Seven months after I cut off my hair, bound my chest, and vanished before my forced wedding, Chicago’s most feared crime boss finally looked straight at me 015 - Story01

Dante didn't ask me about the note until midnight.

He had spent the evening arranging for the flash drive to be examined, contacting his legal advisers, and sending two men to keep watch over the Russo estate.

I had spent it sitting on the floor beside the fireplace, holding Michael's photograph.

The penthouse was quiet except for the occasional sound of traffic far below.

A glass of untouched wine stood on the coffee table.

Dante entered carrying two cups of coffee.

"You're going to give yourself a headache staring at that photograph."

"I've had worse."

He handed me a cup and sat beside me on the rug, his back against the sofa.

For a man who owned half the businesses in the building and commanded an organization that terrified experienced criminals, Dante had an unusual willingness to sit on expensive furniture without caring whether he creased his trousers.

I leaned against the sofa.

"Do you ever get tired of being responsible for everything?"

"Every day."

"Then why keep doing it?"

He considered the question.

"Because when I was younger, I watched what happened when nobody took responsibility. My father trusted the wrong people. My uncles fought over territory. Men who had worked together for twenty years began killing each other over money and pride."

He took a sip of coffee.

"By the time I was thirty, I'd learned that power doesn't make people loyal. It merely gives them more expensive reasons to betray you."

"That sounds lonely."

"It can be."

I looked at him.

"Is that why you never married?"

He turned his head.

"Are you proposing?"

I threw a cushion at him.

He caught it with one hand, laughing.

The sound surprised me.

Dante rarely laughed without reservation. Even his smiles seemed carefully controlled, as though he rationed happiness the same way other men rationed ammunition.

Seeing him like this made something inside me ache.

"What about you?" he asked. "Did you ever want to marry?"

"I wanted to fall in love."

"That's not the same thing."

"No. It isn't."

I stared into my coffee.

"When I was younger, I thought love was something you earned by being good. If I worked hard enough, behaved properly, and never embarrassed my father, eventually someone would look at me and decide I was worth choosing."

Dante's expression darkened.

"I chose Marcus because everyone told me he was a good match. My father liked his money. Our friends liked his reputation. The wedding planner liked his budget."

"And you?"

"I liked the idea of finally being allowed to stop trying."

I swallowed.

"I thought if I married him, I could become someone who didn't have to fight for every scrap of approval."

Dante put his cup down.

"Elena, you were never the problem."

I wanted to believe him.

Instead, I looked at Michael's photograph.

"What if I never know whether my brother died because of Marcus?"

"Then we'll know everything else we can."

"And if my father helped cover it up?"

"We'll deal with that when we have evidence."

"You make everything sound so simple."

"No. I make it sound manageable."

He reached for my hand.

"There's a difference."

I looked at our joined fingers.

"Do you regret finding me?"

His expression changed.

"No."

"Even now?"

"Especially now."

"Why?"

"Because you walked into my garage with a false name, a terrible haircut, and the worst poker face I've ever seen."

I gasped.

"My poker face was excellent."

"You nearly fainted when I asked you about your brother."

"I was tired."

"You called a torque wrench a screwdriver."

"I was distracted."

"You threatened to replace Tony's coffee with transmission fluid this morning."

"That was a legitimate threat."

He laughed again.

Then his expression softened.

"I regret that you had to run. I regret that you were frightened enough to believe you had to become someone else to survive. But I don't regret meeting you."

He raised my hand and kissed my knuckles.

"Not for a second."

My throat tightened.

"Dante, I need you to understand something."

"Tell me."

"I'm not going to be the woman who stands behind you at parties and smiles while you decide the future of everyone in the room."

"Good."

"I mean it. I don't want to become another piece of your empire. I don't want to exchange my father's control for yours."

He didn't interrupt.

"I love the way you make me feel safe. I love that you listen when I speak. But I need to know that the person I become beside you is still mine."

Dante was silent for so long that I wondered whether I had finally asked too much.

Then he lifted my hand to his chest.

"Feel that?"

His heart beat steadily beneath my palm.

"Unfortunately, yes."

A faint smile touched his mouth.

"This empire existed before you arrived. It will continue to exist if you decide to leave. But what happens between us is different. I can't build it for you. I can't order you to love me, and I can't protect you from every decision you make."

His gaze held mine.

"I can only promise that I won't punish you for being your own person."

The simplicity of the promise nearly broke me.

