Chapter 5 - The ChoiceThe flight back to Chicago lasted nine hours and thirty-seven minutes.
I counted every one.
Every minute.
Every second.
I knew because staring at the clock gave me something to do besides imagine every terrible possibility waiting at the other end.
Dante sat across from me on the private jet.
He had made thirty-six calls before takeoff.
Federal contacts.
Local police.
His own people.
Lucia’s neighbors.
Hospital administrators.
Every surviving Moretti associate he still trusted.
Nothing.
The security team at our home had been incapacitated without a gunshot.
Drugged food.
Tampered communications.
Professional.
Planned.
Lucia’s house had been found empty.
Marco’s backpack was still near the kitchen door.
Lily’s pink jacket lay on the floor.
No blood.
No signs of a struggle.
Dante repeated that fact several times.
No blood.
As if the absence of blood meant safety.
It didn’t.
It only meant we didn’t know.
I stared out the plane window.
“Evie.”
I didn’t answer.
“Look at me.”
“No.”
He moved from the seat across from me and crouched beside mine.
“Please.”
That word got me.
Dante rarely said please.
I looked at him.
He looked exhausted.
Terrified.
Human.
“I should never have gone.”
My voice broke.
“I left her.”
“You left her with people we trusted.”
“I left her.”
“This is not your fault.”
I laughed once.
Ugly.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn this into something comforting.”
My chest hurt.
“I don’t need comforting. I need my daughter.”
“You’re going to get her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Bellandi wants me.”
“He wants to punish you.”
“Exactly.”
Dante took my hands.
“So Lily has value alive.”
I jerked away.
“Don’t talk about her like she’s leverage.”
His expression tightened.
“I’m trying to tell you he has no reason to hurt her.”
“He’s a man who trafficked children.”
The sentence silenced both of us.
Dante closed his eyes.
For the first time since I had met him, he looked helpless.
“I’m sorry.”
I pressed my palms to my face.
“No.”
I breathed.
“I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“Terrified.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
I lowered my hands.
Dante stared at the floor.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“What?”
“Be afraid.”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“I know how to be angry. I know how to make plans. I know how to hurt people who come after mine.”
He looked at me.
“But this?”
His eyes were red.
“This feels like someone reached inside my chest and took out everything that mattered.”
I slid out of my seat and knelt beside him.
He pulled me against him.
Neither of us said anything.
We just held on.
For five minutes.
Maybe ten.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dante answered immediately.
“Speak.”
Bellandi laughed.
“You always did sound like Alessandro.”
“Where are they?”
“Lucia is quite angry with me.”
“Good.”
“Her son has your mother’s stubbornness.”
“Where is Lily?”
A pause.
Then another voice came over the phone.
“Mommy?”
Everything inside me shattered.
“Lily!”
I grabbed Dante’s wrist, dragging the phone closer.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Her voice trembled.
“Marco is here. Aunt Lucia is mad.”
I laughed and sobbed at the same time.
“That sounds like Aunt Lucia.”
“I want to go home.”
“I know.”
My throat closed.
“I know, sweetheart. Mommy’s coming.”
“Dante too?”
Dante’s face broke.
He leaned toward the phone.
“I’m here, principessa.”
“Can you come get us?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“I promise.”
“Okay.”
Bellandi returned.
“A touching little family.”
Dante stood.
“What do you want?”
“At last.”
“Say it.”
“The evidence Elena hid.”
“We don’t have it.”
“Then find it.”
“You had twenty-two years.”
“And your mother was exceptionally clever.”
Bellandi sounded amused.
“She left clues intended for her son.”
“What clues?”
“You already have one.”
Dante frowned.
I thought about the journals.
The villa.
The photograph.
The key.
“You mean Bellavita.”
“No.”
Bellandi chuckled.
“I mean the thing your mother gave you the night before she died.”
Dante went completely still.
“What?”
“You remember.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
For several seconds, Dante’s face was blank.
Then something changed.
His hand went unconsciously toward his chest.
“There we are,” Bellandi said.
“What did she give you?” I whispered.
Dante looked at me.
“A medal.”
“What medal?”
“My grandfather’s Saint Michael medal.”
Bellandi’s voice sharpened.
“Find what Elena hid. Bring it to me.”
“Where?”
“You’ll receive instructions.”
“And if I don’t?”
The line went quiet.
When Bellandi spoke again, the amusement was gone.
“Then you will learn what your father learned twenty-two years ago.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“What did my father learn?”
“That powerful men can lose everything in one afternoon.”
The call ended.
Dante stared at his phone.
“What does he mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the medal?”
He looked at me.
“Palermo.”
I almost screamed.
“We just left Palermo.”
“My father has it.”
“Why?”
“Because I threw it at him the day I left his house.”
For one irrational second, I wanted to laugh.
Of course.
Of course the one object we needed was with the estranged father Dante had refused to visit.
“Tell the pilot to turn around.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“We’re thirty minutes from Chicago.”
“My daughter—”
“Is in Chicago.”
He took my shoulders.
