Chapter 7
His name was Salvatore Ricci.
Scarlett had never heard it before.
That alone told her something.
She knew the names of Dante’s legitimate executives.
She knew former associates who occasionally appeared at weddings, funerals, and charity dinners wearing expensive suits and expressions suggesting they remembered a Chicago Scarlett had never seen.
She knew which men Dante trusted.
Which men Marcus tolerated.
Which names made Rosa cross herself.
Salvatore Ricci belonged to none of those categories.
Because Dante had deliberately removed him from his life.
“He worked for my father for thirty-one years,” Dante explained the next morning.
They sat in Dante’s study.
Marcus stood near the window holding a tablet.
Charlotte was at preschool.
Scarlett had canceled her first meeting.
She had not canceled the rest of her day.
That distinction mattered.
“Doing what?” she asked.
Dante looked at Marcus.
Marcus answered.
“Everything nobody wanted documented.”
Scarlett leaned back.
“That sounds healthy.”
“It wasn’t,” Dante said.
“Why did you keep an internal extension for him?”
“I didn’t.”
Marcus turned the tablet.
“When Dante restructured the companies, we retired several old routing systems. Somebody maintained Ricci’s extension as a hidden destination.”
“Could Ricci have done it?”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
Dante shook his head.
“Not alone.”
Scarlett looked between them.
“Meaning?”
“Someone with current access helped him.”
“Why would Ricci care about Rebecca?”
Dante’s expression became complicated.
“My father believed family information was operational information.”
Scarlett stared.
“That is one of the most disturbing sentences you have ever said casually.”
“I am not saying it casually.”
“No, which is worse.”
Dante folded his hands.
“When Michael was born, my father had files created.”
“On your son?”
“On everyone around him.”
Scarlett felt anger rise.
“Children?”
“Yes.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Yes.”
“Teachers?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“And you allowed this?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“For too long.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only honest one.”
Marcus shifted slightly.
Scarlett noticed.
“You knew too.”
Marcus nodded.
“I was twenty-three when I started working for Dante.”
“And?”
“And I thought this was how powerful families stayed alive.”
Scarlett stood.
She walked toward the window.
Outside, gardeners were removing autumn leaves from the lawn.
Normal.
Quiet.
She hated how often Dante’s past arrived beneath normal surfaces.
“What happened to the files?” she asked.
“Destroyed,” Dante said.
“When?”
“After Michael died.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
Dante hesitated.
Scarlett turned.
“All of them?”
“I believed so.”
That was not the answer she wanted.
Marcus placed the tablet down.
“Ricci may have kept copies.”
“Why?”
“Leverage.”
Scarlett laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
Dante stood.
“I will handle it.”
She looked at him.
He stopped.
Three years ago, he would not have noticed what was wrong with that sentence.
Now he did.
“We will decide how to handle it,” he corrected.
Scarlett nodded.
“Better.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Dante ignored him.
They found Ricci that afternoon.
Not because he was hiding.
Because he was not.
He lived in Oak Brook in a five-bedroom house with a landscaped yard and a bronze statue of Saint Michael near the driveway.
Dante refused to go immediately.
That surprised Marcus.
“We know where he is,” Marcus said.
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to talk to him?”
“I want to know why he wants me to.”
Marcus frowned.
Scarlett looked up from her laptop.
They were in her catering office now.
Her office.
Not Dante’s.
That mattered too.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Ricci is not careless. If he kept an old extension active, he knew it could eventually be traced.”
“So this is bait.”
“Possibly.”
“For what?”
Dante looked at the photograph of Michael she had brought from the envelope.
“For attention.”
Marcus leaned against the wall.
“From you?”
“Or from someone else.”
Scarlett closed her laptop.
“Rebecca?”
Dante nodded.
“She contacted me. Ricci intercepted it. Then she forced the information through another route.”
“The photograph.”
“Yes.”
“And now he knows you know.”
“Yes.”
Scarlett stared at Michael’s smiling face.
“Then why not stop the photograph?”
Dante looked at her.
“Exactly.”
Marcus’s expression changed.
“He wanted the first contact blocked but the second one to succeed.”
Dante nodded.
“Which means he wanted control over timing.”
Scarlett felt a chill.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
At four, Rebecca called.
