Chapter 3 - The Men Who Burned the Dunn Family
Dante's security team wanted Lucy disarmed before she crossed the gate.
Vera refused.
"She sees armed men rushing her, she'll run."
"She has a weapon."
"So does everyone in this house."
Dante couldn't argue with that.
They watched through the camera as Lucy waited.
She no longer resembled the nine-year-old Vera remembered.
She was twenty-one.
Thin.
Controlled.
Her blonde hair reached her shoulders.
A faint scar ran from her right temple toward her ear.
But when Lucy looked toward the camera, Vera saw the same eyes.
Their mother's eyes.
"Open the gate," Vera said.
Dante turned to Gabriel.
"Do it."
The iron gates moved apart.
Lucy walked toward the house.
Vera stood in the entry hall.
Every instinct told her to run outside.
Instead she waited.
The front doors opened.
Lucy stepped inside.
The sisters stared at each other.
Neither spoke.
Twelve years of grief did not disappear simply because the dead walked through a doorway.
Vera moved first.
"Lucy."
Lucy's mouth trembled.
"Vee."
That was enough.
Vera crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around her sister.
Lucy made one broken sound.
Then both women were crying.
Vera held her as if someone might tear her away again.
"I thought you were dead."
"I thought you were."
"I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry."
Neither sentence made sense.
Neither needed to.
Dante turned away, giving them what little privacy could exist inside a guarded house.
Eventually Vera stepped back.
She touched Lucy's face.
"The scar."
"Fire."
"How did you get out?"
Lucy looked toward Dante.
"Can we sit?"
They moved into the library.
Lucy placed the handgun on a table before sitting.
Dante noticed.
A gesture of trust.
Or negotiation.
"Silas got me out," Lucy said.
Vera stared.
"No."
"He did."
"He killed Dad."
Lucy shook her head.
"That's what Marcus told him."
Dante leaned forward.
"Start from the beginning."
Lucy took a breath.
"The night of the fire, Dad hid you first. Then Mom tried taking me through the back hallway. Two men grabbed her. I ran upstairs."
Vera closed her eyes.
"I remember smoke."
"I climbed onto the roof outside my bedroom. I fell."
She touched her scar.
"When I woke up, I was in a hospital under another name."
"Silas?"
"He told me you were dead. Mom and Dad too."
"Why keep you alive?"
"I didn't know anything."
"Children hear things," Dante said.
Lucy looked at him.
"Apparently Daniel Dunn's children heard more than anyone realized."
Vera sat beside her sister.
"Why were you with Silas today?"
"Because I've worked for him since I was eighteen."
Vera recoiled.
"For the man who murdered our family?"
"I didn't know!"
Lucy's voice cracked.
"He told me Marcus Moretti ordered the fire. He told me Dad had stolen money from the Morettis. He said he saved me because he couldn't stop Marcus but couldn't let a child die."
Dante's expression darkened.
"And you believed him."
"I was nine."
Silence.
Vera squeezed her sister's hand.
"What changed?"
"Three months ago, I found a file."
"What file?"
"Old insurance photographs from the house."
Lucy opened her bag.
She removed several copies.
One photograph showed the Dunn kitchen after the fire.
Another showed Daniel's office.
Lucy pointed at the third.
A man stood outside the property while firefighters worked.
Silas Vale.
"That doesn't prove anything," Dante said.
"No."
Lucy placed another image down.
"That does."
A zoomed photograph showed Silas beside a car.
The driver's door was open.
Sitting inside was Marcus Moretti.
Dante stared.
"They were together."
"That morning."
Vera's stomach tightened.
"Why did Silas show up at Suite 4201?"
Lucy looked at her.
"Because I told him you were alive."
Vera released her hand.
"What?"
"I didn't know it was you at first."
Lucy explained.
She had seen Vera's employee photograph during a hotel security review connected to one of Vale's companies.
The face bothered her.
For weeks she couldn't understand why.
Then she found a childhood photograph.
Vera at seventeen.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Lucy confronted Silas.
His reaction confirmed everything.
"I told him I thought the maid might be my sister."
"And he went after me."
"Yes."
"Why did you help him?"
"I didn't. I followed him."
Dante stood.
"You entered Marcus's house."
Lucy nodded.
"Because that's where Silas went after leaving the hotel."
"What did you hear?"
Lucy looked at Vera.
"They're looking for the ledger."
"Everyone's looking for the ledger."
"They think you have it."
"I don't."
"They don't believe that."
Dante placed Daniel's photograph on the table.
Lucy read the writing on the back.
The ledger is where Lucy can always hear the music.
She covered her mouth.
"The theater."
Vera nodded.
"But it's gone."
Lucy shook her head.
"Not all of it."
Dante looked at her.
"What survived?"
"The basement."
Vale Development built luxury apartments over the Bellweather site, but parts of the original foundation remained beneath the underground parking structure because demolishing them would have destabilized neighboring buildings.
Lucy knew because she had seen the architectural plans.
Dante immediately understood.
