Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO REFUSED TO BE FOUND
At 8:15 that morning, Dante Russo discovered that money could purchase almost anything except an answer from his wife.
By then, three security teams had been dispatched across Chicago. Private investigators were calling hospitals, airports, train stations, and every property associated with the Moretti family.
Nothing.
Isabella had disappeared with a precision that suggested she had planned her departure long before putting on her wedding dress.
Marco stood in Dante's private office, holding a tablet.
"We found the car."
Dante looked up.
"Where?"
"An underground garage near Union Station. She left it there at twelve forty-three."
"Camera footage?"
"She changed vehicles."
Dante's jaw tightened.
"To what?"
"A rideshare. Cash payment through a prepaid account."
"Find the driver."
"We already did. He dropped her near a twenty-four-hour pharmacy."
"And?"
Marco hesitated.
"She walked away."
Dante stood.
"You're telling me my wife disappeared on foot?"
"I'm telling you she knew exactly what she was doing."
Dante stared at him.
Marco had worked beside him for fifteen years. He was one of the few men alive who could speak honestly without worrying about what might happen afterward.
"She had eleven weeks to prepare," Marco continued. "Maybe longer. She probably arranged everything before the wedding."
Dante glanced at the ultrasound.
Eleven weeks.
Eleven weeks of carrying his child while he discussed wedding arrangements, negotiated territory agreements, and entertained Valentina Greco.
He remembered Isabella asking him three weeks earlier whether he wanted children.
He had been reading a contract.
"Someday," he had answered.
She had looked disappointed.
He had promised they would talk about it after the wedding.
Now he wondered how many times she had tried to tell him.
"Call the hospitals," he ordered.
Marco frowned.
"Why?"
"She might need medical attention."
"She's eleven weeks pregnant, Dante. Not helpless."
"She's my wife."
"Then perhaps you should have remembered that last night."
The silence was immediate.
Dante stepped closer.
"Careful."
Marco did not move.
"With respect, boss, you asked me to find the truth. That's what I'm doing."
Before Dante could answer, his phone vibrated.
Valentina.
He declined the call.
It rang again.
He declined it a second time.
A message appeared.
We need to talk about last night. You can't simply disappear on me.
Dante stared at the screen.
Last night.
He had left his wedding reception because Valentina claimed she had information about a business threat. She had told him a rival family was planning an attack on one of his warehouses.
He had gone to her apartment.
There had been no emergency.
There had been champagne, an expensive bedroom, and a woman who knew precisely how to make him forget his responsibilities.
Now he wondered whether the supposed warning had ever existed.
"Marco."
"Yes?"
"Find out who told Valentina about that warehouse threat."
Marco nodded.
Then Dante noticed something on the tablet.
A photograph from the estate's security cameras.
Isabella stood near the ballroom entrance at 11:58 p.m., wearing her wedding dress. She held her phone against her ear.
Her expression was not angry.
It was frightened.
Dante zoomed in.
A man stood several feet behind her.
Not one of his guards.
Not a wedding guest.
A stranger in a dark suit.
"Who is that?"
Marco studied the image.
"I don't recognize him."
"Get me his face."
"We're working on it."
Dante took the tablet.
The stranger was looking directly at Isabella.
And she appeared to be listening to something he was saying.
For the first time that morning, Dante considered a possibility beyond his own betrayal.
Perhaps Isabella hadn't simply left because of Valentina.
Perhaps something else had happened before she walked out of the hotel.
"Find the original footage," he ordered.
Marco left immediately.
An hour later, Dante received a call from Isabella's father.
Richard Moretti had never liked him. Their families had negotiated the marriage as though they were signing a merger agreement, and Richard had always believed Dante was too dangerous for his daughter.
"Where is Isabella?" Richard demanded.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking."
"You have some nerve calling yourself her husband."
Dante gripped the phone.
"She left last night."
"I know."
"You know where she went?"
"I know where she doesn't want to be."
"Richard, listen to me. She's pregnant."
A pause.
Then Richard said something that made Dante's blood turn cold.
"Yes. She told me three weeks ago."
Dante's fingers tightened around the phone.
"Three weeks?"
"She wanted to tell you herself."
"Why didn't she?"
"Perhaps you should ask yourself why my daughter needed to make an appointment with her father just to discuss her pregnancy."
Dante closed his eyes.
"Where is she?"
"Safe."
"That isn't an answer."
"It is the only one you're getting."
The call ended.
Dante stood motionless.
Isabella had told her father.
Not him.
Her own father had known about the child for three weeks, while Dante had continued living as though nothing could touch him.
Then Richard sent a photograph.
It showed Isabella sitting in the passenger seat of an old car, her hand resting protectively over her stomach.
The photograph was recent.
She looked exhausted.
But she was alive.
A message followed.
If you come looking for her, Dante, remember that you are not the only man who knows how to protect a family.
Dante stared at the screen.
Before he could respond, Marco rushed into the office.
"Boss, we identified the man from the hotel footage."
"Who?"
Marco placed a printed photograph on the desk.
Dante recognized the face immediately.
It belonged to Gabriel Voss.
A former Moretti security chief.
A man who had supposedly died in a warehouse explosion seven years earlier.
Marco spoke quietly.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Gabriel wasn't following Isabella."
Dante looked at the photograph again.
Marco pointed to the edge of the image.
"He was following you."
May you like
And in the next frame, Gabriel was handing Valentina Greco a small black envelope.
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