Chapter 3 - Locker Seventeen
The storage facility smelled like rust, saltwater, and twenty years of bad decisions.
Dante brought four men.
I recognized the bald one.
“Name?” I asked.
“Salvatore Rizzo.”
“Everyone calls him Sal,” Dante said.
Sal frowned.
“Boss, she shouldn’t be here.”
“Finally,” Dante said. “Someone agrees with me.”
I held up the key.
“Unfortunately, I’m the one who can open the locker.”
Locker 17 stood at the end of a narrow corridor.
I inserted the key.
Dante caught my hand.
“Behind me.”
“You realize you were the injured person last time?”
“Mara.”
“Fine.”
He opened the door.
Nothing exploded.
Inside were three cardboard boxes and an old metal cashbox.
“No millions of dollars?” I asked.
Sal stared at me.
“You joke a lot around dangerous situations.”
“It’s cheaper than therapy.”
Dante crouched beside the first box.
Photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
Financial ledgers.
Then I saw my mother.
Dozens of photographs.
Evelyn Ellis with Isabella Moretti.
My father with Gabriel.
“What the hell?”
Dante opened another folder.
His face changed.
“Mara.”
Inside was a birth certificate.
The name had been blacked out.
Mother: Isabella Moretti.
Father: blank.
Date of birth: sixteen years ago.
I looked at Dante.
“You have a sibling?”
“I didn’t know.”
A voice came from behind us.
“Because Isabella wanted it that way.”
Julian.
Dante spun around.
Julian stood at the corridor entrance with several men.
“You followed us,” Dante said.
Julian smiled.
“I followed her.”
His eyes settled on me.
“Your mother was very clever, Mara.”
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
“She helped Isabella disappear.”
Dante stepped forward.
“My mother died.”
“No.”
Julian smiled wider.
“That’s the first lie.”
Dante went completely still.
Julian pointed at the cashbox.
“The truth is in there.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Julian shrugged.
“But open it.”
The Saint Michael medal fit into a narrow indentation on the cashbox.
Click.
Inside was a cassette tape.
And a letter.
Dante unfolded it.
His hands trembled.
I had never imagined Dante Moretti’s hands could tremble.
He read aloud.
“Dante, if you are reading this, then Gabriel failed.”
He stopped.
“Keep going,” I said quietly.
He did.
“Your father believes power is inherited through fear. I learned too late what that fear costs.”
Dante swallowed.
“There is a child he must never find.”
Julian interrupted.
“My father found out.”
Dante looked up.
Julian’s expression had changed.
For the first time, there was something beneath the arrogance.
Pain.
“My father worked for yours. He discovered Isabella was planning to expose them both.”
“Your father killed her?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Julian looked directly at him.
“Yours.”
Silence swallowed the corridor.
Dante lunged.
I caught his arm.
“Dante!”
“Let go.”
“No.”
“He’s lying.”
“Maybe. But if you hurt him, we lose the only person talking.”
Julian laughed softly.
“She really does control you.”
Dante’s stare could have frozen fire.
“Nobody controls me.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Behind me, remember?”
Sal coughed suspiciously.
Dante ignored him.
Julian said, “The child is alive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because your father kept records. Gabriel stole them. Evelyn hid them.”
Julian pointed toward the boxes.
“Somewhere in there is proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That your father murdered Isabella and Gabriel—and framed mine.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“You started a war over revenge.”
“My father died in prison because of Moretti.”
“So you decided to kill me?”
“I thought you knew the truth.”
“I was twenty-three.”
“And already running half your father’s business.”
Dante stepped closer.
“I knew nothing about a child.”
Julian studied him.
Then looked at me.
“I believe him.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “Can everyone stop trying to kill each other for five minutes?”
Nobody answered.
I picked up another envelope.
My name was written across it.
MARA.
My mother had left it for me.
I opened it.
Sweetheart,
If this reaches you, I am sorry.
Isabella trusted me with the one thing more important to her than her own life.
Her daughter.
I stopped breathing.
Dante whispered, “Daughter?”
I continued reading.
The child was placed with a family outside Boston under another name.
Only one person knows where.
Thomas Ellis.
My father.
Dante looked at me.
“Your father is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I stared at the letter.
“Vermont.”
Julian smiled faintly.
“Then I suppose we’re going to Vermont.”
Dante turned toward him.
“You’re not going anywhere with us.”
A metallic crash echoed from outside.
Sal touched his earpiece.
“Boss.”
“What?”
His face hardened.
“We have company.”
“Whose?”
Sal looked at Julian.
“Not his.”
Dante and Julian exchanged glances.
For the first time, the enemies understood the same thing.
Someone else had been watching.
May you like
Someone who wanted the secret buried.
And whoever it was had just locked the building from outside.