I leaned forward and kissed him.

For a heartbeat, he remained perfectly still, as though he wanted to be certain I had chosen this myself.

Then his hand settled against my cheek.

He kissed me slowly, without the desperation that had marked our first kiss in the garage. There was no audience, no armed men, no rival boss bleeding on the concrete.

Only warmth.

Only the quiet realization that I wanted him, not because he was powerful enough to protect me, but because he had begun to understand that protection meant nothing without freedom.

When we separated, I rested my forehead against his.

"That was for the record," I whispered.

"What record?"

"The one proving that you occasionally say something intelligent."

He smiled.

"I'll have my attorney preserve it."

For a little while, the world seemed almost ordinary.

Then his phone vibrated.

Dante glanced at the screen.

Whatever he read erased the warmth from his face.

"What is it?"

He stood and walked toward the windows.

"Rafael has an update."

"About Northstar?"

"Yes."

I got to my feet.

"What did he find?"

Dante turned.

"The flash drive contains partial copies of financial records. Some files are damaged, but enough information remains to establish that Northstar transferred money to several companies connected to Bellamy."

"How much money?"

"Enough to justify a federal investigation."

"And Michael?"

"One of the recovered documents is dated two days before his accident."

My stomach tightened.

"What does it say?"

Dante hesitated.

I hated that hesitation more than any answer he could have given me.

"Tell me."

"The document identifies Michael as an internal source. It lists him as someone who had access to records he wasn't supposed to see."

I sat down.

"He was investigating them."

"Yes."

"Did they know?"

"Someone did."

I pressed my fingers against my temples.

"Then it wasn't an accident."

"We don't know that yet."

"Dante."

"I won't tell you something is certain when it isn't."

I looked up at him.

That was another thing I had begun to understand about Dante Moretti: his honesty could be brutal, but he rarely used comforting lies.

"What else did Rafael find?"

Dante's phone vibrated again.

He read the message.

Then he looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.

Not anger.

Not fear.

Something closer to disbelief.

"Elena, there's a second file."

He handed me the phone.

The screen displayed a scanned page from a corporate registry. Several names appeared beneath the heading for Northstar's beneficial ownership structure.

One of them belonged to Victor Salerno.

Another belonged to a holding company controlled by my father.

The third was a name I recognized from the wedding invitations, the engagement announcement, and the expensive dinners Marcus had hosted for Chicago's business elite.

Arthur Bellamy.

Marcus's father.

I stared at the screen.

"They were all connected."

"Apparently."

"How long?"

"We're still establishing the timeline."

I handed the phone back.

"Victor knew. That's why he was frightened when I mentioned Northstar."

"Possibly."

"And my father—"

"We need to speak with him again."

I shook my head.

"No. Not yet."

Dante studied me.

"Why?"

"Because if he has been lying for four years, he'll lie again if he thinks we know everything."

I took a breath.

"We need to find out what he knows that isn't in these documents."

Dante's expression changed slightly.

Approval, perhaps.

Or recognition.

"Then we do it carefully."

He returned to the table and began making calls.

I watched him for a moment, then picked up Michael's photograph.

On the back, beneath the three names, I noticed a small mark I hadn't seen before.

A series of numbers.

I turned the photograph toward the light.

The numbers were written faintly in pencil.

11-04-19.

A date.

November fourth, 2019.

The day before Michael died.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Dante."

He turned immediately.

I showed him the photograph.

He examined the numbers.

"That could be a date."

"It is."

"How do you know?"

"Because Michael used to mark his notebooks like this. Month, day, year. He always wrote the date of the last entry on the back cover."

I looked at the image of my brother standing beside the black sedan.

"He wanted me to know when he took this photograph."

Dante reached for his phone.

"We need to find out where he was that day."

I shook my head slowly.

"I know where he was."

Dante looked at me.

"Where?"

I swallowed.

"The old Russo workshop."

The workshop had been closed after Michael's death. My father had sold the equipment, terminated the lease, and told me there was nothing left worth preserving.

But Michael had once told me that he had hidden a spare set of keys somewhere only I would find them.

I had forgotten the conversation.

Until now.

"He used to say that if I ever needed to find him, I should look where the machines slept."

Dante stared at me.

"Where is that?"

I looked toward the dark windows.

"An abandoned industrial building on the South Side. My father thought he sold it years ago."

"Do you know who owns it now?"

"No."

Dante picked up his jacket.

"Then we'll find out."