Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT CARLO MORETTI DIED
Dante’s father, Carlo Moretti, had been dead twenty-four years.
Dante was thirty-one when? No.
Dante had been thirty-one? impossible. He is 55 now, so 24 years ago he was 31. Yes.
Old enough to remember everything.
Or so he believed.
Carlo died in a roadside shooting outside the old Moretti social club.
The family blamed a rival group.
Dante inherited leadership years later after his uncles gradually stepped aside.
Vanessa rarely spoke about the night.
Whenever Dante asked, she said the same thing.
“Your father died because he trusted people outside the family.”
Gabriel’s call changed that sentence.
Dante found Vanessa in the chapel before midnight.
She was kneeling in the front pew.
Not praying.
Staring.
Dante closed the doors behind him.
“My father.”
Vanessa did not turn.
“What about him?”
“Gabriel says this started the night he died.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
Dante noticed.
“He knows what happened.”
“Gabriel was eleven years old.”
“His father wasn’t.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Gabriel’s father, Thomas Cross, had been Carlo Moretti’s driver.
He died three years after Carlo.
Dante had never connected the two men beyond employment.
“Tell me.”
Vanessa turned.
“Your father wanted to leave.”
Dante stared.
“Leave what?”
“This.”
She gestured around the chapel.
“The meetings. The old business. The family expectations.”
Carlo had become tired of raising Dante inside a world where every disagreement required dominance.
He wanted to move Vanessa and Dante out of the estate.
Start a restaurant business in another state.
No bodyguards.
No family council.
Vanessa refused.
“You told me Dad died protecting the family.”
“He did.”
“No.”
Dante’s voice sharpened.
“You told me leaving the family was what got him killed.”
Vanessa looked away.
That part had always shaped Dante.
Carlo trusted outsiders.
Carlo wanted another life.
Carlo died.
Dante learned the lesson.
Stay close.
Stay powerful.
Never give anyone the chance to isolate you.
Now Vanessa admitted the truth was different.
Carlo had arranged to meet Thomas Cross on the night he died.
Thomas was supposed to drive him to a small airport.
Carlo planned to leave the city alone first.
Vanessa and Dante would follow after he found a house.
Dante stared.
“He was coming back for us.”
Vanessa nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he died.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Because I was angry.”
Vanessa stood.
“I begged him not to go.”
“He said he was suffocating.”
“He said the family was turning you into something he didn’t recognize.”
Dante froze.
“What?”
Vanessa’s voice softened.
“He said you were becoming afraid of being ordinary.”
The same poison Dominic? different story. Here Dante himself.
Dante stepped back.
Carlo had seen it.
Before his death.
Then Vanessa confessed the part she had hidden.
She called Dante’s uncle Raymond that night.
She told him Carlo intended to leave.
She asked Raymond to stop him.
“Stop him how?”
“I said talk to him.”
Dante stared.
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I swear to you.”
Raymond sent men to the roadside meeting.
Thomas Cross was there.
So was Carlo.
An argument became a fight.
Someone drew a gun.
Carlo was shot.
Thomas escaped.
Vanessa spent the next day terrified that the family would learn she had triggered the confrontation.
Raymond gave her a story.
Rival attack.
Family loyalty.
Carlo died because he trusted the wrong people.
Vanessa repeated it until everyone believed it.
Including Dante.
“Gabriel knows?”
“He found out from his father.”
“Then why work for me?”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Maybe he never worked for you.”
Dante felt the truth settle.
Gabriel had grown up believing the Morettis caused his father’s ruin.
Then spent twelve years close enough to Dante to become indispensable.
Owen discovered something about him.
Owen died.
Elena disappeared.
The past and present were finally joining.
Then one of Dante’s bodyguards entered the chapel.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found Gabriel’s car.”
“Where?”
“Old Cross property north of the city.”
Dante started toward the door.
The guard stopped him.
“There’s something else.”
He held out a small red cardigan.
Lily’s.
Dante looked toward him sharply.
“It was in the back seat.”
His face turned lethal.
“Where is Lily?”
The guard went pale.
“She was upstairs with Mrs. Moretti.”
Dante turned toward Vanessa.
Vanessa’s confusion looked genuine.
Then the estate alarm started screaming.
Dante ran.
Lily’s bedroom was empty.
The window stood open.
On the bed sat her new shoebox.
Inside was one of the little flats.
Only one.
The other was gone.
Beside it, someone had left a message written in thick black marker.
May you like
BRING VANESSA.
COME ALONE.
