Chapter 7 - Antonio Rossi chose a church for the meeting.
Naya considered that either deeply ironic or perfectly appropriate.
Saint Catherine’s stood between an abandoned textile factory and a neighborhood bakery, its dark stone walls surviving 90 years of crime, redevelopment, political corruption, and men entering through side doors to discuss murder beneath statues of saints.
Dante arrived with Silas.
Naya arrived with Dante.
That had become an argument before breakfast.
“No.”
Dante stood inside the dressing room while Naya buttoned a black jacket.
“You are not going.”
Naya looked at him through the mirror.
“You said Antonio requested the meeting because of the photograph found on his man.”
“Yes.”
“My photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m going.”
“No.”
She turned.
Dante crossed his arms.
His body filled the doorway.
“There may be an ambush.”
“There may be an ambush when I buy bread.”
“That does not make this rational.”
“It makes hiding irrational.”
His jaw tightened.
“You are enjoying this.”
“I’m enjoying watching you discover that marriage involves another person.”
Dante stared at her for several seconds.
Then he exhaled through his nose.
“Bulletproof vehicle.”
“Fine.”
“Silas stays beside you.”
“Fine.”
“You do exactly what I say if shooting begins.”
Naya raised an eyebrow.
“If shooting begins, I promise not to debate parliamentary procedure.”
Dante almost smiled.
Almost.
The expression disappeared before it fully existed.
The journey downtown took 30 minutes.
Naya watched the city through reinforced glass.
People crossed sidewalks carrying coffee.
Cyclists moved between taxis.
A mother pushed a stroller beneath green traffic lights.
Ordinary life continued less than 3 ft beyond a vehicle designed to survive rifle fire.
Naya wondered whether she could ever return to ordinary.
Then realized she did not know whether she wanted to.
Saint Catherine’s side entrance opened at 11:00.
Antonio Rossi waited near the altar.
He was approximately 60, with silver hair and a narrow face that looked carved from old wood.
His younger brother Enzo stood several feet behind him.
Two guards remained near the confessional booths.
Antonio’s eyes moved immediately toward Naya.
Surprise crossed his face.
“You brought your wife.”
Dante removed his gloves.
“She brought herself.”
Antonio’s mouth twitched.
Naya liked him slightly more for that.
They moved into a small chapel beside the main sanctuary.
No weapons were displayed.
Everyone had them anyway.
Antonio placed a manila envelope on the table.
“The dead man was Luca Feretti.”
Dante sat opposite him.
“Your soldier?”
“My nephew.”
The word changed the atmosphere.
Naya looked toward Antonio.
Grief lived beneath his controlled expression.
Dante’s posture shifted.
“I’m sorry.”
Antonio nodded once.
“He was 27.”
The room remained silent.
“He was reckless, arrogant, and convinced every woman in Boston wanted him.”
Antonio looked at the envelope.
“But he was mine.”
Dante understood the language.
Mine did not mean property in that moment.
It meant blood.
Responsibility.
Loss.
Antonio opened the envelope and removed several photographs.
“Nine days ago, Luca came to me and said someone offered him $100,000 to follow Mrs. Russell.”
Naya’s skin tightened.
“Who?”
“He didn’t know.”
Antonio pushed a photo toward her.
A man entering a café.
Mid-40s.
Heavy beard.
Dark cap.
“He called himself Mercer.”
Silas looked sharply at Dante.
Dante became still.
“You know him?” Naya asked.
“No.”
Silas answered instead.
“I know the name.”
Every eye moved toward him.
“Elias Mercer. Former federal investigator.”
Antonio leaned back.
“Former?”
“Dismissed 6 years ago for corruption.”
Silas continued.
“He sold information to organized-crime groups. Then disappeared.”
Dante’s voice became cold.
“Why would a corrupt federal investigator care about Naya?”
Antonio pulled out another photograph.
This one showed Mercer shaking hands with someone near a parking garage.
The second man was older.
Well dressed.
White hair.
Naya recognized him.
Carmine Bellucci.
The Commission elder.
“There it is,” Antonio said.
Dante’s face revealed nothing.
Antonio watched him carefully.
“Luca took the photograph because he became suspicious.”
Naya looked at the image.
“Why didn’t he tell you immediately?”
“Because he wanted the money.”
Antonio’s expression became bitter.
“He believed he could take Bellucci’s payment and then sell me the information.”
Enzo muttered something in Italian.
Antonio ignored him.
“Instead, 2 nights ago, someone called Luca and told him to meet near Pier 9.”
He looked toward Dante.