"The piano."
"It would've been removed."
"Unless the clue doesn't mean the instrument."
Vera remembered sitting beside Daniel while he played.
Lucy used to crawl beneath the stage.
There was a little brass vent under the piano.
When Daniel played, vibrations traveled through the floor.
Lucy would lie beside the vent and say she could "hear the music through the ground."
Vera stood.
"The basement."
Dante nodded.
"Exactly."
Gabriel stepped forward.
"We don't go tonight."
"Why?" Vera demanded.
"Because Vale and Marcus may already know."
Dante agreed.
"They're expecting us to move."
"Then we move before they do."
"That's how people die."
Vera stared at him.
"My family already did."
Dante's expression softened, though his voice didn't.
"You're not joining them."
"You don't decide that."
"I decide what happens under my protection."
Vera bristled.
"I'm not yours to protect."
Lucy looked between them.
Dante stepped closer to Vera.
"No. But you walked into my suite because someone intended to hand you to Vale. Until I know which people around me are compromised, anyone standing near you becomes my responsibility."
"I didn't ask."
"People usually don't."
Vera hated that his calmness made him harder to fight.
Gabriel interrupted.
"We need proof before confronting Marcus."
Lucy reached into her bag again.
"I may have some."
She produced a small digital recorder.
"I left this inside Marcus's study."
Dante stared.
"You planted a recorder in my uncle's house?"
"I clean up after arrogant men for a living too."
Vera almost smiled.
Lucy pressed play.
Static.
Footsteps.
Then Marcus's voice.
"The girl has the locket."
Silas answered.
"Vera isn't a girl anymore."
"We should've found her years ago."
A pause.
Then Marcus:
"Daniel almost ruined everything over that ledger."
Vera stopped breathing.
Silas responded.
"You ordered the house burned. I told you to retrieve the ledger."
Marcus laughed.
"And yet you were happy enough to use what happened."
Dante's eyes became ice.
The recording continued.
Silas said, "Your brother was never supposed to die."
"My brother became inconvenient."
Vera looked at Dante.
He did not move.
Marcus's voice continued.
"Antonio had started asking questions. Daniel had shown him enough."
Dante closed his eyes once.
His father.
Confirmed.
Not suspicion anymore.
Not old rumors.
Truth.
Then Silas said something quieter.
"And if Vera found Daniel's copy?"
"Then we finish what we started."
The recording ended.
No one spoke.
Vera looked at Dante.
He had gone pale beneath his olive complexion.
"I'm sorry."
He gave a slow nod.
Gabriel looked devastated.
"Antonio trusted him."
"So did Daniel," Vera said.
Dante picked up the recorder.
"We copy this."
"And then?"
"Then we collect evidence strong enough that Marcus and Vale can't bury it."
Vera laughed bitterly.
"You mean police?"
"I mean federal prosecutors, financial investigators, and three journalists who hate my family enough to publish anything they can verify."
Vera stared.
Dante gave the faintest smile.
"Sometimes enemies are useful."
They planned until midnight.
Bellweather's surviving basement could be reached through a utility corridor beneath the Vale-owned apartment tower.
Lucy knew the building.
Dante knew the security contractor.
Vera knew the clue.
They would go before dawn.
Only four people would know.
Dante.
Vera.
Lucy.
Gabriel.
Nobody else.
At 3:10 a.m., Vera stood alone in a guest bedroom.
She hadn't slept.
Her sister was alive.
Her father had been right.
Marcus Moretti had ordered the fire.
Silas had hidden Lucy.
And somewhere beneath a building in Manhattan might be the ledger that killed Daniel Dunn.
A soft knock came.
"Vera?"
Dante.
She opened the door.
He handed her a jacket.
"It's cold underground."
She accepted it.
"Thanks."
He lingered.
"You don't have to come."
"Yes, I do."
"I knew you'd say that."
"Then why ask?"
"Because nobody gave your family choices twelve years ago."
Vera looked at him differently.
For a second, Dante Moretti wasn't a crime lord.
He was simply a son whose father had been murdered by someone he trusted.
"Did you see your father after?"
Dante understood.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
The moment stretched.
Then Lucy appeared at the hallway.
"We need to go."
They descended to the garage.
Gabriel waited beside an SUV.
Dante stopped.
"Where's the second car?"
Gabriel frowned.
"What second car?"
Dante's hand moved toward his jacket.
Too late.
Headlights appeared behind them.
The garage doors slammed shut.
A black sedan rolled forward.
Its rear door opened.
Marcus Moretti stepped out.
He looked almost amused.
"Going somewhere, nephew?"
Dante moved in front of Vera and Lucy.
Marcus's smile widened.
Then another man emerged from the opposite side.
Silas Vale.
Vera felt Lucy grab her hand.
Silas looked directly at the two sisters.
"I'm disappointed," he said softly.
Marcus reached into his coat.
"And I'm tired of unfinished business."
Then Gabriel stepped away from Dante.
May you like
He crossed the garage.
And stood beside Marcus.
