Chapter 3

After Dante left, I didn't go straight to his study.

I stayed by the window for a while, running through the questions the doctor would ask that afternoon, and waited until the last car pulled away from the estate before closing my bedroom door and rising from the wheelchair.

Dante was handling the transfer of the west-side warehouses that morning. He'd said he wouldn't be back before lunch.

That gave me enough time.

I changed into the soft-soled shoes I'd hidden in the wardrobe and took the service stairs down to the first floor. The staff used that staircase more than anyone else, there were no cameras inside it, and the lower exit avoided the main hall. Ever since my first escape attempt, I'd made a point of remembering every place in the estate where a person could disappear for a few minutes.

Dante's study was in the west wing.

The door was unlocked.

I stepped inside and pulled it mostly closed behind me without locking it. A locked door would attract far more attention if someone tried the handle.

The room still carried signs of his morning. His coffee had gone cold, a map of the port lay open across the desk, and several former Moretti warehouses had been circled in red. Today's meeting list was pinned beneath one corner.

I checked the names first.

I recognized two.

One had managed west-side transport for my father before switching to Russo almost immediately after the Morettis fell. The other had laundered money for three families at once, and my father used to say men like him weren't loyal to anyone except whatever kept them alive the longest.

I memorized both names and put the page back exactly as I'd found it.

There was also a warehouse-transfer file on the desk. Most of it covered assets that had already changed hands, but a handwritten note tucked behind the final page listed three port contacts and an abbreviated account name with no explanation beside it.

I hadn't brought paper.

Taking a photograph was even worse.

So I memorized it.

My father had forced me to learn entire ledgers that way when I was younger. He used to say the most valuable information should never exist anywhere someone could find during a search.

I'd thought he was being dramatic.

He had occasionally been right.

I returned the file and kept looking.

The drawers held a gun, a spare phone, and several account books. Old contracts filled the cabinet, and the bottom shelf of the bookcase still held port maps that had belonged to Vittorio. Most of it was outdated, or useful only for confirming how thoroughly Russo had absorbed what used to belong to Moretti.

What I wanted were accounts, routes, and deals that hadn't happened yet.

Dante wouldn't keep those in a desk drawer.

Then I noticed the painting.

I'd been in this study as a child.

Vittorio Russo was still alive then, and while the Morettis and Russos had already disliked each other for years, things hadn't yet reached the point where every meeting began with a search for weapons. Once, while my father and Vittorio talked downstairs, I'd wandered through the house and seen Vittorio retrieve a document from behind that section of wall.

The painting had changed.

The location hadn't.

I shifted the frame aside.

A black safe was built into the wall.

Four-digit code.

I examined the keypad.

Every key was clean. Dante wasn't stupid enough to let four worn numbers advertise the combination.

I tried the handle once.

It didn't move.

"Careful," I murmured.

Guessing randomly would only risk locking the system. Dante's birthday, Vittorio's birthday, the year Russo was founded—those were the first combinations anyone would try.

He wouldn't trust the most important things his family owned to a number that obvious.

I was about to move the painting back into place when an engine sounded in the courtyard.

My hand stopped on the frame.

No one should have been back yet.

A moment later, the front door opened.

Voices carried down the hall.

"Tell the west-side men to come back this afternoon."

Dante.

I pushed the painting back immediately.

Someone was with him.

"They're still waiting for the final warehouse allocation."

"Then they can keep waiting. There's another problem on the north route."

"You just heard?"

"Ten minutes ago."

Their footsteps were already entering the west corridor.

I couldn't get upstairs in time.

There weren't many good hiding places in the study. Beneath the desk was too obvious, and the side door led into a sitting room someone might enter from the other direction. I crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows and slipped behind the heavy curtains.

The fabric had barely fallen back into place when the study door opened.

"Put the new route map on the desk."

Dante came in.

The other man set down a file. "The drivers aren't changing their stories. Whoever hit them knew the route and knew exactly which truck carried the main load."

"Then it wasn't random."

"That's what I think."

Paper shifted across the desk.

"Keep looking inside," Dante said. "Leave the former Moretti drivers alone for now."

The man hesitated.

"What if it is them?"

"Then I want to know who's giving the orders."

"We'd get there faster if we brought one in."

Dante was quiet for a moment.

"Grab the wrong man and the rest disappear."

His voice never changed.

"I don't need them scared. I need them to make a second mistake."

Behind the curtain, I slowly loosened my grip on my own hand.

That was what made Dante dangerous.

Anger rarely made him fire early.

My father had once said Vittorio had raised a son more troublesome than himself, because Dante had understood from a young age that dead men couldn't tell you what they planned to do next.

