Chapter 2 - Until Now
For several seconds Elena heard nothing except the blood pounding in her ears.
“My father?”
Vittorio Santi smiled as though the conversation amused him.
“Giovanni Rossi.”
Elena's fingers tightened around the champagne tray.
Her father had been dead for five years.
He had left behind unpaid bills, gambling debts, two cheap watches, a stack of betting slips, and enough regret to fill Elena's entire adulthood.
He had not left behind connections to men attending illegal auctions underneath Milan.
At least, that was what Elena had believed.
“How did you know him?”
Santi took one step forward.
Luca immediately moved into his path.
It was subtle.
Still, everyone nearby understood.
The warning was unmistakable.
Santi's smile deepened.
“Protective already?”
“Walk away, Vittorio.”
“We're having a conversation.”
“No. You're trying to start one.”
Santi glanced at Elena.
“Ask him why.”
Elena looked at Luca.
“Why what?”
Luca's jaw tightened.
Santi seemed delighted.
“You see? He doesn't tell people much.”
“Enough.”
“Did he tell you Giovanni once worked in this very building?”
Elena forgot to breathe.
“My father was a mechanic.”
Santi laughed softly.
“Was he?”
Luca stepped closer to him.
The two men were nearly the same height, but Luca's physical presence made Santi appear almost delicate.
“Leave.”
Santi shrugged.
“As you wish.”
He began walking away before stopping.
Then he looked over his shoulder at Elena.
“Your father was very good at keeping secrets.”
His gaze moved to Luca.
“Until he wasn't.”
Then he disappeared into the crowd.
Elena turned to Luca.
“What did that mean?”
“Not here.”
“No. Here is perfect.”
Several guests were watching.
Luca noticed.
“Marco.”
The head server appeared so quickly Elena suspected he had been waiting nearby.
“Mr. Demir.”
“Elena is finished for the night.”
Elena stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“She'll be paid the full shift.”
“That isn't the point.”
“It should be.”
“It isn't.”
Marco looked terrified to be standing between them.
“Elena—”
“Don't.”
She handed him the tray.
“I can speak for myself.”
Luca's expression became unreadable.
“Yes,” he said. “I've noticed.”
“Then stop ordering people around on my behalf.”
“I'll stop when you're somewhere safe.”
“I don't belong to you.”
The silence that followed seemed unnaturally large.
Luca's gaze held hers.
“No,” he said quietly.
Then his eyes moved toward the doorway through which Santi had vanished.
“You don't.”
Something about his tone made Elena believe he meant it.
That only confused her more.
Luca took his phone from his pocket.
“Dario.”
A large man near the entrance immediately approached.
“Take Miss Rossi upstairs.”
Elena folded her arms.
“I can take myself upstairs.”
Dario wisely said nothing.
Luca leaned toward her.
His voice dropped.
“There are forty-two private security cameras in this building. Seven stopped transmitting twelve minutes ago.”
Her anger cooled.
“Is that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“Because they weren't turned off by my people.”
Elena glanced toward the exits.
“Renato?”
“No.”
“Santi?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
Luca studied her.
“That is what I intend to find out.”
For the first time, Elena obeyed without argument.
Dario escorted her through a service corridor and into an elevator guarded by two men.
As the doors closed, she saw Luca remaining in the ballroom.
He was looking directly at Santi across the room.
Neither man smiled now.
The elevator rose.
Elena watched the floor numbers.
Minus three.
Minus two.
Minus one.
Ground.
The doors opened into an underground parking garage.
“Wait,” Elena said. “I thought we were going upstairs.”
“We are leaving through another exit.”
“Why?”
Dario looked uncomfortable.
“Mr. Demir's instructions.”
“Of course.”
They reached a black sedan.
A driver opened the rear door.
Elena stopped.
“I am not getting into a strange car.”
Dario looked at her.
“It's Mr. Demir's.”
“That makes it slightly worse.”
For the first time, Dario appeared close to smiling.
“Miss Rossi, I'm thirty-seven years old, married, and my wife will kill me if I don't get home before breakfast. I would greatly appreciate it if you allowed me to complete this assignment.”
Despite everything, Elena laughed.
“Your wife scares you?”
“More than Mr. Demir.”
“That may be the first sensible thing I've heard tonight.”
She got into the car.
Dario joined the driver in front.
Twenty minutes later, Milan moved past her window in streaks of amber light.
Elena finally checked her phone.
Six missed calls.
Three messages.
The first two were from the debt collectors.
The third was different.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
She opened it.
YOUR FATHER STOLE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO US.
Elena's stomach dropped.
Another message appeared.
WE BELIEVE HE GAVE IT TO YOU.
She stared at the screen.
A third message arrived.
48 HOURS.
Elena leaned forward.
“Dario.”
He turned.
“What?”
She showed him the phone.
His expression changed instantly.
“Don't respond.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Dario took out his own phone.
“We're changing destination.”
“No.”
He was already calling someone.
“Mr. Demir.”
Elena reached through the gap between the seats.
“Give me that.”
Dario moved the phone out of reach.
“Absolutely not.”
“Dario.”
He put the call on speaker.
Luca answered immediately.
“What happened?”
Dario spoke.
“She received a threat.”
Silence.
Then Luca said, “Read it.”
Elena interrupted.
“I'm perfectly capable of—”
“Elena.”
The way he said her name stopped her.
Not because it was threatening.
Because he sounded genuinely concerned.
She read the messages.
Another silence.
Then Luca said something in Turkish too quickly for Elena to understand.
