Chapter 2 - Five Minutes
Dante did not release Ellie.
Not immediately.
He remained kneeling beside the desk, one hand resting carefully between the child’s shoulder blades while rain whispered against the windows.
Ellie’s breathing gradually slowed.
Dante’s did not.
Fifteen years.
He had spent fifteen years training himself not to think about Lucia’s final night.
He had built walls where memories used to live.
Business replaced grief.
Responsibility replaced questions.
Control replaced everything else.
Yet four words from a seven-year-old girl had found a door he had forgotten existed.
Five minutes.
That had been Lucia’s phrase.
Not something she said casually.
When they were children, Lucia would creep into Dante’s bedroom after nightmares.
Their father had been severe even by Mercer standards and believed fear was something children should learn to swallow.
Dante had never agreed.
Whenever Lucia became frightened, she would sit beside her older brother and whisper, “Five minutes.”
Dante would hold her.
When five minutes passed, he would ask whether her heart had stopped hurting.
Usually she would say yes.
Sometimes she would lie.
Years later, after their mother died, Lucia still occasionally used the phrase.
It became something private between them.
A secret language.
And the final time Dante heard it had been the night Lucia disappeared.
Now Ellie Voss had repeated it.
Dante gently moved the child back enough to see her face.
“Ellie.”
She wiped her cheek.
“Yes?”
“Who taught your father to say that?”
She frowned.
“What?”
“Five minutes makes the heart stop hurting.”
“My dad always said it.”
“Did he ever tell you where he heard it?”
She shook her head.
Dante’s pulse increased.
“What was your father’s full name?”
“Jacob Thomas Voss.”
Dante went completely still.
The name meant nothing.
At least at first.
Then something stirred.
Voss.
A warehouse.
A young driver.
Rain.
Dante stood suddenly.
Ellie stepped back.
Had he frightened her?
He immediately lowered his voice.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The study door opened.
Rosa appeared.
Her face drained of color when she saw her daughter standing beside Dante.
“Ellie!”
Ellie turned.
“Mom.”
Rosa hurried toward her.
“I told you to stay beside the kitchen.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rosa looked at Dante.
“Mr. Mercer, I apologize. She knows she isn’t allowed—”
“She’s fine.”
Rosa stopped.
Dante watched her carefully.
“How long were you married to Jacob?”
The question blindsided her.
Rosa’s eyes changed.
“Eleven years.”
“What did he do before you met him?”
“He drove trucks. Security work sometimes.”
“For whom?”
“I don’t know all of them.”
“Did he ever work for Mercer Holdings?”
Rosa stared.
“I don’t think so.”
That was not the same as no.
Dante knew the difference.
Ellie tugged Rosa’s sleeve.
“Mom, Mr. Mercer hugged me.”
Rosa looked at Dante as if Ellie had claimed the statue in the foyer had started singing.
“He did?”
“For five minutes.”
Rosa’s face changed again.
A flicker.
Dante caught it.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Rosa.”
She tightened her grip on Ellie’s shoulder.
“My husband used to say that.”
“I know.”
Rosa’s gaze snapped toward him.
“How?”
“Ellie told me.”
That explanation clearly did not satisfy her.
Dante stepped closer.
“Did Jacob ever mention someone named Lucia?”
For several seconds, Rosa did not move.
Then she whispered, “Why are you asking me that?”
Dante felt cold move through his chest.
Because that was not the response of someone hearing an unfamiliar name.
“You knew it.”
Rosa looked toward Ellie.
“Sweetheart, go wait outside.”
“But—”
“Please.”
Ellie reluctantly walked toward the hallway.
Dante waited until she disappeared.
Then he closed the study doors.
“Tell me.”
Rosa looked pale.
“I promised Jacob.”
“He’s dead.”
The words were harsher than Dante intended.
Pain flashed through Rosa’s face.
He corrected himself.
“I’m sorry.”
She folded her arms across herself.
“Jacob didn’t talk much about his life before we met.”
“But he talked about Lucia.”
“Once.”
“When?”
“The night Ellie was born.”
Dante felt something tighten.
“What did he say?”
Rosa stared at the carpet.
“He was holding Ellie in the hospital.”
Her voice softened.
“He said there had once been another girl who was terrified and needed someone to protect her.”
Dante could hear his heartbeat.
“Lucia?”
“He only said the name once.”
“What else?”
“That if anything ever happened to him, there were things I shouldn’t go looking for.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“What things?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Rosa.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Did he leave anything behind?”
Rosa said nothing.
Dante saw the answer.
“What?”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“Mr. Mercer, I have a daughter.”
“I know.”
“You have enemies.”
“Yes.”
“My husband was afraid of something before he died.”
The room seemed suddenly colder.
“Was his death an accident?”
Rosa’s lips parted.
“I don’t know.”
Dante took one slow breath.
“What did he leave?”
Rosa looked toward the door, making sure Ellie was gone.
“A box.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“There’s a lock.”
“Why keep it?”
“Because Jacob made me promise.”
“What promise?”
Rosa finally looked directly into Dante’s eyes.
“If anyone from the Mercer family ever asked about Lucia, I was supposed to take Ellie and leave.”
Silence.
The rain seemed louder.
Dante had been threatened many times in his life.
Nothing had frightened him as much as that sentence.
“Why?”
“Jacob never told me.”
“Did he say who you were supposed to fear?”
Rosa hesitated.
Then whispered, “He said I shouldn’t assume the dangerous Mercer was you.”
For the first time that afternoon, Dante looked toward the study door.
Toward his own house.
Toward the halls where people he had known for decades moved every day.
His uncle Sebastian had an office upstairs.
His advisers used the east wing.
Security reports passed through three different hands before reaching Dante.
Lucia’s disappearance had been investigated internally fifteen years ago.
By Mercer people.
People Dante trusted.
The official story had been simple.
Lucia had left the estate angry after an argument.
Her car crashed through a barrier during a storm.
The vehicle was recovered from the river.
Lucia’s body never was.
Everyone told Dante the current had taken her.
He had spent years blaming himself because he had been the last person to see her.
But now a dead man had left instructions warning his wife to flee if anyone asked about Lucia.
Dante walked to the window.
Outside, Ellie stood beneath the covered entrance, staring at the rain.
A black sedan waited beyond her.
Three guards stood near the steps.
Nothing looked unusual.
Yet suddenly Dante trusted none of it.
“When does your shift end?” he asked.
“Six.”
“You and Ellie are not going home alone.”
Rosa stiffened.
“I don’t need—”
“That wasn’t a criticism.”
He turned toward her.
“If Jacob knew something about Lucia, then whoever frightened him may know you have it.”
Rosa’s face lost more color.
“You think someone could hurt Ellie?”
Dante’s voice became almost frighteningly calm.
“No one is touching Ellie.”
The certainty in his tone made Rosa believe him.
Mostly.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get the box.”
“And then?”
Dante looked at the photograph on his desk.
His younger sister smiled at him from fifteen years in the past.
“I’m going to find out why a dead man taught his daughter words that belonged to my sister.”
Outside, Ellie pressed one hand against the glass door.
She smiled faintly when Dante looked at her.
For fifteen years, Dante had believed Lucia’s story ended in a river.
Now, for the first time, he wondered whether the story everyone had given him was not a tragedy.
But a lie.
And somewhere inside the Mercer estate, someone had spent fifteen years making sure Dante never asked the right question.
May you like
That night, Rosa Voss would finally open the box her husband had forbidden her to touch.
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