Chapter 2 - The Room That Stayed Locked
Dante drew his weapon before the door moved three inches.
“Stay behind me.”
Marco stepped to his left.
Two security men approached from the opposite corridor.
The door opened slowly.
Vittorio Moretti stumbled out.
Blood spread across his white dress shirt.
He looked sixty-eight under normal circumstances.
At that moment he looked ninety.
His right hand clutched his side.
His left held an old revolver.
“Drop it,” Dante said.
Vittorio stared at him.
Then the revolver fell.
Marco kicked it away.
Vittorio collapsed.
“Who shot you?”
The older man laughed once.
A dry sound.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
Dante grabbed his collar.
“Who shot you?”
Vittorio looked past him.
Toward Lily.
She had stepped into the hallway despite Dante’s order.
Vittorio’s face emptied of color.
“No.”
Dante followed his gaze.
Lily hugged her rabbit.
“What?” Dante demanded.
Vittorio whispered, “She looks exactly like him.”
Dante’s grip tightened.
“Like who?”
Vittorio met his eyes.
“Rafael.”
The name hung between them.
Dante shoved Vittorio toward Marco.
“Get him treated.”
“No hospital,” Vittorio gasped.
“You’re in no position to give instructions.”
“He’ll finish it.”
“Who?”
Vittorio smiled grimly.
“The man who killed your brother.”
Dante stopped.
For six years, Dante had believed he knew the story of Rafael’s death.
Rafael had gone to Pier 17 to settle an argument involving stolen money.
Gunfire followed.
When Dante arrived, Rafael was already dead.
Two rival soldiers lay nearby.
Everyone assumed the same thing.
A deal had collapsed.
Rafael died in the crossfire.
Dante retaliated.
The rival organization disappeared within six months.
Case closed.
Except Dante had never believed Rafael would walk into Pier 17 without backup.
Never believed his brother would bring no weapon except a small pistol with one empty magazine.
And never understood why his silver lighter vanished.
“Search the study,” Dante ordered.
Marco nodded.
Dante entered first.
The room smelled of dust and old wood.
Nothing had changed.
Rafael’s books remained on the shelves.
His leather chair sat behind the desk.
A photograph of Dante and Rafael as teenagers stood beside an old brass lamp.
But the carpet near the window had been disturbed.
Someone had moved furniture.
Dante approached the wall.
A painting of their father hung crooked.
He lifted it.
A small safe was hidden behind it.
The door was open.
Empty.
Marco stared.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
Dante searched the shelves.
A security guard called from the hallway.
“Sir.”
Dante turned.
“We found something.”
Behind the desk, half-hidden beneath a cabinet, lay a shell casing.
Fresh.
Dante picked it up.
“Not Vittorio’s revolver,” Marco said.
“No.”
“Someone else was here.”
Dante glanced toward the open window.
It was locked from inside.
One door.
No secondary exit.
“How did he leave?”
Marco walked toward the bookshelves.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
They searched every corner.
Nothing.
Then Lily appeared at the doorway.
“Sweetheart,” Marco said gently, “you can’t be in here.”
She pointed toward the floor.
“My bunny went there.”
Dante followed her finger.
The stuffed rabbit was missing.
He realized she must have dropped it when the gun fired.
“Where?”
Lily walked into the room and pointed beneath a large bookcase.
Dante crouched.
The rabbit lay underneath.
He reached for it.
His fingertips brushed something metal.
A small lever.
He pulled.
The entire bookcase moved.
Marco swore softly.
Behind it was a narrow passage.
Dante stared into darkness.
Rafael had built a hidden corridor inside the estate.
And Dante had never known.
Marco raised his flashlight.
Blood dotted the floor.
Fresh blood.
“Stay with Lily,” Dante said.
Marco shook his head.
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“You’re not walking down there alone.”
Dante looked toward one of the guards.
“Take Lily to my bedroom.”
The girl immediately grabbed Dante’s trouser leg.
“No.”
Dante looked down.
“You’ll be safer upstairs.”
“No.”
“Lily.”
“Mommy said stay with you.”
Dante’s impatience vanished.
He crouched.
“Your mother trusted me?”
Lily nodded.
Dante still did not understand why.
But he would honor it.
He pointed to Marco.
“You stay with him. He’s my friend.”
Lily studied Marco suspiciously.
“Really?”
“For twenty years.”
“Does he yell?”
Marco almost smiled.
“Sometimes.”
Lily considered this.
“Okay.”
Dante entered the passage with two guards.
The corridor descended behind the walls.
Dust covered most of the floor except for one line of recent footprints.
At the bottom was another door.
Unlocked.
They entered a storage room beneath the estate.
Old furniture.
Boxes.
Wine crates.
Then Dante saw blood.
It led toward the service garage.
The attacker had escaped through an underground delivery route.
One guard touched his radio.
“Seal garage exits.”
Too late.
A black sedan had already forced through the lower gate.
Dante returned upstairs twenty minutes later.
Vittorio had been stabilized.
Lily sat on Dante’s bed eating crackers while Marco watched from across the room.
The image was so strange that Dante paused at the doorway.
Three hours earlier, his world had been predictable.
Now a three-year-old girl sat in his bedroom wearing a yellow dress and holding a stuffed rabbit.
An unconscious maid possessed Rafael’s lighter.
