Chapter 2 - The Photograph
The first bullet hit the rear window before I could ask why Dante had been standing beside my father on the night he died.
The glass did not shatter.
It whitened in a spiderweb circle behind my head.
The driver accelerated.
Dante shoved me down across the seat.
"Stay below the windows."
"You were there."
"Evelyn."
"You were there when my father died."
A second impact struck the trunk.
The car swerved hard enough to throw my shoulder into the door.
Dante caught my arm and pulled me toward the center.
"You can hate me when we are not being shot at."
"I can multitask."
For the first time, something almost like approval flashed in his eyes.
Then the driver cut left through a yellow light.
One of the pursuing cars followed.
The other missed the turn.
Dante pressed a button on the console.
"Route C."
The driver answered without looking back.
"Already on it."
I held the photograph against my chest.
Roman was unmistakable in it.
So was Dante.
My father's silver Mercedes sat crooked near a guardrail.
Rain blurred the road behind them.
Ten minutes after the timestamp, according to the police report I had memorized, my father's car had gone through that guardrail and down a ravine.
I had been told he was alone.
I had been told he lost control in bad weather.
I had been told the impact killed him instantly.
Roman had held me at the funeral while I shook.
Dante had not been there.
At least I had not seen him.
"Why were you with him?"
"Business."
"Do not give me one-word answers."
"Then stop asking questions while someone is trying to put holes through the car."
The sedan plunged into an underground parking structure.
The pursuing headlights followed.
The driver shot down two levels, circled a concrete pillar, then stopped beside a gray SUV with its engine already running.
Dante opened his door.
"Move."
I followed him into the SUV.
A woman in a navy coat sat behind the wheel.
We were moving before my door fully closed.
The first sedan continued down the ramp behind us, apparently chasing the decoy.
The woman drove up instead of down and exited through a service gate.
Within thirty seconds, we were back on the street in a different vehicle.
I realized Dante had expected pursuit.
"Was that Roman?"
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"Roman has enemies who might enjoy blaming him."
"Including you."
"Especially me."
I looked at the photograph again.
Dante sighed.
"Your father asked me to meet him that night."
"Why?"
"He had proof that Roman was moving Moretti assets through shell companies."
"My father was dying anyway."
"Your father had high blood pressure and a bad knee."
Dante's voice sharpened.
"He was not dying."
I felt heat rush to my face.
Roman had said my father's doctors had been worried for months.
Roman had handled the paperwork because I had been twenty and numb with grief.
I had signed things I barely read.
"What happened on the road?"
Dante looked at the driver.
"Mara, take us to the house."
She nodded.
Then he looked back at me.
"Your father confronted Roman."
"And you watched?"
"I arrived after Roman."
"That is not an answer."
"Roman denied taking anything."
"Did my father believe him?"
"No."
Dante paused.
"Neither did I."
I waited.
"They argued."
"About what?"
"About you."
My throat tightened.
"Me?"
"Your father had decided to break the engagement."
I stared at him.
"Roman and I were already married."
"Not then."
The date on the photograph was three months before my wedding.
I had remembered it as the night of the accident because everything after the accident had collapsed into one long blur.
"He wanted me to leave Roman."
"He wanted Roman nowhere near you."
"Why did he never tell me?"
Dante's eyes did not move.
"He planned to the next morning."
The next morning never came.
I looked down at the picture until the faces blurred.
"What happened after the argument?"
Dante's jaw tightened.
"Roman left."
"And you?"
"I stayed."
"Then why was my father driving alone ten minutes later?"
The SUV slowed at a red light.
Dante looked at me.
"Because he told me to go."
"And you went."
"Yes."
"Was he alive when you left?"
"Yes."
"Was he sober?"
"Yes."
"Was the car damaged?"
"No."
"Then why did he crash?"
Dante's answer came quietly.
"That is the question Roman spent four years making sure nobody asked."
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was not Roman.
The number was unknown.
A photograph appeared in a text message.
Vanessa's hand lay against a white marble sink.
The sapphire ring was on her finger.
The skin around it was red and swollen.
Beneath the picture were six words.
PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO REMOVE IT.
I showed Dante.
He took one glance.
"Do not answer."
"She is asking for help."
"She is either terrified or being used."
"Those things are not mutually exclusive."
Another message arrived.
HE SAYS YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE.
Then another.
HE LOCKED THE BALLROOM DOORS.
I sat up.
"There are still guests inside?"
"Roman will let them leave."
"You sound sure."
"Three hundred witnesses are leverage, not hostages."
"That distinction would comfort them."
A third message came from Vanessa.
THE BANKS CALLED HIM.
HE MADE ME PUT THE RING ON.
HE SAYS I HAVE TO KEEP IT ON UNTIL HE FIXES THIS.
I typed before Dante could stop me.
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO REMOVE IT.
Her answer arrived immediately.
THEN WHY DID YOU GIVE IT TO ME?
I stared at the words.
Because I wanted out.
Because I wanted Roman to understand that I would rather hand his symbol to another woman than wear it one more second.
Because I had not known the ring was wired into anything more dangerous than his pride.
I typed slowly.
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT TRIGGERED.
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Then appeared again.
Finally, Vanessa sent one sentence.
YOUR HUSBAND DID.
Before I could respond, a video call request filled the screen.
Dante reached for the phone.
I pulled it away.
"If Roman is there, he will track the background."
"Then do not show him the background."
I answered and held the phone close to my face.
Vanessa appeared under harsh bathroom light.
Her lipstick was gone.
One strap of the red dress hung loose on her shoulder.
Her mascara had smudged beneath one eye.
The polished woman from the ballroom looked suddenly twenty-two.
"Evelyn?"
"I'm here."
She glanced over her shoulder.
"He thinks I betrayed him."
"Did you?"
Her eyes filled, but she did not cry.
"Not the way he thinks."
A pounding sound hit the bathroom door behind her.
Roman's voice came through it.
"Vanessa."
She flinched.
"He took my phone," she whispered.
"Then what are you calling me on?"
Vanessa looked at the screen.
"Yours."
I froze.
"What?"
"The phone from your purse."
I remembered leaving the ballroom without my purse.
Roman had it.
Vanessa had somehow taken it from him.
"Why?"
The pounding came again.
"Because there is something in your purse he is looking for."
"What?"
"A key."
"I don't have a key."
Vanessa shook her head quickly.
"Not a normal key."
She lifted the sapphire ring toward the camera.
"He said your father hid it inside this."
The bathroom door handle jerked.
"Vanessa, listen to me."
"I found something else."
She reached down and held up a folded piece of paper.
I recognized Roman's handwriting.
At the top was my father's name.
Under it was a date.
The date of his death.
"Send me a picture."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
Her face changed.
She was looking past the phone now.
The bathroom door had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
"Vanessa?"
The mirror behind her moved.
Not the reflection.
The actual mirror.
A hidden panel opened behind it.
A man's hand appeared around Vanessa's mouth.
The phone dropped.
For half a second, the camera showed red fabric, marble floor, and a black shoe.
Then the call ended.
I stared at the blank screen.
Dante was already reaching for his own phone.
"Who else has access to that suite?"
"Roman."
"Besides Roman."
I thought of the hotel staff, security, Roman's cousins, his mother, the men who guarded every private room he entered.
Then I remembered one person who had been absent from the ballroom.
A man who never missed one of Roman's public events.
"His brother."
Dante stopped dialing.
"Luca?"
"Luca Castellano."
Dante's expression hardened.
"That is not good."
"Why?"
May you like
"Because Luca was the other man your father named before he died."