“They killed him, placed your wife’s photograph in his pocket, and burned your warehouse.”
Dante placed both hands on the table.
“Bellucci wants war.”
Antonio nodded.
“And he almost got one.”
Silence filled the chapel.
Naya studied the photograph again.
Something bothered her.
“If Bellucci wanted Rossi and Russell fighting, why allow Luca to photograph him with Mercer?”
Antonio frowned.
“He didn’t allow it.”
“Bellucci has survived how many years?”
“Forty-five.”
“He doesn’t meet corrupt federal investigators in public parking garages by accident.”
Dante looked toward her.
Naya continued.
“What if the photograph is also part of the story?”
Antonio’s eyes narrowed.
“You think Bellucci wanted Luca to see him.”
“I think men who survive 45 years at the top rarely become careless at exactly the moment somebody needs evidence against them.”
Dante leaned back slowly.
Silas understood.
“Mercer could be framing Bellucci too.”
The possibility changed everything.
Antonio looked at his brother.
Enzo swore softly.
“So we have no enemy.”
“We have too many,” Dante replied.
A church bell sounded above them.
Noon.
The heavy metallic notes moved through the stone building.
Naya looked again at Mercer’s photograph.
His face seemed familiar in an uncomfortable way.
She had never met him.
But something about the eyes—
“Naya?”
Dante noticed her expression.
She moved the photograph closer.
“I know him.”
Everyone became still.
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante’s voice sharpened.
“Think.”
Naya ignored the command hidden inside the word.
She searched memory.
Childhood dinners.
Shipping offices.
Her father’s warehouse.
Men entering and leaving.
Then she saw it.
A Christmas party.
She had been 16.
Her father laughing beside a man with no beard.
The same eyes.
“He worked for my father.”
Silas sat forward.
“What?”
Naya’s pulse accelerated.
“Not officially.”
She stared at the photograph.
“I saw him at our house several times when I was a teenager. My father called him Mr. Ellis.”
Dante’s expression became dangerous.
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
Memory unfolded rapidly.
A man smoking near the swimming pool.
A whispered argument inside her father’s office.
Her mother instructing Naya never to enter when Mr. Ellis visited.
Naya looked at Dante.
“This started before our marriage.”
The meeting ended differently than expected.
Dante and Antonio did not leave as enemies.
They left with a temporary alliance.
Mercer became the target.
Bellucci became an uncertainty.
And Naya’s father became a problem.
Dante did not speak during the drive.
His silence possessed a different texture than usual.
Not punishment.
Calculation.
Naya watched the buildings pass.
“You want to question him.”
Dante looked at her.
“Your father.”
“Yes.”
“You think he sold information.”
“I think he knows Mercer.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Dante looked toward the windshield.
“But if Mercer worked around the ports, your father knew what he was.”
Naya felt something unpleasant open beneath her ribs.
Her father had already sold her once.
She should not have been surprised by the possibility of additional betrayal.
Still, old wounds did not become painless merely because they were familiar.
“I’ll call him.”
Dante turned.
“No.”
Naya’s eyes narrowed.
“He may warn Mercer.”
“He’s my father.”
“That does not make him trustworthy.”
“It also means he may speak to me when he won’t speak to you.”
Dante was silent.
Naya waited.
The old Dante would have ended the conversation.
The new Dante forced himself to consider her argument.
“Speakerphone,” he said.
“Absolutely not.”
“Naya.”
“If he hears you breathing like an angry bull, he’ll shut down.”
Silas looked toward the window to hide his reaction.
Dante noticed.
“Something amusing?”
“No, sir.”
Naya almost smiled.
They returned to the estate shortly after 1:00 p.m.
Naya called her father from the garden.
Dante remained 20 ft away beneath the patio awning.
Far enough to provide privacy.
Close enough to intervene if a telephone somehow became dangerous.
Her father answered on the 4th ring.
“Naya.”
His voice still possessed the self-important warmth he used whenever he wanted to pretend their family remained normal.
“Darling. I was just thinking about you.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Silence.
Naya walked between the newly turned flower beds.
“I need to ask you about someone.”
“What is this about?”
“Elias Mercer.”
The silence changed.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But Naya heard it.
Dante saw her face and immediately straightened.
Her father laughed.
“Never heard of him.”
Naya’s stomach became cold.
“Mr. Ellis.”
Another pause.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You used to bring him to the house.”
“Naya, you were a teenager. I had hundreds of business contacts.”
“You argued with him in your office during Christmas 11 years ago.”
“I don’t remember.”
His voice became defensive.
Too fast.