His uncle had been shot inside a locked room.
Someone knew the secret passages of his home.
And Lily carried half of Rafael’s medallion.
Dante walked toward her.
“Lily.”
She held out half a cracker.
“For you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat.”
Marco looked away, hiding amusement.
Dante accepted the cracker.
“Thank you.”
Lily nodded as though approving his obedience.
Dante sat in the chair opposite her.
“Where’s your daddy?”
Lily’s face changed.
“I don’t have one.”
“Did your mother ever tell you his name?”
“No.”
“Do you have pictures?”
“She has one.”
“Where?”
“In the blue box.”
“What blue box?”
“Our room.”
Dante stood.
Marco followed him.
They left Lily with a female security officer and went to Elena’s staff apartment.
The room was simple.
Neat.
A child’s drawings covered one wall.
Dante found the blue box beneath Elena’s bed.
Inside were tax records, Lily’s birth certificate, several photographs and old letters.
Marco picked up the birth certificate.
“Father’s name blank.”
Dante searched the photographs.
Elena pregnant.
Elena holding newborn Lily.
Elena at a park.
No man.
Then he found one photograph folded inside an envelope.
It showed Rafael.
Dante stopped breathing.
Rafael stood beside Elena outside a small café.
His arm was around her shoulders.
They were smiling.
The photograph had been taken seven years ago.
Before Rafael died.
“She knew him,” Marco whispered.
Dante turned the photo over.
On the back, Rafael had written:
E,
When this is over, we leave together.
No family.
No business.
Just us.
R.
Dante sat on the edge of the bed.
Elena had not simply known Rafael.
She had loved him.
But Lily was three.
Rafael had died six years ago.
The dates did not work.
Unless the photograph meant something else.
Marco opened another envelope.
“Dante.”
Inside was a letter.
Not from Rafael.
From Elena.
It was addressed to Dante but never sent.
Dante unfolded it.
Mr. Moretti,
You do not know me the way your brother did.
You do not know what he discovered.
And you do not know what it cost him.
I promised Rafael I would never bring this to you unless I had no other choice.
If you are reading this, then someone has found us.
Dante continued.
Your brother did not die because of a failed deal.
He died because he discovered someone inside your family was selling information to federal agents and rival organizations.
He found proof.
He hid it.
Then he made me promise that if anything happened, I would disappear.
Dante’s fingers tightened around the paper.
Marco read over his shoulder.
There was more.
The evidence Rafael found was never destroyed.
I know where part of it is.
But the final piece is something only you can open.
The letter ended there.
“What final piece?” Marco asked.
Dante stared at the page.
“I don’t know.”
His phone rang.
Dr. Conti.
Dante answered immediately.
“How is she?”
“Stable.”
“Awake?”
“Not yet.”
“Cause?”
“We identified the sedative.”
Dante waited.
Conti’s voice became cautious.
“It’s not something a normal person could easily get.”
“What is it?”
“A military-grade anesthetic derivative. Controlled supply.”
“Who has access?”
“Hospitals. Government facilities. Certain federal agencies.”
Dante’s eyes shifted to Marco.
Federal agencies.
The exact words Elena had used.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Conti paused.
“We found a small puncture wound behind her ear.”
Dante stood slowly.
“She didn’t drink it.”
“No.”
“Someone injected her.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Dante ended the call.
Marco exhaled.
“You think whoever Rafael discovered is still working with the government?”
“I think somebody wanted Elena unconscious, not dead.”
“Why?”
“Because they needed something from her.”
Dante looked at the letters.
The evidence.
They had searched Elena’s room.
Perhaps they had not found it.
Perhaps Lily had interrupted them.
Perhaps Elena had managed to send her daughter upstairs before losing consciousness.
Dante turned toward the blue box.
“Search everything.”
They emptied it.
Nothing.
Then Dante noticed the stuffed rabbit on Lily’s photograph.
Same rabbit.
He looked toward the bedroom door.
“Marco.”
Marco understood immediately.
They ran upstairs.
Lily had fallen asleep curled beneath a blanket.
The rabbit rested beside her.
Dante gently picked it up.
There was a zipper along the back beneath the fur.
He opened it.
Inside the stuffing was a small flash drive.
Marco whispered, “Jesus.”
Dante removed it.
A handwritten label was attached.
PIER 17 — PART ONE.
Dante looked at the sleeping child.
Her mother had hidden Rafael’s evidence inside her toy.
Dante carried the drive to his office.
Marco connected it to an isolated computer.
One encrypted folder appeared.
Password required.
Dante tried Rafael’s birthday.
Wrong.
Their mother’s name.
Wrong.
Pier17.
Wrong.
Then Dante remembered the medallion.
The date scratched into the back.
He entered it.
The folder opened.
Inside were photographs.
Bank transfers.
Recorded conversations.
Names.
Politicians.
Police officers.
Businessmen.
And members of Dante’s own organization.
Marco scrolled.
Then stopped.
One folder carried a name.
VITTORIO.
Dante opened it.
Before he could read anything, the screen went black.
A message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE PAST BURIED.
Marco reached for the keyboard.
Another message appeared.
THE GIRL IS NOT RAFAEL’S.
Dante froze.
A third line appeared.
SHE IS YOURS.
May you like
Then every light in the penthouse went out.
From upstairs came Lily’s scream.
