Chapter 2 - Four Men in Black
Bella had spent fourteen years believing her father died because a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. Now a note from Isabella Romano claimed that Michael Marino had taken secrets to his grave—and the four men waiting inside Bellini’s Café made it clear those secrets were dangerous enough to kill for.
She folded the note slowly.
“I need to call my mother.”
Matteo’s expression remained controlled. “You may call her from the car.”
“No. I’ll call her now.”
“This is a request, Miss Marino, not an abduction.”
“Then I’m free to say no.”
One of the bodyguards near the door glanced at Matteo, but Matteo simply nodded. Bella took her phone into the storeroom and called Rosa three times. Each call went directly to voicemail.
Her uneasiness grew.
“Mom, call me as soon as you hear this. I’m going to the Romano house. I know you told me not to, but Isabella says she knows something about Dad. I need the truth.”
When Bella returned, Calvin was standing near Matteo with a smile so nervous it looked painful.
“I’ve told them you can have the day off,” he said.
“You docked my pay yesterday.”
“A misunderstanding.”
“You threatened to fire me.”
“I was under pressure.”
“From twelve customers and a broken freezer?”
Matteo looked at Calvin. “Did you mistreat Miss Marino because she helped Mrs. Romano?”
Calvin’s face turned gray. “I wouldn’t call it mistreatment.”
“What would you call it?”
“Management.”
Bella almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Leave him alone,” she said. “I don’t want anyone hurt over me.”
Something unreadable passed across Matteo’s face.
“No one mentioned hurting him.”
“That somehow sounded worse.”
Outside, two black SUVs waited at the curb. Bella expected to be placed in one alone, but the rear window of the first vehicle lowered.
Isabella sat inside.
“I told them not to frighten you,” she said.
“This is them being subtle?”
“They are excellent at protection. Social grace is more difficult.”
Bella climbed in, keeping one hand around her phone.
As the convoy pulled away, she held out the note. “What did you mean about my father?”
Isabella’s smile disappeared. “Michael Marino worked for my family.”
“My father repaired elevators.”
“That was the life he built after he left us.”
“Left you how?”
“He handled financial records for my late husband. Michael was intelligent, honest, and stubborn enough to believe those qualities could survive in a dishonest world.”
Bella stared at her. “Are you saying my father worked for the mafia?”
“I am saying he worked for my husband’s businesses. Some were legitimate. Some were not.”
The city moved beyond the rain-streaked window.
“What happened to him?”
“Michael discovered money disappearing from accounts connected to our construction companies. Millions of dollars. He believed someone inside the Romano organization was stealing and using the money to build a rival network.”
“Who?”
“We never learned the truth.”
“You expect me to believe the most feared family in Chicago couldn’t find a thief?”
“The thief framed your father before he could present his evidence. My husband believed Michael had stolen the money. Michael fled with your mother and disappeared.”
Bella’s nails pressed into her palm. “My father wasn’t a thief.”
“No. I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because three weeks after Michael died, the missing money began moving again.”
The words landed like ice inside Bella’s chest.
“So you knew he was innocent fourteen years ago?”
“I suspected it.”
“And you did nothing?”
Isabella accepted the accusation without looking away. “My husband was dying. The family was at war. Dante was twenty-four and surrounded by men waiting for him to fail. I chose to protect my son.”
“By letting my father’s name remain ruined?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than an excuse would have.
Bella turned toward the window.
“I am not asking for forgiveness,” Isabella said. “I am telling you why I recognized your name. Yesterday, I saw your father in your face. The way you helped me without calculating what you might gain—that was Michael.”
Bella’s phone rang.
Rosa.
She answered immediately. “Mom?”
“Where are you?”
“In a car with Isabella.”
“Tell them to turn around.”
“I need to know what happened to Dad.”
“You know what happened.”
“No, I know what you told me.”
Silence followed.
Bella lowered her voice. “Isabella says Dad worked for the Romanos.”
Rosa’s breathing became uneven.
“Come home.”
“Was the crash really an accident?”
Another silence.
Then Rosa whispered, “Your father knew they would come for him.”
The call ended.
Bella stared at the screen. When she tried again, Rosa did not answer.
“Turn the car around,” Bella said.
Isabella gave an immediate instruction to Matteo, but before he could respond, another phone rang in the front seat. He answered, listened, and turned toward them.
“Signora, we have a problem.”
“What happened?”
“Someone entered Miss Marino’s apartment twelve minutes ago.”
Bella’s blood went cold. “My mother is there.”
“Our security team saw two men leaving through the rear stairwell. An ambulance has been called.”
“Why did you have people watching my apartment?”
“Because your name changed the situation,” Isabella said.
Bella lunged for the door handle even though the vehicle was moving. Matteo locked it from the front.
“Take me home!”
“We are,” Isabella said firmly. “But listen to me. Panic will not help Rosa.”
“You brought this to us.”
“I fear it was already coming.”
When they reached the laundromat, police cars and an ambulance blocked the street. Bella ran before the SUV fully stopped.
She found Rosa sitting inside the ambulance with an oxygen mask over her face. A bruise darkened her temple, but she was conscious.
Bella climbed in and held her.
“What happened?”
“They wanted something your father left behind,” Rosa whispered.
“What?”
“A key.”
“Did you give it to them?”
Rosa closed her eyes. “I told them I didn’t have it.”
“Do you?”
Her mother looked past Bella toward Isabella, who had stopped several feet from the ambulance.
“Yes.”
Bella felt the last stable part of her childhood shift beneath her.
At the hospital, Dante Romano was waiting.
He stood at the end of the private corridor in a charcoal suit, one hand inside his pocket. He was taller than Bella expected, with dark hair, broad shoulders, and black ink visible above his collar. His face held none of the theatrical cruelty whispered about in Chicago bars. That made him more intimidating, not less.