The DNA test had been scheduled for Friday.
Dante agreed.
Then Rebecca hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
Dante put the call on speaker.
“What?”
“Samuel keeps asking who you are.”
Dante’s face softened instantly.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’re Michael’s father.”
A pause.
“He knows Michael is his father?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Pictures. Stories. Emily made recordings before she died.”
Dante closed his eyes.
Scarlett watched him absorb another piece of a life that had continued without him.
Rebecca continued.
“He knows his father died before he was born. He understands it the way a three-year-old understands death.”
Dante swallowed.
“What does he call him?”
“Daddy Michael.”
The room became silent.
Dante looked away.
Rebecca’s voice softened.
“I thought you should know.”
“Thank you.”
“And Dante?”
“Yes?”
“Samuel looks like him.”
Dante stopped breathing.
Scarlett reached for his hand.
“How much?” he asked.
Rebecca laughed quietly.
“Enough that sometimes I hate mornings.”
The call ended.
Dante remained silent.
Marcus moved toward the door.
“I’ll give you two a minute.”
“Marcus.”
He stopped.
Dante looked at him.
“Find out everything Ricci has done since leaving us.”
Marcus nodded.
Then left.
Scarlett waited.
Dante stood near the window.
“Say it,” she said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“That has never stopped you.”
He looked at her.
“I missed everything.”
There it was.
Not anger.
Not suspicion.
The wound underneath.
“I missed Emily’s pregnancy. His birth. His first birthday. First steps. First words.”
“You didn’t choose to.”
“That does not return them.”
“No.”
He looked down.
“Michael missed them too.”
Scarlett stood and walked to him.
“That’s what hurts most, isn’t it?”
Dante nodded.
“My son never held his son.”
She wrapped her arms around him.
Dante did not move at first.
Then he held her.
“I cannot fix that,” he whispered.
“No.”
“I hate things I cannot fix.”
“I know.”
After a while, Scarlett pulled back.
“But you can decide what kind of grandfather you are from the moment Rebecca allows you into Samuel’s life.”
Dante gave her a tired look.
“You are assuming the test confirms it.”
“I’m assuming nothing.”
“You bought dinosaur pajamas yesterday.”
“They were on sale.”
“For a child you have not met.”
“Charlotte likes dinosaurs.”
“They were size four.”
Scarlett folded her arms.
Dante almost smiled.
“You’re impossible.”
“I learned from you.”
That evening, Marcus sent the first report on Ricci.
Salvatore had retired from active business eighteen months before Michael died.
But retirement was not what it appeared.
He continued receiving payments through consulting companies.
Some connected to Dante’s father’s former holdings.
Others untraceable.
Then Marcus found something stranger.
A property.
A warehouse in Cicero.
Purchased through a shell company six months after Michael’s death.
Scarlett stared at the address.
“What is it?”
Dante’s face had gone cold.
“I know that building.”
“How?”
“My father owned it in the nineties.”
“What was it used for?”
“Records.”
Marcus nodded.
“Paper records. Before everything became digital.”
Scarlett understood.
“Files.”
“Yes.”
Dante looked at Marcus.
“Get a warrant.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
Scarlett did too.
“A warrant?” she repeated.
Dante looked mildly irritated.
“I have legitimate attorneys.”
“I know.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I was expecting something more... Moretti.”
“This is Moretti.”
Marcus smiled.
“The reformed edition.”
Dante ignored him.
They contacted federal investigators Dante had worked with during the final dismantling of several criminal operations.
The warehouse was searched the following morning.
What they found inside changed everything.
Not guns.
Not drugs.
Not cash.
Records.
Thousands of pages.
Photographs.
Bank statements.
Medical histories.
Personal relationships.
Leverage collected across decades.
Files on judges.
Contractors.
Police officers.
Business owners.
Politicians.
Union representatives.
And families.
One box contained Michael’s name.
Dante was not permitted to touch it until investigators documented the contents.
He stood behind a yellow evidence line watching agents photograph pieces of his son’s life.
Scarlett stood beside him.
There were pictures of Michael entering Emily’s apartment.
Pictures of Emily visiting an obstetrician.
A copy of the ultrasound appointment.
A receipt from a baby store.
A photograph of Michael looking at cribs.
Dante stared at it.
