Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Wasn’t Afraid of Dante Marino
At exactly two o’clock, two IRS agents walked into Marino Tower carrying leather briefcases and expressions that suggested they considered smiling an accounting irregularity.
I smiled enough for all of us.
“Agent Patterson. Agent Shaw. Welcome.”
Neither man returned it.
Wonderful.
Behind them, rain smeared Chicago into silver.
Inside my head, however, there was only the photograph sitting on my phone.
Sal Genovese.
Standing beside Vincent Rizzo.
Dante’s consigliere.
Vincent had served the Marino family since Dante was in college. He had been the man who stood beside Dante when Clara’s coffin was lowered into the ground. He attended every anniversary Mass. He knew every account, every warehouse, every enemy.
If Sal had been secretly meeting Vincent before three million dollars vanished, the theft was bigger than theft.
I wanted to show Dante immediately.
Instead I spent seventy-three minutes explaining why a fleet of warehouse refrigeration units qualified for accelerated depreciation.
Sometimes survival was spectacularly boring.
At 3:26, the auditors finally left.
Brooke appeared beside my desk.
“You look like you’re going to kill someone.”
“I’m deciding whether to.”
She laughed.
I didn’t.
Her smile vanished.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
When she walked away, I reopened the anonymous message.
I zoomed in on the photograph.
Vincent wore a charcoal coat.
Sal looked nervous.
Behind them stood a restaurant called Bellano.
I recognized it.
Little Italy.
Old-school Italian place.
No Marino ownership.
No obvious connection.
The text beneath the picture remained burned into my mind.
Ask your boss who killed Clara.
Someone wanted Dante to see this.
Or wanted me to show him.
That distinction mattered.
I locked my computer, grabbed my phone, and walked toward his office.
Marco stepped in front of me.
“He has a meeting.”
“With?”
“Vincent.”
I stopped.
My timing had become cosmically terrible.
Through the closed doors came muted voices.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
Marco frowned.
“Why?”
I stared at him.
Marco had worked for Dante for eleven years. He was loyal in the uncomplicated way only certain men could be.
I lowered my voice.
“Was Vincent here this morning?”
“No.”
“When did he arrive?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Did he ask about Sal?”
Marco’s eyes changed.
“Emily.”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“What did he ask?”
Marco hesitated.
“That’s not—”
“What did he ask?”
“He wanted to know where Sal was being held.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who told him?”
“Nobody.”
“Good.”
Marco studied me.
“What’s going on?”
Before I could answer, the office door opened.
Vincent Rizzo walked out.
He was sixty-one, silver-haired, elegant, always perfectly dressed. The type of man who made other people feel underdressed at funerals.
His smile appeared immediately.
“Emily.”
“Vincent.”
“I hear you caused quite the disturbance this morning.”
“Mr. Marino signed his tax documents.”
“So I heard.”
His eyes stayed on mine a moment too long.
Then he looked at my phone.
I slipped it into my pocket.
A tiny movement.
But Vincent noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He noticed everything.
“Well,” he said pleasantly, “enjoy your evening.”
“You too.”
He walked toward the elevators.
I waited until the doors closed.
Then I entered Dante’s office without knocking.
He was sitting behind his desk.
“Have you considered installing a lock?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I’d have the key.”
A brief smile.
The laughter from that morning had vanished, but something remained.
He seemed less distant.
More present.
“Dinner,” he said.
“Later.”
His eyebrows rose.
I closed the door.
“Who killed Clara?”
Everything in the room changed.
Dante did not move.
Not visibly.
But the warmth disappeared.
His eyes became flat.
“Excuse me?”
I removed my phone.
“Someone sent me this.”
I placed it on his desk.
He looked at the message.
Then the photograph.
For a long time, silence.
His jaw tightened.
“Where did you get this?”
“Unknown number.”
“When?”
“Before the auditors arrived.”
“Why didn’t you show me immediately?”
“Because the federal government had questions about forklifts.”
“Emily.”
“I wanted to verify what I could first.”
His finger touched the screen.
Vincent.
Sal.
Bellano.
“Three nights ago,” I said.
Dante’s gaze stayed on the photograph.
“Vincent told me he hadn’t spoken to Sal in two weeks.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
Dante looked at me.
“Delete this.”
“No.”
“Emily.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever sent it knows my number.”
“That’s exactly why you should delete it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if I want you alive.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I folded my arms.
“You think I’m in danger?”
“I think someone just used my wife’s death to contact my secretary.”
“Executive assistant.”
He stared.
“Really?”
“I worked hard for the title.”
He stood.
The humor disappeared again.
“Listen to me.”
He walked around the desk.
“You go home tonight. Marco drives you. Two men remain outside your apartment.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“I have to visit Noah.”
“I’ll have men there.”
“At a psychiatric hospital?”
“Yes.”
“That’s subtle.”
“I’m not interested in subtle.”
“I noticed.”
He stepped closer.
The distance between us became uncomfortable for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.