The other man left soon afterward.

I expected Dante to follow.

He didn't.

He stood at the desk for a while reading, then walked toward the painting.

I held my breath.

The frame moved aside.

The safe lit up.

I couldn't see the keypad from where I stood, but on the opposite side of the room was a liquor cabinet with dark glass doors, and its reflection caught Dante's profile as he stood against the wall.

Including his hand.

The image was faint.

I narrowed my eyes.

Dante entered the combination.

The safe opened.

My breath caught.

Dante removed a thin black folder and returned to the desk. He looked through several pages, then made a call.

"Shut down the Lakefront account."

Whoever was on the other end asked something.

"Someone already knows where the north shipment starts. If we keep using the same path for the money, we'll be showing them where it ends."

He named three replacement accounts and ordered another shipment delayed for forty-eight hours.

I memorized every name.

Those were worth far more than the warehouse papers I'd found on the desk.

Dante ended the call and locked the file back in the safe.

Then he started toward the window.

There was nowhere for me to move.

Through a single layer of heavy fabric, I heard his footsteps approach until they stopped directly in front of me.

The curtain suddenly opened halfway.

A blade of daylight cut through the gap.

I pressed myself against the glass on the far side. If Dante moved another half step, he would see my shoes.

His phone rang.

He stopped and answered.

"Talk."

I couldn't hear the other person.

Dante stared out through the window, his brow tightening.

"The doctor's coming this afternoon."

I knew immediately they were talking about me.

The other person spoke again.

Dante's voice cooled.

"No. We don't need the guards back."

My eyes stayed on the pair of shoes less than two feet from mine.

"She hasn't left this house in six months."

He drew the curtain closed again.

Darkness settled around me.

"I'll check on her when I get back."

His footsteps finally moved away.

Even after the study door closed, I didn't move.

Only when the hallway had gone completely quiet did I step out from behind the curtain.

The first thing I looked at was the painting.

I stood there without touching the safe.

I didn't need to test the code.

July nineteenth.

The day Dante kissed me for the first time.

I was twenty. Dante was twenty-four.

The Morettis and Russos had just fought over a shipment at the docks, and my father had specifically warned me to stay away from anyone with the last name Russo.

That night, I went anyway.

Dante was waiting behind an Italian restaurant that had already closed for the night, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and a fresh cut at the corner of his mouth.

The first thing I said was, "Who hit you?"

"Your brother."

"Luca?"

"He didn't know it was me."

"Then why did he hit you?"

Dante looked at me. "Because I asked whether his sister had a date tonight."

I held out for two seconds before I laughed.

"You deserved it."

"I thought so too."

He handed me the ice pack he'd been holding.

I took it and pressed it gently against the corner of his mouth.

The alley was narrow, and half the light above the kitchen door had burned out. We stood close enough that I could smell tobacco and rain on him.

"What happens if they find out?" I asked.

"Who?"

"Everyone."

Dante smiled. "That's a broad category."

"My father. Yours. Luca."

"Luca already hit me."

"Dante."

His smile faded.

Even then, we both knew this wasn't something we could have in daylight.

Our families had hated each other for years. Sometimes hearing the other surname at dinner was enough to make people put their forks down.

"What if one day they really make us choose?" I asked.

Dante looked at me for a long time.

Then he took the ice pack out of my hand.

"If our families ever make us choose, I'll choose you."

Then he kissed me.

Later, he made 0719 the code to his phone.

After that, it became the lock on the apartment where we met in secret.

I once laughed at him. "You'd better hope your father never finds out."

Dante was lying beside me. He brought my hand to his lips.

"Then don't tell him."

Ten years passed.

He changed houses. Changed phones. Took control of the entire Russo family.

The code never changed.

I looked at the safe again.

He had destroyed some things so completely there was almost nothing left of them, yet he'd kept the date that remembered them locked around the most important things he owned.

Voices sounded in the hallway again.

I left the safe closed.

Knowing what he kept inside, knowing the code, and walking away with three account names was enough for one morning. Greed was how people got killed after they'd already won half the game.

I returned the painting to its exact position and took the service stairs back upstairs.

The wheelchair was still where I'd left it.

I sat down, removed the soft-soled shoes, and pulled the blanket back over my legs. I had barely settled my skirt when I heard Dante speaking to someone downstairs.

He had no idea that a few minutes earlier, I'd been standing less than a step away from him.

And he had no idea I'd just found the key to his safe.

I turned toward the window.

Ten years ago, Dante told me that if our families ever forced him to choose, he would choose me.

Six months ago, he'd finally made that choice.

It wasn't me.