Chapter 8 - THE LIE DANTE COULD NOT EXPLAIN
I blamed Dante first.
It was unfair.
I knew it was unfair even while I was doing it.
That did not stop me.
"You had six men in that hotel."
We stood in the safehouse kitchen while rain hit the windows.
"Six."
"And Nolan walked up to the front door."
Dante's expression stayed controlled.
"He triggered an evacuation."
"You should have expected that."
"Yes."
The agreement made me angrier.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Standing there like every mistake is already a line item you've accepted."
His eyes sharpened.
"What would you prefer?"
"Anger."
"An excuse."
"Something human."
Dante looked at me for a long moment.
Then he slammed his palm against the marble counter.
The sound made me jump.
He saw it.
Regret crossed his face immediately.
He stepped back.
"That's why."
My throat tightened.
He looked away.
"Men like me learn early that anger is a weapon even when we don't mean to use it."
The kitchen went quiet.
I understood what he was saying.
Nolan's anger had filled rooms before he ever touched me.
Dante was afraid of becoming that kind of room.
I hated that the realization softened me.
"Voss is alive."
Sofia entered with her phone.
"How do you know?"
"A traffic camera caught the sedan heading south."
"Voss was in the back seat."
"Can we track it?"
"Lost it near Chinatown."
Dante straightened.
"Nolan wants something from him."
"The passport."
"More than that."
I remembered Voss's words.
An offshore account.
"The money."
Dante nodded.
"The four point eight million in your name is only one account."
Sofia handed me a printout.
"Federal analysts reviewed the first files from your father's USB."
"Michael traced at least forty-three million through related companies."
My stomach dropped.
"Forty-three?"
"And that was six years ago."
Dante looked at the rain.
"It could be triple now."
I sat down.
"Nolan dated me for years because of a drive he never found."
"He abused me to make me sign papers."
"He framed me for millions."
"He staged his own murder."
I looked at them.
"And somehow we're still discovering worse things."
Sofia's expression was grim.
"That's usually how organized crime works."
"The violence is what gets remembered."
"The paperwork is what keeps it alive."
Dante's phone rang.
He checked the screen and stepped into the hall.
I watched him go.
Something about the motion bothered me.
"Who is he talking to?"
Sofia glanced toward the door.
"One of his captains."
"Which one?"
"Why?"
"I don't know."
That was the problem.
I was starting to feel when a room held information I had not been given.
Five minutes later, Dante returned.
"I have a lead on Voss."
"Where?"
"A warehouse near the river."
"Let's go."
"No."
I stared at him.
He corrected himself.
"I don't want you there."
"Why?"
"Because if Nolan has Voss, he may be waiting for you."
"He is always waiting for me."
"That's not a reason to walk into it."
"Neither is leaving me here without information."
Dante rubbed his jaw.
"Claire."
"Tell me what you're not saying."
Silence.
Sofia looked between us.
"Dante."
He ignored her.
That confirmed everything.
"What is it?"
Dante walked toward the window.
"The warehouse belongs to a company your father investigated."
"Bellini?"
"No."
I felt the answer before he said it.
"Moretti."
He nodded.
"Which company?"
"Lake Street Imports."
The name punched the air from my lungs.
I knew it.
My father had said it once during the last week of his life.
He had been on the phone in his office.
He thought I was upstairs.
"Lake Street is where the bodies are buried."
At twenty-three, I had assumed he was using an expression.
Now I was not sure.
"My father knew that place."
Dante turned.
"Yes."
"You owned it then?"
"Yes."
"Do you own it now?"
"Technically."
"What does technically mean?"
"It was shut down after Michael died."
"But you kept it."
"Yes."
The suspicion returned.
"Why would Nolan take Voss to your property?"
Dante did not answer.
Sofia did.
"To make anything found there point at Dante."
That made sense.
It also felt incomplete.
"What happened at Lake Street six years ago?"
Dante's expression closed.
"Nothing you need tonight."
I almost smiled because the answer was so spectacularly wrong.
"We're back to this?"
"It's not relevant to Nolan."
"Then tell me."
"No."