“I am not joking, Emily.”
“Neither am I.”
His voice lowered.
“The car bomb that killed Clara was supposed to kill me.”
“I know.”
“You know the newspaper version.”
“What’s the other version?”
He looked toward the windows.
For the first time since I had known him, Dante looked uncertain.
Not weak.
Never weak.
But tired.
“The bomb was planted beneath my car.”
I waited.
“She took it that morning because hers wouldn’t start.”
My stomach dropped.
He continued staring at the rain.
“She called me from the garage.”
His voice had become distant.
“Asked if I minded.”
He swallowed.
“I told her to take it.”
Nine years.
And he still remembered the sentence.
“I heard the explosion through the phone.”
I did not speak.
There are moments when even I understand silence.
Dante’s hand curled against the edge of his desk.
“Police blamed a rival crew.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I killed the men responsible.”
The statement came without pride.
Without remorse.
Simply fact.
“And you believed that ended it?”
“I wanted to.”
My gaze returned to Vincent’s face on the phone.
“Who knew Clara was using your car?”
Dante looked at me.
That was when I knew he had already asked himself the same question.
“Almost no one.”
“Vincent?”
Silence.
“Dante.”
“Yes.”
The first time I used his first name at work, neither of us seemed to notice.
“Yes,” he repeated. “Vincent knew.”
The air became heavy.
I thought about Sal.
About three million dollars.
About Bellano.
“Where is Sal now?”
“South Side office.”
“Who knows?”
“Marco. Two guards. Me.”
“And Vincent asked where he was being held.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“Marco told you.”
“Yes.”
He reached for his phone.
I caught his wrist.
It was an absurd reflex.
His eyes dropped to my fingers.
So did mine.
I let go.
“Don’t call anyone yet.”
“You’re giving orders again.”
“Someone sent the photo to me instead of you.”
“Which means?”
“Maybe your communications are compromised.”
He stared.
“Or,” I added, “someone thinks I’m easier to manipulate.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
His mouth twitched.
“Interesting theory.”
“Thank you.”
“I meant the idea that anyone who has met you would think you were easy to manipulate.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
It was a mistake.
Because Dante saw it.
And he smiled too.
For half a second, grief and danger disappeared.
Then my phone buzzed.
We both looked down.
Another message.
If Dante wants the truth, ask why Clara went to St. Matthew’s the night before she died.
Dante’s face drained of color.
I read it again.
“St. Matthew’s?”
He took the phone from my hand.
His breathing changed.
“What?”
He did not answer.
“Dante.”
Finally, he looked at me.
“Clara hated churches.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“She was raised Catholic, but after her mother died, she stopped going.”
“Could she have met someone there?”
He was silent.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t know.”
That frightened me.
Because Dante Marino always knew.
My phone buzzed again in his hand.
A final message.
You have forty-eight hours before the proof disappears.
Then one more.
An address.
No name.
No instructions.
Just a street number in Evanston.
I recognized the neighborhood.
My heart stopped.
Dante saw my face.
“What?”
I took the phone back.
“That address is six blocks from Noah’s facility.”
Dante was already moving.
He pressed the intercom.
“Marco.”
The response came instantly.
“Yes?”
“Car downstairs.”
“For where?”
“Evanston.”
I grabbed my coat.
Dante turned toward me.
“You’re staying here.”
I actually laughed.
He stared.
“You think someone sends me an address next to my brother and I stay behind?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Emily.”
“Dante.”
Marco appeared in the doorway.
His gaze moved between us.
He seemed to calculate his chances of surviving the conversation.
Dante finally exhaled.
“Fine.”
I put on my coat.
“But you do exactly what I tell you.”
“Within reason.”
“Emily.”
“Fine.”
He took his own coat from the chair.
The gun from that morning was gone.
Still, I knew Dante never went anywhere unarmed.
We rode the elevator in silence.
At street level, a black SUV waited beneath the awning.
Rain hammered the pavement.
Dante opened the rear door for me himself.
I paused.
“Is this the dinner invitation?”
His eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“Good. The atmosphere is terrible.”
Marco actually snorted.
Dante looked at him.
Marco became extremely interested in traffic.
I climbed inside.
As the SUV pulled into the wet Chicago streets, I watched the city lights slide across the glass.
I should have been terrified.
Instead, I thought about Noah.
The anonymous messages.
Clara.
Vincent.
And the man beside me who had laughed for the first time in nine years only hours earlier.
Dante sat in silence, staring ahead.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
“What?”
A voice shouted on the other end.
Dante’s entire body went rigid.
“When?”
Another pause.
His gaze met mine.
Something terrible had happened.
He lowered the phone.
“Sal is gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Escaped?”
“No.”
Dante’s expression turned deadly.
“The two guards watching him are unconscious.”
“Who took him?”
He looked out at the rain.
Then said the name neither of us wanted to hear.
“Vincent.”
And suddenly the photograph wasn’t a warning anymore.
May you like
It was the beginning of a war.
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