His son had known.
He had been preparing.
There was more.
A typed memo.
Dante read the first sentence.
Then stopped.
SUBJECT: MICHAEL MORETTI — POTENTIAL HEIR COMPLICATION.
Scarlett felt him go rigid.
“Dante.”
He continued reading.
The document described Emily’s pregnancy as a potential threat to succession planning.
Not emotional.
Not familial.
Operational.
A child could become leverage.
A child could complicate asset structures.
A child could alter loyalties.
Scarlett felt sick.
“Who wrote it?”
Dante looked at the initials at the bottom.
S.R.
Salvatore Ricci.
But another handwritten note crossed the final page.
Do not inform D.M. until resolved.
Scarlett looked at Dante.
“Who wrote that?”
He knew.
She saw it before he answered.
“My father.”
The words barely existed.
Scarlett stared at the handwriting.
Dante’s father had known.
Before Michael died.
Before Samuel was born.
He had known his grandson was expecting a child.
And he had deliberately kept that knowledge from Dante.
“Why?” Scarlett whispered.
Dante did not answer.
Another document provided the reason.
A private memorandum dated five days before Michael’s death.
Michael Moretti has indicated intention to sever financial dependence from the family following birth of child. He intends to relocate with E. Carver. Possible destination: Vermont.
Scarlett’s heart stopped.
Michael had been planning to leave.
Dante read the line twice.
Then a third time.
“He was leaving Chicago.”
Scarlett touched his arm.
“He was building his own life.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“He was going to.”
Dante looked at her.
“Was he?”
Pain sharpened his voice.
“Or was he waiting until he was far enough away that I couldn’t stop him?”
Scarlett said nothing.
Because she did not know.
Neither did he.
And pretending otherwise would be cruel.
An investigator approached.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Dante turned.
“We found another box.”
“What?”
“It’s marked with your name.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
The investigator continued.
“It appears to contain surveillance records.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“For what period?”
The man looked uncomfortable.
“Approximately twenty-two years.”
Scarlett stared.
Dante laughed once.
There was nothing amused in it.
“My father had me followed.”
“Apparently.”
“While I ran his companies.”
“Yes.”
Dante looked back toward Michael’s box.
The architecture of his childhood, adulthood, fatherhood and power suddenly looked different.
He had spent years believing his father trusted him with an empire.
Perhaps trust had never existed.
Perhaps control had simply changed shape.
Scarlett understood before Dante said anything.
“You did to Michael what your father did to you.”
Dante flinched.
Marcus looked toward her.
Scarlett wished she could take the sentence back.
Not because it was false.
Because it was true.
Dante stared at her.
“I did.”
“Not to the same degree.”
“But I did.”
He looked toward the files.
“I watched people around him. I checked his friends. I made calls he never knew about.”
“You thought you were protecting him.”
“So did my father.”
The sentence landed harder than anything Scarlett could say.
Dante walked outside.
She followed.
He stood beside the SUV.
Chicago wind moved through his coat.
“I spent years trying to become different from him.”
“You are different.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because this bothers you.”
He looked at her.
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
Scarlett stepped closer.
“But it’s where change starts.”
Dante looked toward the warehouse.
“What if Michael hated me?”
“He loved you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because he planned to tell you about his child.”
Dante looked at her.
“He could have disappeared.”
Scarlett continued.
“He had money. He had plans. He had a woman he loved. He could have left without saying anything.”
She touched his chest.
“But according to Emily, he was waiting until after your birthday.”
Dante swallowed.
“Why?”
“Maybe because he wanted to give you the chance to handle it better.”
Dante looked away.
“And if I wouldn’t have?”
“Then that would have been your failure.”
Scarlett’s voice softened.
“But you don’t get to rewrite yourself into a monster just because you never got the chance to find out.”
He stood silently.
Then his phone rang.
Rebecca.
Dante answered immediately.
“Hello?”
Scarlett watched his face.
Rebecca spoke.
Dante’s knees almost seemed to weaken.
Scarlett caught his arm.
“What?”
He looked at her.
The expression on his face was unlike anything she had seen.
Not grief.
Not joy.
Both.
“The DNA results.”
Scarlett stopped breathing.
Dante swallowed.
May you like
Then whispered:
“He’s Michael’s son.”