Naya closed her eyes.
“Dad.”
The word felt strange.
Almost childish.
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am.”
“You sold me to Dante Russell to protect your ports.”
“Naya—”
“Do not pretend this is the moment when honesty becomes too ugly.”
Dante watched from the patio.
Her father exhaled.
“He handled compliance.”
“What kind?”
“Customs. Inspections. Federal problems.”
“Was he an investigator?”
Silence.
Naya stopped walking.
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
The answer came quietly.
Her stomach twisted.
“Did you pay him?”
“Everyone paid him.”
“Did you tell Dante?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it was none of his business.”
Naya laughed once.
The sound was empty.
“The port became his business.”
Her father’s voice hardened.
“I gave Russell access. I did not give him my entire operational history.”
“Mercer is killing people.”
Silence.
“What?”
Naya looked toward Dante.
“He may have murdered a Rossi soldier and burned a warehouse.”
Her father’s breathing changed.
Then he whispered something Naya could barely hear.
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“Naya, listen to me.”
Fear entered his voice.
Real fear.
“Do not say that name again.”
“Why?”
“Because Mercer does not work for families.”
“What does that mean?”
“He works against them.”
Naya’s hand tightened around the phone.
Her father lowered his voice.
“He came to me 12 years ago. Said he could make inspections disappear.”
“You paid him.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
“What happened?”
“I discovered he was copying manifests.”
Dante began moving toward her.
Naya raised one hand, stopping him.
“What manifests?”
“Everything.”
Her father sounded ill.
“Containers. routes. companies. shell accounts.”
“Why?”
“I never found out.”
Naya’s pulse became heavy inside her throat.
“Then why did he disappear?”
“I threatened to expose him.”
“And?”
Her father stopped speaking.
“Dad.”
“He threatened you.”
The world narrowed.
“What?”
“You were 17.”
His voice became weak.
“He sent me photographs of you leaving school.”
Naya stopped breathing.
“He said if I spoke to Internal Affairs, you would disappear.”
Dante was beside her now.
He saw the color leave her face.
“What happened?”
Naya’s voice was barely audible.
“I paid him $2 million and gave him a shipping route.”
“What route?”
“An old South American corridor.”
Her father paused.
“I never saw him again.”
Naya’s hand shook.
Dante took the phone gently.
She allowed it.
He activated the speaker.
“Where are the records?”
Her father inhaled sharply.
“Russell?”
“Where.”
“I destroyed them.”
Dante’s face hardened.
Naya looked at the phone.
Her father continued quickly.
“Most of them.”
“Most?”
“There’s a ledger.”
Dante and Naya looked at each other.
“I kept one book.”
“Where?”
Her father became quiet.
Then he said the last thing Naya expected.
“In Naya’s childhood home.”
She swallowed.
“The lake house?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Behind the bricks in the fireplace.”
Naya remembered that house.
Summer evenings.
Her mother alive.
Swimming until sunset.
A life before debt and contracts.
Her father’s voice broke through the memory.
“I kept it because if Mercer ever returned, I wanted insurance.”
Dante’s expression became hard.
“You had 9 years to use it.”
“I was afraid.”
The confession was pathetic.
Human.
Naya closed her eyes.
Her father had built his entire life around cowardice and called it business.
“We’re going to the lake house,” she said.
Dante looked at her.
“No.”
She stared.
“We need the ledger.”
“I’ll send men.”
“My father hid it. I know the house.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“We do not know whether Mercer knows about it.”
“Exactly.”
“Naya—”
“If he does, your men may not recognize what matters.”
Dante’s frustration became visible.
Then the phone interrupted.
Her father spoke.
“You cannot go.”
Naya looked down.
“Why?”
Silence.
“Because somebody called me yesterday.”
Cold entered her bloodstream.
“Who?”
Her father began breathing heavily.
“He asked whether the fireplace was still red brick.”
Dante grabbed the phone.
“Where are you right now?”
No answer.
“Naya’s father.”
Silence.
Then a sound came through the speaker.
A door opening.
Her father whispered.
“Oh God.”
A man spoke in the background.
Calm.
Close.
“Hello, Andrew.”
Naya froze.
The call ended.
Dante reacted immediately.
“Silas!”
The estate exploded into movement.
Naya stood in the garden holding the dead phone.
Her father had sold her.
Used her.
Failed her.
She had spent months believing she no longer cared whether he lived or died.
But as Dante’s men armed themselves and vehicles roared toward the gate, Naya discovered something humiliating.
May you like
She was still his daughter.
And somebody had just entered his house.
