Chapter 2 - The Laugh No One Was Supposed to Hear
By three o’clock that afternoon, everyone in Marino Tower knew.
Nobody admitted knowing.
That would have been suicidal.
But they knew.
Dante Marino had laughed.
The rumor traveled from executive security to accounting, from accounting to the warehouse supervisors, from the warehouses to restaurant managers, and somehow reached a bookmaker in Cicero before Emily finished processing the IRS paperwork.
The story changed with every retelling.
In one version, Emily had insulted Dante’s suit.
In another, she had threatened to charge him personally for carpet cleaning.
By four o’clock, somebody claimed she had taken the gun out of his hand and replaced it with a pen.
That had absolutely not happened.
Emily spent the afternoon trying to understand the authorization code connected to Clara Marino.
It should have been impossible.
Clara had died nine years earlier.
Her corporate access had supposedly been terminated forty-eight hours after her death.
Yet the credential identified in Sal’s transfers was active.
Not merely active.
It had been used repeatedly.
Emily found sixteen transactions over seven years.
Some were small.
Thirty thousand.
Forty-seven thousand.
One hundred thousand.
Others were enormous.
The total exceeded twenty-two million dollars.
She printed nothing.
That was the first time Emily consciously broke one of her own office rules.
Paper created evidence.
Evidence could disappear.
Instead, she copied transaction identifiers into a notebook she kept inside her purse.
At 5:20, Dante’s office door opened.
Tommy emerged first.
Alive.
That was encouraging.
Sal did not return.
Dante appeared behind him.
“Emily.”
She looked up.
“Yes?”
“My office.”
Melissa mouthed, Good luck.
Emily carried her notebook inside.
Dante closed the door.
The weapon was gone.
So was Sal.
The rug remained surprisingly clean.
Dante stood beside his desk.
“What did you mean?”
Emily knew exactly what he meant.
She also knew pretending otherwise would irritate him.
“The authorization code.”
“Clara’s.”
“Yes.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“That account was closed.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I ordered it closed.”
“Then somebody ignored you.”
Nobody ignored Dante Marino.
That fact sat between them.
Dante extended his hand.
“Show me.”
Emily hesitated.
“Before I do, I need to ask something.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You are becoming increasingly comfortable doing that.”
“I need to know whether you want the truth or whether you want reassurance.”
Dante stared at her.
“Those are different things?”
“In this building? Very.”
The silence stretched.
“The truth.”
Emily opened the notebook.
She had written dates, amounts, and account identifiers in her neat handwriting.
Dante read.
His expression did not change until he reached the oldest transaction.
April 14.
Nine years earlier.
Three weeks before Clara died.
His finger stopped.
“What is this?”
“Four hundred eighty thousand dollars transferred from Marino Maritime to a company called Halcyon Logistics.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It dissolved eight years ago.”
“Owner?”
“Hidden behind two registered agents.”
“Find them.”
“I already started.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Not anger.
Approval.
It made Emily unexpectedly uncomfortable.
Dante turned another page.
The next transfer occurred two days before the bombing that killed Clara.
$750,000.
Same authorization.
Same account.
Dante sat down.
It was the first time Emily had ever seen him react to Clara’s name physically.
Not dramatically.
Just a slow lowering of his shoulders.
“What did Clara do for the company?”
Emily asked carefully.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She hated this business.”
“Then why did she have executive authorization?”
“She didn’t.”
Emily went still.
Dante looked toward the windows.
“She had access to our legitimate charitable accounts because she managed a foundation. Nothing else.”
“Then the authorization profile is fake.”
“Yes.”
“Created using her identity.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dante’s gaze returned to her.
“That is what you are going to find out.”
Emily almost laughed.
“No.”
He blinked.
“No?”
“I manage your calendar, correspondence, travel, compliance deadlines, staff scheduling, executive reports, and apparently emergency carpet logistics.”
Dante’s mouth twitched.
“I am not a forensic investigator.”
“You found twenty-two million dollars.”
