Chapter 3 - Nobody Touches What I Love
The photograph frightened Dante more than Victor Hargrove's outburst ever could.
It had been taken at 3:42 that afternoon.
Rosa was carrying her usual canvas handbag, her hair caught by the November wind as she hurried toward the restaurant's employee entrance.
Someone had watched her before her shift.
Someone had known where she worked.
And someone wanted Dante to know they were watching.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
His head of security, Marco DeLuca, kept his voice low.
"Delivered to the front desk ten minutes ago. No return address."
"Camera footage?"
"We're checking."
Rosa appeared behind him.
"What photograph?"
Dante considered hiding it.
Seven years ago, he might have.
He had spent too much of his life convincing himself that protecting people meant deciding what they were allowed to know.
That mistake had already cost him Rosa once.
He handed it over.
She studied the picture.
Her face drained.
"That's me."
"Yes."
"Who took it?"
"We don't know yet."
She turned the photograph over.
The message was written in capital letters.
Her fingers tightened around the edges.
"I've seen this handwriting before."
Dante looked at her sharply.
"Where?"
Rosa hesitated.
"On the envelopes my father used to receive."
"What envelopes?"
"Late at night. Sometimes delivered by courier. He always took them into his study."
Dante glanced toward Marco.
"Find out who sent this."
Marco nodded and stepped away.
Rosa lowered the photograph.
"I need to go home."
"I'll have someone drive you."
"No."
"Rosa, someone is following you."
"And being escorted around Chicago by your bodyguards is supposed to make me feel normal?"
"I'm trying to keep you safe."
"Then listen to me."
He stopped.
She exhaled.
"I need to see my mother. I need to get some sleep. And I need one single evening where nobody tells me what to do."
Dante studied her face.
"All right."
Her surprise was immediate.
"All right?"
"I'll ask whether you want a ride. You can say no."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Before either could speak again, Victor emerged from the manager's office.
His lawyer followed, already speaking into a phone.
Victor had been interviewed by police and informed of the next steps in the complaint. His confident expression had returned, although his eyes remained restless.
He stopped when he saw Rosa.
"This isn't over."
Dante turned.
"You're correct."
Victor smiled thinly.
"My father has friends in places you can't reach, Moretti."
"Then tell your father to call me himself."
Victor glanced at Rosa.
"You have no idea what kind of trouble you've created."
Rosa surprised them both.
She stepped around Dante.
"I didn't create anything. You assaulted me because I wouldn't kneel."
Victor opened his mouth.
She continued.
"You can tell whatever story you want tomorrow. But tonight, I know what happened. So do the police. And so does everyone who watched that video."
Victor's lawyer touched his arm.
"Let's go."
Victor left without another word.
Rosa's knees almost gave way once he disappeared.
Dante noticed, but he did not touch her without permission.
"Do you want to sit down?"
"No. I want to leave."
By nine that evening, Natalie's recording had reached the internet.
By ten, it had been viewed more than a million times across several social platforms.
Someone identified Victor Hargrove.
Someone else identified Dante.
Then a restaurant guest uploaded a second recording.
It captured Dante standing protectively beside Rosa.
His declaration was unmistakable.
She's the woman I love.
Within hours, strangers were discussing every detail.
The expensive blue suit.
Rosa's trembling hands.
The guests who remained seated.
The powerful man who walked into the restaurant and changed everything.
Some called Dante a hero.
Others questioned why a figure with his family's reputation had intervened so dramatically.
Most wanted to know one thing.
Who was the waitress?
Rosa discovered the video while riding the train home.
A teenage girl sitting opposite her watched it three times before glancing up.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh my God."
Rosa lowered her head.
At the next stop, she got off.
She walked three blocks through freezing wind and reached her small apartment building shortly before eleven.
Her mother was staying at a rehabilitation facility across town, leaving the apartment painfully quiet.
Rosa unlocked the door.
Something was wrong.
The kitchen light was on.
She always turned it off before leaving.
She stepped inside.
Her handbag slipped from her shoulder.
Every cupboard stood open.
Drawers had been emptied.
Books lay scattered across the floor.
Her father's old wooden desk had been pulled away from the wall.
And in the center of the kitchen table rested a single red rose.
Beside it was a white envelope.
Rosa's name had been written across the front.
She did not touch anything.
Instead, she backed into the hallway and called the police.
Her second call was to Dante.
He answered before the first ring had finished.
"Rosa?"
She hated how quickly relief washed through her.
"Someone's been inside my apartment."
His voice changed immediately.
"Are you outside?"
"Yes."
"Stay there. I'm coming."
"Dante—"
"Please. Just this once, let me come."
She closed her eyes.
"Okay."
Twelve minutes later, a black Mercedes stopped outside her building.
Dante emerged before the driver had fully parked.
He crossed the sidewalk and found Rosa sitting on the bottom stair, wrapped in a neighbor's blanket.
He crouched in front of her.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head.
"Did you go inside?"
"Only for a moment."
"Good."
He looked relieved.
Police arrived shortly afterward.
They photographed the scene, examined the damaged lock, and collected the envelope.
Inside was a note.
Tell Moretti to stop asking questions.
Below it was a second sentence.
Your father should have listened too.
Rosa read it once.
Then she began shaking.
Dante stood beside her.
"What does this have to do with my father?" she whispered.
He did not pretend to know.
But something about the message troubled him.
Rosa's father, Thomas Bellamy, had been a structural engineer.
Seven years earlier, he had died after falling from a maintenance platform at a waterfront construction site.
Dante remembered reading about the accident.
What he had never known was that the site belonged to a Hargrove Development subsidiary.
He took out his phone.
"Marco. Pull everything we have on Thomas Bellamy."
Rosa looked up.
"Why?"
Dante met her eyes.
"Because I don't think Victor chose your table by accident."
The police advised Rosa not to remain in the apartment until the damaged door could be secured.
Her neighbor offered the spare bedroom.
Dante offered one of his guest properties.
Rosa refused both.
Then her phone rang.
The caller ID displayed the rehabilitation facility.
She answered immediately.
"Hello?"
A frightened nurse spoke from the other end.
"Miss Bellamy, this is Claire from Lakeshore Medical. Your mother's room was entered by someone claiming to be a family representative."
Rosa stood.
"What?"
"She's safe. But the visitor left before we could verify his identification."
"What did he want?"
The nurse hesitated.
"He asked whether your mother still had your father's blue notebook."
Rosa felt all the air leave her lungs.
Dante watched her expression.
"What is it?"
She lowered the phone.
"My father had a blue notebook."
"Where is it?"
Rosa stared at him.
"I don't know."
Then she remembered something.
Three weeks before his death, her father had shown up at her college dormitory carrying an old paperback book.
He had hugged her longer than usual.
And just before leaving, he had whispered something she had never understood.
If anybody ever comes looking for my work, Rosie, remember where we kept our little stars.
May you like
She looked at Dante.
"I think my father left me something."
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