Dario answered.
“Understood.”
The call ended.
Elena looked between the two men.
“What did he say?”
“We're taking you somewhere secure.”
“My apartment.”
“No.”
“My apartment is secure.”
Dario glanced back.
“Someone sent you a photograph of your door yesterday.”
Elena froze.
“How do you know that?”
Dario looked guilty.
Luca's voice suddenly came from the phone again.
Apparently the call had not ended.
“I know because we traced the number.”
Elena grabbed Dario's phone.
“You had my phone traced?”
“No. I had the threat traced after Marco told me one of his servers had been receiving calls.”
“Marco told you?”
“He was worried.”
“That does not give you the right—”
“The message came from a prepaid device purchased by one of Santi's companies.”
Elena stopped speaking.
Luca continued.
“You aren't going home tonight.”
“You can't decide that.”
“No. You can decide.”
His voice was calm.
“You can go home and pretend this is unrelated to your father. Or you can come somewhere secure, sleep, and tomorrow morning I'll show you something Giovanni Rossi left behind.”
Elena's heart seemed to stop.
“What?”
“Your father left something?”
“Yes.”
“With you?”
“No.”
“Then with whom?”
Luca answered softly.
“With mine.”
The city outside blurred.
Elena pressed the phone tighter to her ear.
“Your father knew my father?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“That story is longer than a car ride.”
“Try.”
Luca exhaled.
“My father ran Demir Antiquities before I did. Officially, it imported legitimate collections. Unofficially, parts of the business were less respectable.”
“Parts?”
“I'm trying to be diplomatic.”
“Don't.”
Another pause.
“Your father was an accountant.”
Elena nearly laughed.
“No, he wasn't.”
“He became a mechanic after leaving.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“My father barely finished school.”
“He didn't need a degree to understand numbers.”
She remembered something.
Late nights at the kitchen table.
Her father calculating odds without a calculator.
Remembering complicated totals in his head.
Correcting invoices at the repair shop.
She had never thought much about it.
Luca continued.
“Giovanni worked for my father for eleven years.”
Elena's throat tightened.
“What happened?”
“He discovered someone was stealing from the organization.”
“Who?”
“We never proved it.”
“Santi?”
“Possibly.”
“And my father?”
“He disappeared.”
“He came home.”
“Yes. With you.”
Elena stared through the window.
She had been eleven when her father suddenly moved them across the city.
New neighborhood.
New school.
New telephone number.
He had told her they needed cheaper rent.
“What did he steal?”
“I don't know.”
“He stole something from you?”
“My father believed Giovanni took records proving who was diverting money.”
“And you think he gave them to me?”
“No.”
“But Santi does.”
“Yes.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Everything suddenly felt unstable.
Her father's gambling.
The debts.
The threats.
What if she had misunderstood his entire life?
Then a memory came.
Her father drunk at the kitchen table.
Apologizing.
Signing papers.
Making seventeen-year-old Elena sign too.
Just paperwork, tesoro.
Nothing important.
She had trusted him.
Six months later he was dead.
And the creditors came.
“Elena?”
She opened her eyes.
“What?”
“Are you still there?”
She realized Luca sounded different over the phone.
Less like the man everyone feared.
More like a man trying not to frighten her.
“Yes.”
“Come to the house.”
“What house?”
“Mine.”
She almost refused automatically.
Then another message appeared on her phone.
A photograph.
Her childhood apartment.
The building where she had lived with her father.
Beneath it were five words.
WE REMEMBER WHERE HE HID.
Elena's skin went cold.
“Luca.”
“Yes?”
“I think they know something.”
“What?”
She read him the message.
This time Luca's answer came instantly.
“Dario.”
“Yes.”
“Take her to the house.”
Elena looked at the dark streets behind them.
For the first time she did not argue.
Forty minutes later, iron gates opened before a large villa overlooking the city.
The car climbed a long driveway.
Luca was waiting at the entrance.
He had removed his suit jacket.
His sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms.
For some reason, seeing him that way made Elena more nervous than seeing him in the ballroom.
He opened her door himself.
She stepped out.
“You're safe here.”
Elena looked at the armed security near the gate.
“I suppose that's relative.”
“It is.”
He led her inside.
The villa was beautiful but surprisingly quiet.
No servants rushing around.
No loud music.
No evidence of the wild criminal palace she had imagined.
Luca took her into a study.
On the desk sat a small wooden box.
Old.
Scratched.
Elena stopped.
She recognized it.
Her father had kept it on the highest shelf of their apartment when she was a child.
She had not seen it in fifteen years.
Luca watched her reaction.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“Then I suppose my father was telling the truth.”
Elena moved closer.
Her fingers trembled.
“What's inside?”
Luca opened the box.
There was only one object.
A silver key.
And beneath it, a photograph.
Elena picked up the picture.
Her father stood beside another man.
A younger version of Luca stood behind them.
Maybe nineteen.
Maybe twenty.
And Elena herself stood at the edge of the photograph.
She was seven years old.
Luca was looking down at her.
She looked up at him.
“You've met me before.”
His expression became distant.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you say anything?”
“Because you didn't remember.”
Elena stared at the photograph.
Then she noticed writing on the back.
Her father's handwriting.
She read it aloud.
“If anything happens to me, trust the Demir boy.”
Her eyes lifted slowly.
Luca was watching her.
And suddenly Elena realized why he had crossed the ballroom the moment Renato touched her.
It had not begun that night.
May you like
Luca Demir had known who she was from the second she walked through the door.
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