Chapter 2 - THE MAFIA BOSS'S EX-FIANCÉE REVEALED A SECRET ABOUT MY DEAD PARENTS—AND THE MAN I TRUSTED MOST DISCOVERED HIS FATHER HAD LIED TO HIM FOR TWENTY YEARS
At 2:16 the following morning, Bianca Romano walked into the secure apartment three floors below Dante's penthouse carrying a leather briefcase and looking like a woman who had not slept in a week.
She was beautiful.
I had always known that.
Photographs did not prepare me for the reality of her.
Dark hair gathered at the nape of her neck. Pale skin. Intelligent eyes that missed very little.
She wore a gray sweater, black trousers, and no jewelry except a thin gold bracelet.
The woman I had imagined as my rival looked exhausted.
"Isabella," she said.
"Bianca."
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then she looked at Dante.
"You told her."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Eventually."
Marco made a choking noise behind us.
Dante ignored him.
Bianca turned back to me.
"I'm sorry he didn't tell you sooner."
I studied her.
"Did you ask him to?"
"Several times."
"Then you aren't the person who owes me that apology."
Dante looked down.
Good.
Let him hear it again.
Bianca set her briefcase on the dining table.
"I brought everything."
Marco checked the locks while Dante stood beside the window.
I pulled out a chair.
"Then let's begin."
Bianca opened the briefcase.
Inside were old photographs, handwritten letters, financial statements, and a narrow black notebook with a cracked leather cover.
She placed one photograph in front of me.
Three men stood outside a restaurant.
One was Salvatore Moretti.
Dante's father.
Another was Vittorio Romano.
Bianca's father.
The third man was unfamiliar.
He had sandy hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a tired expression.
Bianca pointed to him.
"That's your father."
My heart stopped.
I leaned forward.
The photograph was twenty-two years old.
My father, Thomas Hart, had died when I was eleven.
I remembered him as a quiet man who smelled of coffee and machine oil.
He worked as an accountant.
He loved crossword puzzles.
He used to carry me on his shoulders through Central Park.
I had never seen him standing beside Salvatore Moretti.
"Where did you get this?" I whispered.
"My father's study."
I looked up.
"Why would your father know mine?"
Bianca swallowed.
"Because Thomas Hart handled the financial records for a joint shipping venture."
Dante moved closer.
"What venture?"
Bianca opened the notebook.
"Harbor Meridian Logistics."
Dante's expression changed.
I noticed immediately.
"You know it."
He nodded slowly.
"It was dissolved twenty years ago."
"Why?"
He looked at Bianca.
"My father said the company failed."
Bianca shook her head.
"It didn't fail."
She turned the notebook toward us.
"The company was used to move money between several businesses. Some of those transactions were legitimate. Others weren't."
Marco leaned over the table.
"How much money?"
Bianca hesitated.
"More than eighty million dollars."
Silence.
I looked at the photograph again.
My father had never owned an expensive car.
We lived in a modest apartment.
My mother worked part-time at a library.
If he had been involved in an eighty-million-dollar operation, why had we struggled to pay rent?
Bianca seemed to read my thoughts.
"Your father wasn't one of the people stealing."
I looked up.
"Then what was he doing?"
She took a breath.
"He was trying to expose it."
The words struck me physically.
I sat back.
For a moment, I could hear my mother's voice.
Isabella, if anyone asks about Daddy's work, tell them you don't know.
I had forgotten that sentence.
Or perhaps I had buried it.
Now it returned with terrible clarity.
"How do you know?" I asked.
Bianca opened a letter.
The paper was yellowed.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
But the signature at the bottom made my chest tighten.
Thomas Hart.
My father.
The letter was addressed to Vittorio Romano.
It described irregular transfers, false invoices, and payments to companies that did not exist.
At the bottom, my father had written:
I will not authorize another false statement. If this continues, I will take the records to the authorities.
I read the sentence three times.
Then I looked at Dante.
His face had gone pale.
"Your father knew?"
He swallowed.
"I don't know."
Bianca turned another page.
"This is where it gets worse."
Marco muttered, "Of course it does."
Bianca pointed to a transfer.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Paid to a company called Northbridge Facilities.
Three days before the fire that killed my parents.
The room seemed to tilt.
I gripped the table.
"What was Northbridge?"
Marco had already opened his laptop.
"Let me check."
Dante knelt beside my chair.
"Isabella."
I couldn't look at him.
I stared at the number.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Three days before my parents died.
Bianca spoke quietly.
"The company specialized in property management and building maintenance."
I looked up.
"What does that mean?"
She hesitated.
"Someone may have used it to interfere with the building where your parents lived."
My stomach turned.
"No."
Nobody spoke.
I stood so abruptly that my chair scraped the floor.
"No. The fire was an accident."
Dante rose.
"Isabella—"
"The fire department investigated."
My voice cracked.
"They said it was an electrical fault."
Bianca looked devastated.
"I know."
I shook my head.
"My mother went back for my father."
I could see it again.
Smoke beneath the bedroom door.
A neighbor pulling me down the stairs.
My mother's hand slipping from mine.
The sound of sirens.
The terrible silence afterward.
I pressed my hands over my mouth.
Dante took one step toward me.
Then stopped.
"Can I hold you?"
I looked at him.
For a moment, I wanted to scream.
At Bianca.
At Dante.
At the dead men in the photograph.
At everyone who had known more about my childhood than I did.
Then I nodded.
Dante wrapped his arms around me.
I cried against his chest.
He said nothing.
