Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Beneath the Mansion
The mansion plunged into darkness.
Dante drew his weapon.
"Marco!"
"I'm here."
Three guards shouted from the courtyard.
A window shattered.
Then another.
Dante pulled Isabella behind the stone fireplace.
"Stay down."
"Someone is attacking the house."
"I noticed."
A second gunshot rang out.
Then silence.
Dante hated silence more than gunfire.
"Thermal sweep," he ordered.
Marco checked his device.
"No movement outside."
"Then they are inside."
Dante's eyes moved through the dark corridor.
Someone had bypassed the estate's perimeter defenses.
Someone with access.
The chapel door creaked.
Dante and Marco moved toward it.
Inside, the floor was empty.
Then Marco noticed blood.
A thin line led to the altar.
They followed it.
Behind the altar was a hidden compartment.
Inside lay another envelope.
Dante opened it.
The words were handwritten.
The ledger is already gone.
He closed his eyes.
Sophia had taken the key.
Someone else had taken the ledger.
They were playing a game he didn't understand.
Then a voice came through the speaker system.
"Mr. Romano."
Dante froze.
It was one of his former captains.
Thomas Bell.
Dead for three years.
Impossible.
Unless the voice had been recorded.
The message continued.
"Your father built an empire on loyalty. You built yours on fear. Tonight you will discover which one survives."
The speaker went silent.
Marco stared at Dante.
"Boss..."
Dante didn't answer.
He was thinking about Sophia.
She had left without telling him.
She had known something.
She had trusted no one.
Not even him.
And perhaps that was his fault.
Three months earlier, Sophia had asked him a simple question.
"What happens to people who work for you when they want to leave?"
Dante had laughed.
"They don't."
She had smiled.
"That sounds frightening."
At the time he thought she was joking.
Now he understood she had been testing whether she was safe.
He failed.
A car screeched outside.
Paulie radioed in.
"We found one of the missing guards."
"Alive?"
"No."
Dante shut his eyes.
"Bring him in."
Minutes later, the body was placed in the garage.
On his palm was a tiny blue flower.
Wild goldenrod.
Sophia's favorite.
Dante stared at it.
Someone wanted him to believe she was connected to the attack.
Marco said quietly, "Boss, don't."
"I know."
But doubt was already spreading.
Not doubt about Sophia.
Doubt about everyone else.
At midnight, Dante received a call from an unknown number.
He answered.
Sophia's voice came through.
"Dante."
His heart nearly stopped.
"Where are you?"
"I can't tell you."
"Are you safe?"
"Yes."
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Come home."
Silence.
"You asked me to give away my room."
Dante closed his eyes.
"I know."
"You didn't even ask me if I wanted to leave."
"I was wrong."
"No."
Her voice shook.
"You were honest."
He frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you showed me where I stood."
"You think I chose Isabella over you."
"You did."
"I chose what I thought would prevent a war."
"And I was the price."
Dante had no answer.
Sophia continued.
"I found out who I am."
His stomach tightened.
"What did you find?"
"My father."
He sat down slowly.
"Who is he?"
She whispered the name.
"Daniel Romano's brother."
Dante felt the room tilt.
"What?"
"My mother is alive."
He stood.
"Where?"
"I can't tell you."
"You can trust me."
"I wanted to."
The line went quiet.
Then Sophia said, "You don't know the man inside your organization."
"Who?"
"Thomas Bell isn't dead."
Dante froze.
Sophia continued.
"Someone is using his identity."
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw him."
Dante's blood ran cold.
"When?"
"At the archive."
"Where are you now?"
She hesitated.
"With my mother."
The call ended.
Dante stared at the phone.
His hands trembled.
His mother-in-law, his father, the ledger, Thomas Bell, Isabella, Sophia.
Everything was connected.
And then he noticed the key.
The key Sophia had left behind.
It was not the archive key.
He turned it over.
Tiny numbers had been engraved on the underside.
12-7-19.
Marco saw them.
"What do those mean?"
Dante thought about his father's old journals.
Then he remembered a phrase.
A locker number.
The old train station.
He looked up.
"Penn Station."
They left within minutes.
But someone was already waiting.
At an abandoned service entrance beneath the station, Dante found a man in a dark coat.
The man turned.
Dante raised his weapon.
"Thomas."
The man smiled.
"Hello, nephew."
Dante's face became stone.
Thomas Bell was not Thomas Bell.
He was Daniel Romano.
May you like
Dante's supposedly dead uncle.
Sophia's father.
