Chapter 1 - The Plate in the Middle of the Table
Isabella shoved the untouched plate away and whispered, “Please don’t make me eat.”
When Dante Romano entered the dining room, he picked up the white porcelain plate she had hidden beneath a folded napkin.
A tiny handwritten number was visible on the napkin’s underside.
“122.”
Dante stopped breathing.
This was not about dinner.
For several seconds, nobody at the long table moved.
Twelve people sat beneath the chandelier in Dante Romano’s Tribeca penthouse, men and women whose names appeared on hospital boards, construction permits, investment firms, charities, and political donor lists across New York.
They were accustomed to being listened to.
They were not accustomed to Dante’s silence.
Especially not this silence.
Isabella Romano sat three chairs from the head of the table with her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her burgundy dress fit the soft curves of her body elegantly, but she had spent the entire evening pulling the fabric away from her waist whenever she thought no one was looking.
Dante had noticed.
He noticed everything about his wife.
He had noticed the way she stopped joining him for breakfast.
The way she began saying she had already eaten.
The way she pushed pasta around her plate and claimed she was nervous.
The way her bracelets had started sliding farther down her wrists.
He had noticed all of it.
What he had not understood was why.
Until tonight.
Dante lifted the napkin.
“Isabella.”
She flinched at the sound of her name.
That frightened him more than the number.
He walked toward her.
Sophia Moretti, seated across the table in an ivory pantsuit, raised her wineglass with perfect calm.
“Dante,” she said smoothly, “perhaps this is not something to discuss in front of guests.”
He did not look at her.
“What does one hundred twenty-two mean?”
Isabella stared at the plate.
“Nothing.”
His jaw tightened.
Dante Romano had built his reputation on knowing when people lied.
His wife was terrible at it.
He crouched beside her chair.
At once, the atmosphere changed.
The twelve guests had expected anger.
Dante could become terrifying without raising his voice. Everyone in the room knew it.
But he did not threaten Isabella.
He reached for her hand.
Her fingers were cold.
“Look at me.”
She did.
The shame in her eyes made something twist inside his chest.
“What is one hundred twenty-two?”
Her lips parted.
No answer came.
Across from them, Sophia placed her wineglass down.
“Women sometimes become overly focused on their appearance,” she said. “It is unfortunate, but hardly a conspiracy.”
Dante finally looked at her.
Sophia smiled.
She had known Dante for twenty years.
She had been a close friend of his late mother.
She had attended birthdays, funerals, weddings, baptisms, business dinners.
When Dante married Isabella eighteen months earlier, Sophia had embraced the bride like family.
At least in public.
Dante turned back to Isabella.
“Were you trying to reach one hundred twenty-two pounds?”
A tear slipped down Isabella’s cheek.
That was enough.
Dante slowly stood.
He carried the plate to the center of the table.
Then he placed it down.
The soft click of porcelain against polished stone seemed louder than a gunshot.
“No one leaves.”
Several guests looked toward the doors.
Dante’s security chief, Marco Bellini, appeared immediately.
“Lock them.”
Marco hesitated only because Isabella looked terrified.
“Boss?”
“Every elevator. Every private exit. No phones leaving this room.”
A banker named Gregory Hale cleared his throat.
“Dante, I’m sure whatever marital misunderstanding—”
Dante turned his head.
Gregory stopped speaking.
“This is not a marital misunderstanding.”
He placed the napkin beside the plate.
“This number was hidden under my wife’s dinner.”
Isabella whispered, “Dante, please.”
He looked at her.
She was not afraid of him.
He knew that now.
She was afraid of what would happen if he kept asking questions.
That realization was worse.
Dante returned to her side.
“Why haven’t you been eating?”
“I have.”
“No.”
Her eyes dropped.
He lowered his voice.
“Bella.”
That name nearly broke her.
She covered her mouth with one hand.
Dante waited.
Finally she whispered, “I was trying.”
“Trying to do what?”
“To fix it.”
He frowned.
“Fix what?”
She looked down at herself.
Dante followed her gaze.
And understood.
“No.”
She began crying silently.
“No, Isabella.”
“I thought if I just lost enough—”
“No.”
“I thought maybe then—”
He took her face gently between his hands.
“Then what?”
The room was completely silent.
Isabella’s voice came out barely louder than breath.
“Maybe then I would look like your wife should look.”
Dante stared at her.
The words seemed impossible.
He had met Isabella Bellini at a charity auction three years earlier.
She had been laughing beside a table of donated books, wearing a green dress and arguing with a billionaire about why his foundation should fund public school libraries instead of another gala.
Dante had fallen in love with her before she knew his last name.
He loved the softness of her body.
He loved the way she filled a room without trying.
He loved that she ate cannoli with powdered sugar on her nose.
He loved that she had never once tried to become what his world expected.
Someone had taken that woman away from him slowly enough that he had blamed stress.
“Who told you that?”
Isabella shook her head.
“Nobody.”
He stood.
“Marco.”
The security chief approached.