“We land. We confirm what we can. Then I go back.”
“We go back.”
“No.”
“Dante.”
“I’m not arguing about this.”
“Neither am I.”
His jaw clenched.
I stepped closer.
“You don’t get to send me somewhere safe while my daughter is being held because of your family.”
His expression flashed with pain.
“I know.”
“Then stop trying to protect me by removing me from my own life.”
“I’m trying to protect the woman I love.”
“And I’m trying to protect the man I love from doing something stupid because he thinks he has to carry everything alone.”
Silence.
Then he looked away.
“I hate when you use my own arguments against me.”
“I learned from an expert.”
The plane landed.
Within an hour we were back at the house.
It felt wrong without Lily.
Her crayons were still spread across the kitchen table.
A purple cup sat beside the sink.
One tiny shoe rested near the stairs.
I picked it up.
My hands began shaking again.
Dante came behind me.
“We’ll bring her home.”
I pressed the shoe against my chest.
“You promised her.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t break it.”
“I won’t.”
A voice sounded from the doorway.
“He won’t have to.”
We turned.
Alessandro Moretti stood there.
Dante’s father.
He was taller than I expected.
Older, obviously, but still imposing.
Silver hair.
Dark suit.
A cane he clearly resented needing.
The resemblance between father and son was impossible to miss.
Dante’s entire body stiffened.
“How did you get in?”
Alessandro looked offended.
“I built this house.”
“I changed the codes.”
“You hired Paolo’s nephew.”
He shrugged.
“Paolo owes me money.”
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Of course he does.”
Alessandro’s eyes moved to me.
“So.”
He studied me with unsettling intensity.
“You’re Evelyn.”
“Evie.”
A pause.
Then he nodded.
“Evie.”
His gaze softened slightly.
“You look exhausted.”
“Your granddaughter has been kidnapped.”
Dante looked at me.
Alessandro’s expression changed.
“Good.”
I blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“Not that she was taken.”
He gestured toward me.
“That you answer cruelty with cruelty instead of politeness. Elena would have liked you.”
Dante’s voice turned cold.
“Don’t use her name.”
Alessandro looked at his son.
“Carlo contacted me.”
“When?”
“Four hours ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me you finally went to Bellavita.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew he was alive.”
Alessandro did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Dante crossed the room.
I had never seen him look at anyone with that much fury.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-two years.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Dante laughed once.
Disbelieving.
“My mother died because of him.”
“Yes.”
“And you let him live?”
Alessandro’s face crumpled.
Just slightly.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“I let him live because of you.”
Dante stopped.
“What?”
Alessandro reached inside his coat.
He withdrew an old silver chain.
At the end hung a Saint Michael medal.
He placed it on the table.
“Elena discovered Carlo’s operation. She gathered enough evidence to destroy him and half the men doing business with us.”
He looked at Dante.
“Carlo discovered she had hidden it. The night she died, he called me.”
My stomach tightened.
“He gave me a choice.”
Alessandro’s voice was rough now.
“Elena or my children.”
Dante stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
“He already had men watching you and Lucia.”
Alessandro’s eyes filled with something I had never expected to see there.
Shame.
“I believed I could save all of you.”
His voice dropped.
“I was wrong.”
Dante’s face went pale.
“You chose us.”
“No.”
Alessandro looked at him.
“Elena chose you.”
Silence.
“She knew?”
“She intercepted the call.”
Alessandro closed his eyes.
“She took the car before I could stop her. Told Carlo she had the evidence with her.”
His hand tightened around the cane.
“She didn’t.”
Dante stared at the medal.
“She gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because if you knew, Carlo would know you knew.”
“That makes no sense.”
“You were sixteen!”
Alessandro’s voice thundered.
Then broke.
“You were sixteen, Dante. You wanted to kill every man who looked at you wrong. You would have hunted him. And he would have killed you.”
For the first time, Dante had no response.
Alessandro pushed the medal toward him.
“Your mother’s last words to me were about you and Lucia.”
Dante didn’t move.
“What did she say?”
Alessandro swallowed.
“She said, ‘Make sure they become better than us.’”
Dante shut his eyes.
I took his hand.
His fingers closed around mine.
After a long silence, he picked up the medal.
It looked ordinary.
Silver.
Scratched.
Small.
We examined it beneath a lamp.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the back plate.
“Wait.”
I ran my thumbnail along the edge.
There was a seam.
Dante looked at me.
He took a knife from the drawer and carefully pried it open.
Inside was a tiny rolled strip of paper.
Twenty-two years hidden in a medal.
Dante unfolded it.
Three numbers.
And a word.
37-11-6
ORPHEUS
Alessandro stopped breathing.
“What?”
Dante looked at him.
“You know it.”
His father sank into a chair.
“Yes.”
“What is Orpheus?”
Alessandro stared at the numbers.
Then at us.
“Not what.”
His voice dropped.
“Where.”
May you like
He looked toward the windows as though twenty-two years had just disappeared.
“Orpheus was your mother’s bank.”
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