He did not need to display power.
Everyone around him already felt it.
His eyes settled on Bella.
“You helped my mother.”
“My mother was attacked because of yours.”
Dante glanced at Isabella. “Then introductions can wait.”
He walked into Rosa’s room without asking permission. Bella followed angrily.
Rosa stiffened when she saw him.
“Dante Romano.”
“Mrs. Marino.”
“You look like your father.”
“I’ve spent years trying not to.”
Dante placed a small metal object on the bedside table.
A key.
Rosa’s face changed.
Bella looked between them. “Is that what those men wanted?”
“No,” Rosa said. “Mine is identical.”
Dante leaned closer. “My father gave Michael two keys. One remained with your husband. One was hidden in our family chapel. Together, they open a private deposit vault.”
“What’s inside?” Bella asked.
“Evidence,” Rosa said. “Names. Accounts. Payments. Everything Michael discovered.”
“Then why didn’t Dad use it?”
“He planned to. The night before the crash, he called me from a pay phone. He said someone had found us. He told me to hide my key and never trust anyone bearing the Romano name.”
Isabella looked stricken.
Dante remained still, but something hardened behind his eyes. “Where is your key?”
Rosa looked at Bella.
“The blue music box.”
Bella remembered it immediately. A chipped wooden box her father had given her on her tenth birthday, three days before he died. It had remained on a shelf in their apartment ever since.
“I checked it this morning,” Rosa said. “The key was gone.”
“The men took it,” Bella whispered.
“No. I moved it years ago.”
“Where?”
Rosa’s eyes filled with regret. “Inside the lining of your old winter coat.”
“The red one?”
“Yes.”
“I donated it last week.”
Everyone went silent.
“To where?” Dante asked.
“Saint Gabriel’s charity shop.”
Dante turned to Matteo. “Close the store. No one enters or leaves until we find it.”
Bella stood. “I’m coming.”
“No.”
She faced Dante. “That coat belonged to me. My father hid the key for me. I’m coming.”
“This is not a game.”
“My apartment was invaded, my mother was attacked, and I learned my entire childhood was built around a lie. Don’t tell me what this is.”
For several seconds, they stared at each other.
Then Dante gave the smallest nod.
At Saint Gabriel’s, they discovered the red coat had been sold thirty minutes earlier.
The cashier remembered the buyer because he had purchased only that coat despite it being several sizes too small. Security footage showed a thin man in a baseball cap carrying it to a gray sedan.
Matteo froze the image.
Rosa recognized him when Bella sent her the picture.
“Victor Hale,” she whispered over the phone. “He worked with your father.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Victor is my chief financial officer.”
The enemy Michael Marino had tried to expose had never left the Romano organization.
He had risen inside it.
Dante ordered every Romano property locked down, but Victor’s phone was already off. His home stood empty. His accounts had been cleared before dawn.
Back at the hospital, Bella sat beside her sleeping mother. Dante remained outside the room, speaking quietly with his men.
Isabella entered and placed Bella’s café apron on the chair.
“You left it in the car.”
Bella touched the dried coffee stains.
“Yesterday, my biggest problem was Calvin.”
“Life can be cruel in its sense of humor.”
Bella looked at her. “Why did you really invite me to your house?”
“To thank you.”
“That isn’t the whole answer.”
Isabella sat beside her. “I wanted Dante to see that goodness still existed beyond our gates. He has forgotten.”
“And my father?”
“I did not know how much Rosa had hidden. But I hoped your name might help us correct an old injustice.”
“Fourteen years too late.”
“Yes.”
Bella expected Isabella to defend herself. She did not.
Near midnight, Rosa woke and asked to speak with Dante alone. Bella refused to leave, so Rosa told them both.
“Michael made a copy,” she said.
“Of the records?” Dante asked.
“He said the vault was insurance, not the only evidence. The copy was hidden somewhere no Romano would think to search.”
“Where?”
Rosa looked at Bella.
“Inside something he trusted his daughter would never throw away.”
Bella thought of the music box, family photographs, birthday cards, and her father’s old tools. Then she remembered the object she had carried through three apartments and protected even when they had sold nearly everything else.
His battered leather recipe book.
Michael Marino had cooked every Sunday. His handwritten recipes filled the pages, along with small notes to Bella: more garlic when life is bad, never trust sauce that cooks in twenty minutes, save the sweetest thing for last.
The book was still in their kitchen.
Matteo sent two men to retrieve it.
They returned an hour later with an empty plastic bag and a message carved into Bella’s kitchen table.
BRING BOTH KEYS OR ROSA DIES NEXT.
Dante read the photograph without emotion.
Bella did not.
She marched into the hallway and confronted him.
“This happened because Victor knows you’re searching.”
“It happened because Victor is afraid.”
“My mother could have died.”
“And I will make certain he never gets near her again.”
“You can’t promise that.”
Dante stepped closer. “I do not make promises I cannot keep.”
Bella wanted to hate him. He carried the Romano name, commanded armed men, and spoke of threats as naturally as weather. Yet she saw something in his expression she had not expected.
Guilt.
Not for ordering violence.
For failing to prevent it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Find Victor before he finds the second key.”
“And if he already has my father’s copy?”
“Then he possesses enough information to destroy my family.”
Bella shook her head. “You still don’t understand.”
“What?”
“If those records prove my father was innocent, they don’t belong to your family. They belong to the truth.”
Dante studied her for a long moment.
Then he said, “That is exactly why Victor will come for you.”
Across the street, hidden inside a parked van, a camera lens captured Bella standing beside Dante.
May you like
Victor Hale looked at the image on his monitor and smiled.
Michael Marino’s daughter had finally entered the game.