The word landed differently this time.
Not as protection.
As concealment.
I picked up my coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Not the warehouse."
"Then where?"
"Somewhere I don't have to ask permission to learn my own history."
Sofia stepped forward.
"Claire, don't leave angry."
"I'm not angry."
That was a lie.
"I'm paying attention."
Dante moved toward the entry panel.
For one terrible second, I thought he would lock the door.
Instead, he pressed the release.
The elevator opened.
"Take two guards."
"No."
"One."
"No."
"Claire."
I turned back.
"You told me protection is not ownership."
His jaw tightened.
"Prove it."
I stepped into the elevator alone.
I had nowhere sensible to go.
My apartment was sealed.
My employer had suspended me.
My closest friends were suddenly reporters' sources.
So I went to the one place that still felt mine.
My father's grave.
The ride there was the first time I had been physically alone since the ballroom.
No Dante.
No Sofia.
No federal agents.
No Nolan sitting beside me pretending the bruise on my arm was a misunderstanding.
I expected solitude to feel like freedom.
Instead, I checked the rearview mirror at every red light.
I watched every car that stayed behind me for more than two turns.
At one intersection, a dark sedan followed through a yellow light and my hands started shaking so badly I nearly pulled over.
The sedan turned into a grocery store parking lot.
Nothing happened.
That was almost worse.
My body had become a smoke alarm after the fire.
It did not know the difference between heat and memory.
I parked outside the cemetery and sat in the car for five full minutes.
Then I remembered something my father used to say when I was learning to drive.
You don't have to stop being afraid before you move.
You just have to know what the fear is asking you to notice.
At seventeen, I thought he was talking about icy roads.
Now I wondered how many things he had been trying to teach me before either of us knew I would need them.
I checked the road once more.
Then I got out.
The cemetery was nearly empty in the rain.
The cemetery was nearly empty in the rain.
I stood under an umbrella and stared at Michael Sullivan's name carved into granite.
"You could have warned me better."
My voice shook.
"Nolan Mercer ever comes near you, run."
"That's what you left me?"
I laughed bitterly.
"You could have included a photograph."
Footsteps sounded behind me.
I turned fast.
It was not Dante.
A woman stood twenty feet away holding a black umbrella.
She looked about sixty.
Elegant.
Silver hair.
Expensive coat.
I recognized her from photographs online.
Catherine Mercer.
Nolan's mother.
The woman Nolan told me had been dead for twelve years.
My whole body went cold.
"Claire."
Her voice was soft.
"You don't know me."
"I know exactly who you are."
"Then you know Nolan said you were dead."
Pain passed across her face.
"Nolan says many things."
I backed toward the path.
"Why are you here?"
"Because my son is becoming his father."
"He became his father a long time ago."
She looked at the grave.
"Michael would agree."
My grip tightened on the umbrella.
"You knew my father?"
"Yes."
Of course she did.
Everyone knew my father except me, apparently.
"What do you want?"
Catherine reached slowly into her purse.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
She stopped.
"It's only a photograph."
She removed it with two fingers and held it out.
I did not take it.
She placed it on the wet stone bench between us.
"Michael gave me that the night before he died."
I waited until she stepped away.
Then I picked it up.
The photograph showed Lake Street Imports.
Three men stood outside the warehouse.
My father.
Anthony Mercer.
And Dante Moretti.
The date stamped in the corner was the day before my father's crash.
On the back, my father had written a time.
11:12 P.M.
The exact time Dante said my father called him from the road.
Under it were five words.
DANTE KNOWS WHO OPENED THE DOOR.
I looked up at Catherine.
"What door?"
Her face changed.
"The door that got Michael killed."
"Who opened it?"
Catherine looked past me.
Fear entered her eyes.
A black SUV had stopped near the cemetery entrance.
Dante got out.
Catherine stepped backward.
"Ask him why he never told you his brother was there that night."
Then she turned and walked away.
I stared at Dante as he approached.
He saw the photograph in my hand.
He stopped.
For the first time since the ballroom, Dante Moretti looked afraid.
May you like
Not of Nolan.
Of me.
