Chapter 4 - The Man Inside My House
Dante did not move.
Neither did Marco.
Ortiz was still speaking through the phone.
“We need Bell brought in.”
Dante looked at the man who had guarded his back for nine years.
Marco’s face revealed nothing.
“Understood,” Dante said.
He ended the call.
Marco glanced at the phone.
“Problem?”
“Yes.”
Dante stepped between Marco and the children’s door.
“Police found your car behind Michael’s on the night he died.”
For the first time, Marco's expression cracked.
Not guilt.
Fear.
“Dante—”
“Don't.”
“I can explain.”
“Good. You can explain to Detective Ortiz.”
Marco looked toward the stairs.
Dante’s body tensed.
“If you run, I will assume the worst.”
“I’m not running.”
“Then give me your weapon.”
Marco slowly removed it.
He placed it on the hallway table.
“There's something I should have told you three months ago.”
Dante stared at him.
“Three months?”
“Yes.”
“My brother has been dead for three months.”
“I know.”
“You watched me bury him.”
“I know.”
“And said nothing?”
Marco closed his eyes.
“I promised Michael.”
Dante almost hit him.
He did not.
“What did you promise?”
“That I wouldn't tell you until the children were safe.”
Dante's anger faltered.
“What?”
“Michael contacted me two weeks before he died.”
“Why you?”
“Because he knew if he came directly to you, you'd go after Voss.”
“He was right.”
“Exactly.”
Marco reached slowly into his jacket.
Dante's hand moved toward his own weapon.
“Phone,” Marco said.
He produced it and opened an archived message.
Michael’s name appeared.
The message read:
If anything happens, watch the kids. Don't tell Dante until they're away from Rebecca. He'll burn the city down before he understands what's happening.
Dante read it twice.
“He didn't trust me.”
“He trusted you to love them.”
“That isn't the same.”
“No.”
Marco looked him directly in the eye.
“He didn't trust your anger.”
That hurt because it was true.
“Why were you following him?”
“He called me that night.”
“What did he say?”
“That someone had been watching him. I followed at a distance.”
“And?”
“I lost him near the highway interchange.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect Ortiz to verify it.”
Dante drove Marco personally to the police station.
Three hours later, traffic cameras confirmed his story.
Marco's vehicle had turned onto another road before Michael's crash.
Another vehicle appeared minutes later.
A dark sedan.
Registered to a shell corporation connected to Voss Development.
Marco was released.
Dante met him outside.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because Michael made me swear.”
“And now?”
“Now I wish I had broken the promise.”
Dante looked at him.
“So do I.”
Back at the estate, Leo was learning to use crutches.
He hated them.
Sophie loved them and kept trying to steal one.
For ten minutes, Dante watched a three-year-old attempt to escape down a hallway with a crutch twice her height while Leo shouted instructions.
It was absurd.
It was also the first normal thing he had witnessed in days.
Then Leo fell.
Dante reached him immediately.
“I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
Leo nodded.
Dante helped him sit.
“Uncle Dante?”
“Yes?”
“Are you mad at Mommy?”
Dante considered lying.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to hurt her?”
The question stopped him.
“No.”
Leo studied him carefully.
“Promise?”
Dante thought of Michael.
Do it legally.
Do it clean.
“Promise.”
Leo relaxed.
That promise became the boundary Dante would not cross.
Rebecca had hurt the children.
Evidence increasingly suggested she had been connected to Michael’s secrets.
But Dante would not become another adult those children had to fear.
The next morning, Ortiz called.
“Rebecca agreed to an interview.”
“And?”
“She admits the affair.”
“With Voss?”
“Yes.”
“The money?”
“Claims Voss used her accounts without explaining the transactions.”
“You believe that?”
“I believe evidence.”
Dante hated police answers.
Ortiz continued.
“She denies knowing anything about the brake line.”
“What about Leo?”
“She claims he fell during an argument.”
“That's not what he said.”
“I know.”
“Then arrest her.”
“We're building the case.”
Dante hung up angry.
Evelyn, sitting across his desk, said, “Good.”
“What?”
“You're learning.”
“Learning what?”
“To let institutions do things you normally force people to do yourself.”
“I hate it.”
“Growth is painful.”
He glared at her.
She smiled.
Then her expression became serious.
“There's another issue.”
She slid a document across the desk.
Michael’s will.
Dante had seen it after the funeral.
Rebecca inherited most of Michael’s personal assets.
The children inherited trusts.
But Evelyn pointed to an amendment.
Dated four days before Michael died.
It transferred control of the children’s trusts away from Rebecca if Michael died under suspicious circumstances.
Successor trustee:
Dante Moretti.
“He changed this four days before his death?”
“Yes.”
“Rebecca knew?”
“Apparently not.”
Dante read the amount.
Michael had been wealthier than he realized.
Almost twelve million dollars sat in trusts for Leo and Sophie.
“Voss wasn't after Michael’s company,” Dante said.
“Maybe not only the company.”
“If Rebecca controlled these trusts…”
“She could potentially influence significant assets.”
Dante stood.
“Where is she?”
“Don't.”
“I'm asking.”
“You don't need to know.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dante answered.
Silence.
Then a man spoke.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Who is this?”
“You opened locker 317.”
Dante’s eyes moved toward Evelyn.
“Who is this?”
“You should have left your brother’s things buried with him.”
“Caleb?”
The caller laughed softly.
“Your brother was stubborn too.”
Dante's blood went cold.
“What did you do to Michael?”
“Wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“You should ask what Michael did before he died.”
The call ended.
Dante immediately sent the number to Ortiz.
Untraceable.
Of course.
That evening, Dante increased security.
No one entered without clearance.
No vehicles approached unnoticed.
The children ate dinner with him.
Sophie refused vegetables.
Leo informed Dante that broccoli was “technically tiny trees.”
Dante told him that did not improve the argument.
For half an hour, they almost looked like a family untouched by violence.
At bedtime, Sophie asked Dante to read a book.
He read terribly.
“You're doing the voices wrong,” Leo complained.
“There are voices?”
“Everybody has a voice.”
Dante looked at the illustrated rabbit.
“It's a rabbit.”
Leo sighed with the exhaustion of someone explaining literature to an idiot.
Dante tried again.
Sophie laughed.
Later, he closed their door halfway and stood in the hallway.
A strange peace settled over him.
Then the security alarm activated.
Not the perimeter alarm.
The internal one.
Dante pulled his weapon and moved downstairs.
Marco appeared from another corridor.
“East wing.”
They entered Dante’s office.
Nothing seemed disturbed.
Then Dante saw the safe.
Open.
Impossible.
Only three people knew the code.
Dante.
Marco.
And Michael.
Inside, nothing valuable was missing.
Except one thing.
The flash-drive copy Ortiz had allowed Evelyn to retain.
On Dante's desk lay a photograph.
Michael.
Rebecca.
Leo.
Sophie.
A red line had been drawn through Michael’s face.
May you like
And beneath Sophie’s picture someone had written two words:
NEXT TIME.
