Chapter 2 - The Man I Was Supposed to Fear
“No.”
The word escaped before common sense could stop it.
Dante Rossi stared at me.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he looked almost amused.
“You think that was a request?”
“You broke into my apartment.”
“To get here before the people who shot up your bar.”
“You were one of them.”
That erased the faint amusement from his face.
“What?”
“I heard you.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That voice. At Vespers. It was yours.”
“No.”
I stood, although my knees were still shaking.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You expect me to believe there are two terrifying Italian men in Manhattan who sound exactly alike?”
“Probably considerably more than two.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I grabbed the ceramic lamp.
Dante looked at it.
Then at me.
“If you hit me with that, you’ll lose the lamp.”
“I’m willing to make sacrifices.”
Something changed in his expression.
Not softness.
Respect, maybe.
He slowly reached into his jacket.
I raised the lamp.
He stopped.
“Phone.”
He removed it with two fingers and placed it on my coffee table.
A security photograph filled the screen.
Four men were entering Vespers through the kitchen.
The timestamp showed 11:43 p.m.
The man leading them had Dante’s build and dark hair.
But when Dante enlarged the photograph, I saw the face.
Different man.
A scar beneath his left eye.
“That’s Viktor Saranov,” Dante said. “He works for Anton Volkov.”
“Who?”
“A man you should never have had a reason to know.”
“Yet apparently he knows me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“That’s what I’m trying to discover.”
I lowered the lamp slightly.
He continued.
“Three nights ago, Volkov met someone at Vespers.”
My mind raced backward.
Wednesday.
Private booth.
A nervous man in a navy suit.
Another man sitting in shadow.
I had served them.
“You remember.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I remember two men.”
“What did you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“Elena.”
“Nothing useful.”
Dante stepped closer.
I lifted the lamp again.
He stopped immediately.
That surprised me.
Men like him, I thought, probably weren’t accustomed to respecting boundaries.
“One of them kept checking his watch,” I said. “The other ordered rye and barely touched it.”
“What else?”
“They argued.”
“About?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
His stare intensified.
I closed my eyes.
Think.
Wednesday night.
Ice dropping into crystal.
Jazz.
The hiss of the espresso machine.
Then one sentence.
My eyes opened.
“Something about Friday.”
Dante went perfectly still.
“What exactly?”
“He said, ‘Rossi won’t survive Friday.’”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“You’re Rossi.”
“Yes.”
“That seems important.”
“Very.”
I slowly put down the lamp.
“Why would they come after me? I didn’t know what it meant.”
“They don’t know that.”
A noise came from the hallway.
Dante’s head turned.
Everything about him changed.
He drew a pistol so smoothly I barely saw the movement.
My pulse exploded.
He put one finger against his lips.
Someone tried my doorknob.
Once.
Twice.
Then came a quiet knock.
“Elena?”
A male voice.
“Police.”
Relief rushed through me.
I stepped forward.
Dante caught my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“They’re police.”
“No police officer knocks at two forty-seven in the morning after quietly testing the handle first.”
The knock came again.
“Ms. Voss?”
Dante pulled me toward the bedroom.
I resisted.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you alive.”
My apartment had no fire escape from the bedroom.
No second exit.
We were trapped.
The front door opened.
My stomach dropped.
“I locked that.”
“They have a key.”
Dante looked around once.
Then his eyes landed on my closet.
“No.”
He opened it.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Inside.”
We squeezed between winter coats and storage boxes.
It was absurdly small.
My back pressed against Dante’s chest.
His arm circled my waist to keep me still.
I could feel his heartbeat.
Slow.
Mine was trying to escape my body.
Footsteps entered the bedroom.
Flashlight beams sliced beneath the closet door.
I held my breath.
A drawer opened.
Then another.
Someone whispered, “She was here.”
Another voice answered.
“Find her.”
Not police.
Dante’s mouth moved close to my ear.
“No matter what happens, stay behind me.”
The words were barely audible.
Something about them made my fear change shape.
A shadow stopped outside the closet.
The handle began to turn.
Then sirens erupted downstairs.
Real sirens.
The men cursed and retreated.
Seconds later, the apartment door slammed.
Dante waited.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Then he opened the closet.
I nearly collapsed.
He caught me.
For one strange second, my hands rested against his chest.
“You believe me now?” he asked.
I looked toward my ruined apartment.
Drawers open.
Mattress sliced.
Photographs knocked down.
Someone had searched my home while pretending to be police.
“Yes.”
Dante picked up my coat.
“Good.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere Volkov can’t reach you.”
I stared at him.
“And why should I trust you?”
His expression hardened.
“You shouldn’t.”
That answer frightened me more than a lie would have.
“But if Volkov wants you dead,” Dante continued, “you’re safer with the man he’s trying to kill.”
He opened the door.
I didn’t move.
Dante looked back.
“Elena.”
“What?”
His eyes dropped toward something on the floor.
A photograph.
My parents.
Someone had removed it from its frame.
Across my mother’s face, someone had drawn a red X.
My stomach turned.
Dante picked it up.
For the first time, real anger appeared in his eyes.
“They know about your family.”
I stopped thinking.
Five minutes later, I was inside his black SUV.
May you like
And as Manhattan disappeared behind tinted windows, I realized something worse than being kidnapped by a mafia boss.
I had willingly gone with him.
