not going.”
Rosa looked at him.
“My father died because he tried to stop this.”
“Exactly.”
“Daniel was taken because he tried to protect me.”
“Exactly.”
“And Carmela died because everyone kept deciding she needed to be protected instead of listened to.”
Dante went silent.
Rosa stepped closer.
“You married me, Dante.”
“Yes.”
“Then stand beside me.”
May you like
She placed her hand over the ledger.
“Not in front of me.”
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