“Bring me Isabella’s phone.”
Her head snapped up.
“Dante, no.”
Marco paused.
“Please,” Isabella said.
Dante’s voice softened.
“I’m not punishing you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
She shook her head desperately.
“You can’t.”
Sophia sighed.
“This is becoming cruel.”
Dante looked at her.
Sophia’s face remained composed.
But one hand rested too tightly around the stem of her wineglass.
Dante noticed.
So did Marco.
Dante said, “Why are you nervous?”
Sophia gave a quiet laugh.
“I’m sitting in a locked penthouse because your wife skipped dinner.”
“She has skipped more than dinner.”
“Then perhaps she should speak to a doctor.”
Isabella flinched.
Dante saw it.
Sophia saw him see it.
For the first time, Sophia’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Dante moved to the head of the table.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Have Dr. Levin come upstairs.”
Isabella immediately stood.
“No.”
Her chair scraped hard against the floor.
Everyone turned.
Dante stepped toward her.
“What?”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
“You nearly fainted yesterday.”
“I stood up too fast.”
“You fell against the bathroom counter.”
“I’m fine.”
Her voice was rising now.
Not angry.
Panicked.
Dante stopped moving.
“Why are you afraid of a doctor?”
Isabella pressed both hands against her stomach.
“I’m not.”
Sophia said quietly, “Dante, perhaps let her keep some dignity.”
He turned.
“Why did you say that?”
Sophia blinked.
“Because this is humiliating.”
“For whom?”
“Your wife.”
“How would calling a doctor humiliate my wife?”
Sophia’s eyes shifted toward Isabella for one second.
Isabella looked away.
Dante felt the room narrow.
“Marco,” he said, “bring me her phone now.”
Marco returned two minutes later carrying Isabella’s phone.
She made no move to stop him this time.
Dante held it out.
“Unlock it.”
Isabella stared at him.
He waited.
Finally, she entered the code.
Dante opened her messages.
Nothing unusual appeared.
He checked recent calls.
Then deleted messages.
Nothing.
Then he opened her photos.
Hundreds of ordinary images filled the screen.
Family dinners.
Flowers.
A photo of Dante asleep on the couch with a book on his chest.
A photograph of Isabella laughing beside her cousin.
Then he saw a folder.
Hidden.
Locked.
His eyes lifted to hers.
“What’s in this?”
She looked devastated.
“Please don’t.”
He opened it.
The first image was Isabella standing in front of a mirror.
A number was written beneath it.
The next photo.
Another.
Another.
The images continued.
Every few days.
Every few pounds.
Dante’s hand tightened around the phone.
Isabella looked smaller in each photograph.
But there was something else.
Her smile vanished.
Her shoulders curved inward.
By 129, she looked frightened.
At 125, she looked exhausted.
The most recent image showed 122 written on a piece of paper taped to the mirror.
Dante scrolled farther.
Then stopped.
A screenshot.
A text message from an unsaved number.
YOU’RE STILL NOT THERE.
Another.
DANTE’S FORMER WOMEN NEVER HAD TO HIDE THEIR BODIES.
Another.
YOU EMBARRASSED HIM AT THE FOUNDATION DINNER.
Another.
IF YOU LOVE HIM, YOU’LL STOP MAKING PEOPLE WONDER WHY HE SETTLED.
Dante’s face became perfectly still.
Marco saw it and quietly moved nearer.
“Who sent these?”
Isabella said nothing.
“Who?”
She looked toward the table.
Not at Sophia.
Past her.
Toward the city windows.
Dante followed her gaze but found nothing.
Then he noticed a final message.
It contained no insult.
Only an image.
A photograph taken from across a restaurant.
Isabella sat beside Dante at dinner.
Someone had circled her waist in red.
Beneath it were five words.
HE NOTICES MORE THAN YOU THINK.
Dante looked at the timestamp.
Six months ago.
The night he had proposed renewing their vows privately in Sicily.
The night Isabella had cried in the bathroom afterward.
He had believed she was happy.
Now he understood.
Someone had been watching her.
Someone close enough to photograph private dinners.
Someone who knew where she went.
Someone who knew what Dante said.
He checked the number.
Blocked.
Marco took the phone.
“I can trace it.”
Sophia stood.
“This has gone far enough.”
Dante slowly turned.
“Sit down.”
“I will not be treated like a prisoner.”
“You are not being treated like one.”
The lock on the dining room door clicked.
Dante looked toward it.
Marco frowned.
No one had touched the control panel.
A second click followed.
Then the private service entrance opened.
One of Dante’s security men stepped inside carrying a small black envelope.
His face was pale.
“Boss.”
Dante did not like the way the man said it.
“What?”
“This was found in Mrs. Romano’s dressing room.”
Isabella stared at the envelope.
Dante took it.
Inside was a printed photograph.
Isabella sleeping in her own bed.
Taken from inside the bedroom.
On the back, a sentence had been written by hand.
122 WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
May you like
Dante lifted his eyes.
Someone in the room stopped breathing.