“By accident.”
“You found Sal.”
“Because Sal is an idiot.”
“He was a captain for eighteen years.”
“That does not contradict my statement.”
Another twitch.
Emily hated that she noticed it.
Dante folded his hands.
“What do you want?”
“To do my job.”
“I am asking what it would take for this to become your job.”
Emily stared at him.
“You cannot solve every problem by increasing someone’s salary.”
“Why not?”
“Because eventually you run out of money.”
“I won’t.”
That answer was so completely Dante that Emily almost smiled.
She didn’t.
“My brother’s facility increased its fees last month.”
Dante’s expression changed slightly.
He knew she had a brother.
He did not know details.
Emily rarely discussed Noah.
“How much?”
“That was not a request.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You were thinking about paying it.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because then I owe you.”
“You already work for me.”
“That is different.”
Dante leaned back.
“Everything is a transaction to you?”
“Everything in this building is.”
For once, he had no immediate response.
Emily closed the notebook.
“I’ll investigate the authorization profile during work hours.”
“You’ll have whatever access you need.”
“No intimidation.”
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“If employees think they are being threatened, they’ll lie.”
“They lie anyway.”
“They lie worse when frightened.”
“You have experience?”
“Yes.”
“With criminals?”
“With customer service.”
Dante stared.
Emily stared back.
His mouth moved again.
He did not laugh.
But almost.
“Fine.”
She stood.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“If you discover something involving Clara, you come directly to me.”
“I would.”
“No copies.”
“That depends.”
His face went cold.
“On what?”
“Whether I believe I’m safe bringing it to you.”
The room became dangerously quiet.
Most people would have apologized.
Emily had stopped having enough energy for strategic retreat sometime during graduate school.
Dante studied her for a long moment.
Then he said something she did not expect.
“Fair.”
Emily left.
At 7:30 that night, the building emptied.
At 8:10, she discovered the first registered agent behind Halcyon Logistics.
At 8:23, she found a second company connected to the same address.
At 8:41, she found a third.
Then a fourth.
A pattern emerged.
Warehouses.
Construction contracts.
Insurance payments.
Security vendors.
Every trail eventually touched Marino Holdings.
But none ended with Dante.
At 9:02, Emily found a name.
Victor Rinaldi.
Senior executive adviser.
Dante’s godfather.
The man who had stood beside him at Clara’s funeral.
Emily leaned back in her chair.
Victor had been with the Marino family for thirty-four years.
He had taught Dante business.
Negotiated his first major shipping agreement.
Protected him after his father died.
If the corporate biographies were true, Dante trusted Victor more than anyone alive.
Emily checked the records again.
The connection could have been coincidence.
She needed more.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
Stop looking at Clara Marino’s accounts.
Emily’s pulse accelerated.
A second message arrived.
You have a brother at Rosewood.
For several seconds she could not breathe.
Then another message.
A photograph.
Noah sat in the facility garden that afternoon, wearing his blue sweatshirt.
Someone had taken the picture from outside the fence.
Emily stood so quickly her chair rolled backward.
Her hands began trembling.
Fear, she discovered, required less energy when it involved someone you loved.
She grabbed her coat.
Then the elevator chimed.
Dante stepped onto the floor.
He took one look at her face.
“What happened?”
Emily locked her phone.
“Nothing.”
He continued toward her.
“Emily.”
“I said nothing.”
He stopped two feet away.
For once his voice carried no command.
Only certainty.
“You found something.”
She looked at him.
Nine years without laughter had made Dante Marino frightening.
But what Emily saw now was something else.
A man who understood immediately what terror looked like when it had somebody’s name attached to it.
Her phone vibrated again.
Dante’s eyes dropped toward it.
Emily looked at the screen.
Last warning.
Beneath the words was another photograph.
This one showed Noah’s bedroom window.
And Emily finally understood.
Whoever had used Clara Marino’s name for nine years knew she was investigating.
They knew where her brother lived.
May you like
And they were watching him now.
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