Chapter 1 - The Wine She Was Never Supposed to Taste
Sophie Bennett had been staring at Dante Romano’s wine for exactly four minutes.
She knew because the antique clock above the fireplace had chimed once, and somehow she had spent every second since then dusting the same corner of his desk.
Her feather duster moved.
Her attention did not.
Across the enormous private study, afternoon light spilled through three floor-to-ceiling windows and struck a dark green bottle resting beside a crystal glass.
The bottle looked expensive.
Not simply expensive in the way wealthy people described watches, suits, or cars.
It looked like something that came with history.
A cream-colored label.
A burgundy wax seal.
A faded vineyard crest.
And a year printed beneath it that made Sophie stop breathing for half a second.
She tightened her fingers around the feather duster.
No.
Absolutely not.
She had been employed at the Romano estate for eleven weeks, and there were several rules every member of the household staff understood without needing them written down.
Do not enter Dante Romano’s bedroom without permission.
Do not ask questions about the men who came and went after midnight.
Do not touch anything inside the locked cabinet behind his desk.
And, perhaps most importantly, never forget whose house you were standing in.
Dante Romano was thirty-seven years old and owned half a dozen legitimate companies across Chicago.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Shipping firms.
Construction companies.
What he owned beyond those respectable business fronts depended entirely on whom you asked.
People lowered their voices when they said his name.
Politicians returned his phone calls.
Bankers waited when he was late.
Men who usually dominated every room became strangely polite when Dante entered.
Sophie had seen it happen.
He never needed to shout.
That was the unsettling part.
He simply looked at people until they remembered their manners.
Sophie looked toward the study door.
Empty.
She glanced toward the hallway.
Also empty.
Her gaze returned to the bottle.
“This is becoming ridiculous,” she whispered.
She crossed toward the bookshelf.
Stopped.
Looked back.
The wine remained exactly where Dante had left it.
Of course it did.
Wine did not usually flee when accused of being suspicious.
Sophie exhaled through her nose.
She had shelves to polish.
A mantel to dust.
A stack of leather-bound books to straighten.
Three enormous windows that probably cost more than her entire apartment building.
Yet she found herself walking toward the desk.
“Only looking,” she murmured.
Looking was harmless.
Looking had never gotten anybody fired.
Probably.
Up close, the label became clearer.
And Sophie’s playful expression disappeared.
She brushed her thumb lightly over the faded emblem.
A circular crest.
Two vines.
A small stone tower in the middle.
Beneath it, barely visible, were the words:
Bellini Family Reserve.
Her stomach tightened.
For a moment, she was no longer inside Dante Romano’s mansion.
She was seventeen again.
Standing behind a wooden tasting counter.
Sunlight pouring through dusty windows.
Her father laughing while uncorking a bottle.
“Don’t let the label tell you what you’re supposed to taste, Soph.”
She could still hear his voice.
Her father, Michael Bennett, had taught her wine the way other fathers taught baseball.
He had never been rich.
He had never owned a vineyard.
But he had known every bottle that came through Bennett & Son Imports.
He had known soil, weather, harvest years, barrels, grapes.
He had taught Sophie that wine was memory trapped in glass.
Then one night, fifteen years ago, Bennett & Son Imports had burned to the ground.
Three months later, her father was dead.
Officially, it had been a car accident.
Sophie had spent years convincing herself she believed that.
She stepped away from Dante’s desk.
“No.”
Good.
Responsible adult behavior had finally arrived.
She turned toward her cleaning cart.
Took two steps.
Stopped.
Her eyes closed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
She turned around again.
That was mistake number one.
Mistake number two was realizing the bottle had already been opened.
No cork to struggle with.
No wax to break.
Just wine waiting beneath the afternoon light.
Sophie approached slowly.
She leaned closer and smelled near the opening.
Dark cherry.
Oak.
Clove.
Something floral.
And beneath all of it—
She frowned.
Something familiar.
Something she had smelled in her father’s cellar years ago.
She picked up the empty crystal glass.
“Just to smell it properly.”
She poured barely enough to cover the bottom.
Then stared at what she had done.
The wine glimmered dark ruby.
Sophie looked toward the ceiling.
“If you’re going to stop me, now would be a good time.”
Divine intervention did not arrive.
She raised the glass.
Swirled.
Breathed in.
Her expression softened.
For one beautiful second, she was somewhere else.
Wooden barrels.
Dusty sunlight.
Her father’s weathered hands.
His old notebook sitting open beside a corkscrew.
She remembered being sixteen and tasting a bottle he had saved for a wealthy client.
“It tastes like angry berries,” she had announced.
Her father had laughed until tears filled his eyes.
Descriptions don’t have to sound smart, Soph.
They just have to be true.
The memory disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
Sophie looked down at the wine.
One sip.
That was all.
She lifted the glass.
Tasted.
Froze.
Her eyebrows drew together.
She swallowed slowly.
Then tasted again.
“You cost how much?”
She examined the label.
A third sip.
Her face changed from curiosity to professional offense.
“This is showing off,” she muttered.
She rolled the wine across her tongue.
“Too much oak.”
Another taste.
“And whoever told him this needed twelve more years in a cellar should be arrested.”
She paused.
Considered whose wine she was criticizing.
“Actually, perhaps not arrested. He might take that suggestion seriously.”
Sophie’s mouth twitched.
