Chapter 3 - The Account Number I Was Never Supposed to Remember
“I don't know anything.”
We were inside Dante's private villa.
Marco placed coffee in front of me.
I hadn't asked for it.
I drank it anyway.
Dante sat across the table.
“Evan never discussed work?”
“He talked constantly. I stopped listening.”
“What company?”
“Mercer Logistics.”
Marco and Dante exchanged looks.
“What?” I asked.
“Mercer Logistics doesn't exist,” Marco said.
I put down the cup.
“What?”
“Not legally.”
I remembered something.
“He had invoices.”
Dante leaned forward.
“What kind?”
“Shipping.”
“From where?”
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
I closed my eyes.
Evan sitting at my kitchen table.
Laptop open.
Complaining because his accountant had made another mistake.
Numbers.
Ports.
A strange company name.
“Northstar Agricultural.”
Marco stood.
Dante didn't move.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
Marco opened his laptop.
“Northstar is one of Voss's shell companies.”
My stomach dropped.
Dante asked, “Anything else?”
“There was an account number.”
Marco looked skeptical.
“You remember an account number?”
“I process insurance claims all day. Numbers stick.”
I wrote it down.
Marco typed.
Then stopped.
“Boss.”
Dante came around the table.
“What?”
“This isn't Voss's account.”
“Whose?”
Marco turned the screen.
“Ours.”
Silence.
Dante's face changed.
Someone inside his organization had been sending money to Voss.
“How many people have access?” he asked.
“Four.”
“Names.”
Marco listed them.
The fourth made Dante freeze.
“Anthony Moretti.”
I looked between them.
“Your brother?”
Dante nodded.
Marco closed the laptop.
“If Anthony's involved—”
“He isn't.”
“Dante.”
“He isn't.”
I recognized that tone.
Not certainty.
Hope disguised as certainty.
Dante walked toward the window.
His empire had survived federal investigations, rival families, and three assassination attempts.
But betrayal from his younger brother was different.
His phone rang.
Anthony.
Dante answered.
“Where are you?”
A pause.
Then his face hardened.
“When?”
Another pause.
“We're coming.”
He hung up.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Your mother.”
I stood so fast my chair fell.
“What about her?”
“She disappeared twenty minutes ago.”
My lungs stopped working.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“Evan.”
Dante caught my shoulders.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“We're getting her back.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because Voss doesn't want your mother.”
“Then why take her?”
Dante's eyes were cold.
“He wants you.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
My mother sat inside a dark room.
Terrified.
Alive.
Below it was one sentence.
BRING THE WOMAN TO BLACK RIDGE WAREHOUSE. MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE, MORETTI.
I showed Dante.
“No,” Marco said immediately.
Dante stared at the message.
Then at me.
“We're going.”
Marco slammed his hand onto the table.
“It's a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“Then why?”
Dante looked at me.
“Because they think Claire is leverage.”
He reached for his jacket.
May you like
“They're about to learn they're wrong.”
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