For once, he understood that silence could be an act of love rather than a method of control.
After several minutes, I stepped back.
I wiped my face.
"Keep going."
Dante studied me.
"Are you sure?"
"No."
I took a breath.
"But I need the truth."
Bianca nodded.
She turned another page.
The next document was a handwritten ledger.
Several names appeared beside dates and payments.
Salvatore Moretti.
Vittorio Romano.
An attorney named Gregory Sloane.
And a fourth name.
Nathaniel Cross.
Marco went completely still.
Dante noticed.
"What?"
Marco stared at the page.
"Cross?"
Bianca nodded.
"Do you know him?"
Marco looked at Dante.
"He's the chairman of the Moretti Foundation."
My blood turned cold.
The foundation.
The place where the threatening photograph had been taken.
I stared at Dante.
"Nathaniel Cross?"
He nodded.
"He's been involved with our charitable operations for almost fifteen years."
I remembered Cross immediately.
A distinguished man in his late fifties.
Silver hair.
Kind smile.
Expensive suits.
He had congratulated me when Dante proposed.
He had donated to the women's shelter program I helped manage.
Three days earlier, he had kissed my cheek at the foundation's annual fundraising luncheon.
I felt sick.
"He was there when that photograph was taken."
Marco nodded.
"Yes."
I looked at him.
"Then he may know who's watching me."
Dante's expression hardened.
"We need to investigate him."
"No," I said.
Everyone looked at me.
"We need to investigate all of them."
Dante frowned.
"Isabella—"
"My father is dead. My mother is dead. Bianca's father may have known why. Your father may have known why."
I looked directly into Dante's eyes.
"And now someone is using their secrets to threaten me."
He said nothing.
I continued.
"I am not going to be hidden in an apartment while you decide which pieces of my life I'm allowed to know."
Dante swallowed.
Then nodded.
"You're right."
Bianca looked between us.
Marco whispered, "Progress."
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Dante turned to Bianca.
"Is there anything else?"
She hesitated.
"Yes."
My stomach tightened.
She opened the final compartment of the briefcase.
Inside was a small envelope.
On the front, written in faded blue ink, were two words.
For Isabella.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
My mother's.
My knees nearly gave way.
Dante caught my chair before it fell.
I stared at the envelope.
For twenty years, I had possessed nothing written by my mother except a birthday card.
Now another piece of her existed in front of me.
Bianca's eyes filled.
"I found it inside the notebook."
I reached for it.
My fingers shook.
The envelope had been sealed.
No one had opened it.
I looked at Dante.
He nodded gently.
"It's yours."
I broke the seal.
Inside was a folded letter.
My mother's voice seemed to rise from the page.
My darling Isabella,
If you're reading this, then something has happened that I prayed would never happen.
Your father has discovered people who believe money gives them the right to decide who lives and who disappears.
He is trying to stop them.
We have made arrangements to protect you.
Please remember that nothing you hear about us changes how much we love you.
You are not responsible for our choices.
You are not responsible for anyone else's cruelty.
And you must never believe that powerful men are entitled to your silence.
I began crying.
The letter continued.
There is a copy of the records somewhere safe. A person I trust knows where it is.
If you ever need the truth, find the woman who taught you to play the piano.
I stopped reading.
The woman who taught me to play the piano.
I looked up.
"Mrs. Whitmore."
Dante frowned.
"Who?"
"Eleanor Whitmore."
My voice trembled.
"She was my piano teacher."
I remembered a small apartment filled with sheet music.
A black upright piano.
A woman with gray hair who smelled of lavender.
She had taught me scales and Christmas songs.
After my parents died, she visited me in foster care twice.
Then she disappeared.
I had always believed she moved away.
Bianca leaned forward.
"Do you know where she is?"
I shook my head.
"No."
Marco opened his laptop.
"Let's find out."
For twenty minutes, the room was silent except for typing.
Then Marco stopped.
His expression changed.
"Found her."
I leaned forward.
"Where?"
He swallowed.
"New Jersey."
Relief rushed through me.
"She's alive?"
Marco hesitated.
"Yes."
Then he turned the screen toward us.
Eleanor Whitmore.
Age seventy-eight.
Resident of St. Catherine's Assisted Living Center.
I stared.
Then noticed the note beneath her name.
Legal guardian: Nathaniel Cross.
The room went cold.
I looked at Dante.
He stared at the screen.
Bianca covered her mouth.
Marco whispered a curse.
Nathaniel Cross.
The man who chaired the foundation.
The man who had been present when someone photographed me.
The man whose name appeared beside the payments made before my parents died.
And somehow, he controlled access to the last person who might know the truth.
I looked down at my mother's letter.
Then at the man I planned to marry.
"Dante."
He met my eyes.
"We're going to New Jersey."
For a moment, I saw the old instinct rise in him.
The instinct to order me to stay.
To send Marco instead.
To make the decision himself.
Then he took a breath.
"All right."
I stared.
"All right?"
He nodded.
"We'll go together."
Marco looked relieved.
Bianca looked surprised.
I looked at Dante for a long moment.
Then I reached for his hand.
It was the first time that night I had touched him because I wanted to.
He squeezed gently.
And somewhere beyond the windows, Manhattan began to brighten with the first pale light of morning.
I thought we were finally moving toward the truth.
I didn't know that Nathaniel Cross had already received a photograph of the four of us sitting around that table.
And beneath it, someone had written:
May you like
THE GIRL FOUND HER MOTHER'S LETTER.
BEGIN THE SECOND PHASE.
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