She set the glass down.
Done.
Common sense had arrived late, but technically it had arrived.
She returned to the bookshelf.
Three seconds passed.
Her eyes drifted toward the desk.
“No.”
She dusted another shelf.
Looked again.
Absolutely not.
She turned her back to the bottle.
Unfortunately, Sophie possessed peripheral vision.
The wine would be opening now.
The aroma changing.
And if she had already committed the crime, leaving before obtaining complete information would simply make the crime pointless.
She slowly looked over her shoulder.
“This is how people end up in documentaries.”
She returned to the desk.
This time she swirled the wine longer.
Waited.
Smelled.
The oak softened.
The fruit opened.
She tasted.
“Oh.”
That was better.
Much better.
She leaned against the desk.
The glass rested delicately between her fingers.
She had forgotten she was working.
Forgotten the uniform.
Forgotten the mansion.
Forgotten Dante Romano.
Until the cork rolled across the desk.
Sophie lunged and caught it before it fell.
Then immediately dropped it.
It bounced once.
Disappeared beneath Dante’s enormous desk.
“Of course.”
She crouched.
Reached beneath.
Nothing.
She leaned farther.
Her fingers brushed the cork.
“Got you.”
She stood too quickly.
Her hip struck the desk.
The wine trembled dangerously.
Sophie grabbed the glass.
Not one drop spilled.
She smiled.
“Professional.”
Then she noticed a fingerprint on the polished desk.
She grabbed her cloth.
Wiped it away.
Then another.
Then the glass stem.
Sophie stopped.
Stared at herself.
“Oh, brilliant.”
She was no longer simply drinking the mafia boss’s wine.
She was wiping fingerprints afterward.
“This has become organized crime.”
She picked up her cleaning supplies.
Time to leave.
Then she noticed the remaining mouthful.
Leaving it would be evidence.
Pouring it away would be wasteful.
Pouring it back into the bottle would be disgusting.
She stared at the glass.
“One final sip. For disposal purposes.”
She drank.
It wasn’t empty.
She frowned.
“How are you still here?”
She lifted it again.
And heard a voice behind her.
“Enjoying it?”
Sophie froze.
The crystal glass remained halfway to her lips.
She did not turn around immediately.
Because sometimes when disaster arrived, dignity required a few seconds of preparation.
Slowly, Sophie looked over her shoulder.
Dante Romano stood in the doorway.
Black suit.
Black shirt.
One hand in his trouser pocket.
His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead.
His expression was unreadable.
Not angry.
That somehow made it worse.
Sophie lowered the glass.
Dante’s gaze moved from her face to the wine.
Then back.
Silence stretched between them.
Sophie swallowed.
“I was checking the quality.”
One of his eyebrows lifted.
“Of course.”
“It’s an important part of housekeeping.”
“I wasn’t aware.”
“There are many hidden responsibilities.”
“I’m learning that.”
Sophie placed the glass down with extraordinary care.
Dante entered the room.
His footsteps were unhurried.
She had watched grown men become nervous under that same approach.
Sophie refused to become one of them.
At least visibly.
Dante stopped on the opposite side of the desk.
“How is it?”
She blinked.
“What?”
“The wine.”
Sophie hesitated.
This was not the reaction she had prepared for.
She had expected a warning.
Dismissal.
At minimum, a speech involving private property.
Instead, Dante looked genuinely curious.
Sophie glanced at the glass.
“It’s good.”
“Only good?”
She looked at him.
“You want the truth?”
“I rarely ask questions when I don’t.”
She exhaled.
“Fine. It’s excellent fruit buried beneath too much ambition.”
Something almost like amusement appeared in his eyes.
“Meaning?”
“The oak is trying too hard. It needs air, but not twelve more years. Whoever told you to cellar it longer either wanted to sound important or didn’t taste it properly.”
Dante stared at her.
Sophie’s confidence wavered.
“What?”
“Where did you learn that?”
She looked away.
“My father.”
“What was his name?”
The question came too quickly.
Sophie’s fingers tightened around the cleaning cloth.
“Michael Bennett.”
Dante went completely still.
It was subtle.
Most people might have missed it.
Sophie did not.
The faint amusement vanished from his face.
His gaze lowered to the bottle.
Then returned to her.
“Michael Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago did he die?”
Sophie’s unease sharpened.
“Fifteen years.”
Dante said nothing.
Then he reached for the bottle.
Turned it slowly.
His thumb stopped on the vineyard crest.
The Bellini crest.
For the first time since Sophie had met him, Dante Romano looked unsettled.
Not frightened.
Not shocked.
Something deeper.
Recognition.
“You should go,” he said quietly.
Sophie blinked.
“Am I fired?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“Go, Sophie.”
His tone stopped her.
She gathered the cleaning cart.
Before leaving, she looked back.
Dante was still staring at the bottle.
His jaw had tightened.
His expression had become distant.
Sophie stepped into the hallway.
The door closed behind her.
She should have walked away.
Instead, she remained there.
And through the thick wooden door, she heard Dante make a phone call.
His voice was low.
Urgent.
“Find everything we still have on Michael Bennett.”
Sophie’s heartbeat stopped.
A pause.
Then Dante spoke again.
“And tell no one.”
Another silence.
His final words chilled her.
May you like
“Because if Sophie Bennett is his daughter, then somebody lied to me fifteen years ago.”
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