Chapter 4 - THE SISTER DANTE BURIED
The lockbox was gone.
Sofia stood in the middle of her apartment while Chicago police moved around her.
Nothing else looked disturbed.
Laptop still on the kitchen counter.
Television untouched.
A jar with nearly six hundred dollars in emergency cash remained inside a cabinet.
Whoever entered had known what they wanted.
The bedroom closet.
Top shelf.
A gray metal box wrapped in an old towel.
Gone.
Sofia felt violated in a way theft alone could not explain.
“That box sat there for three years.”
Dante stood near the doorway.
Police had taken his statement too.
“Who knew it existed?”
“My mother.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“You never told a friend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
Sofia gave him a look.
“No boyfriend.”
Dante’s expression remained neutral.
“Coworkers?”
“No.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Interrogating.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Well, think quieter.”
One detective almost smiled.
Dante noticed.
The detective immediately found something fascinating about his notebook.
Sofia sat on the edge of her bed.
The pain in her shoulder had returned.
She felt exhausted.
Dante crouched several feet away rather than looming.
“Do you remember exactly what your mother said about the box?”
Sofia closed her eyes.
Three years earlier.
Hospital room.
Elena thin beneath blankets.
Cancer had stripped her down to angles but never touched the sharpness in her eyes.
“Sofia, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“If anyone ever asks about Chicago—”
“Mom.”
“Listen.”
Elena had gripped her wrist.
“If someone with the name Moretti ever finds you, open the box before you trust them.”
Sofia opened her eyes.
“That’s what she said.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Before you trust them.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning me.”
“Apparently.”
“And now someone stole it before you could.”
“Yes.”
They both understood the implication.
Someone either knew Dante had found Sofia—
or had been watching for it.
Dante made a phone call.
Not to police.
He spoke quietly in Italian.
Sofia waited.
When he finished:
“What was that?”
“Security.”
“I don’t need your men living outside my apartment.”
“You do tonight.”
“No.”
Dante looked at the broken lock.
“Sofia.”
“I’m not moving into some mafia bunker.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yet.”
He almost smiled.
Again.
She hated the small human cracks in him.
They complicated fear.
Eventually Sofia agreed to stay with a friend, Mia Carter, a nurse who worked nights.
Dante insisted one discreet security vehicle remain outside.
Mia took one look at him and waited until he left.
Then:
“Who the hell was that?”
Sofia dropped onto the couch.
“My uncle.”
Mia stared.
“You don’t have an uncle.”
“Apparently I do.”
“Why does your uncle look like he kills people between meetings?”
“Because he might.”
Mia sat slowly.
“You need to start over.”
Sofia told her everything.
The restaurant.
Pendant.
Photographs.
Luciana.
The stolen box.
Mia listened without interrupting until the end.
Then:
“So your mother was secretly the sister of a Chicago mob boss.”
“Allegedly.”
“And your apartment got burglarized four hours after you learned this.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying allegedly?”
Sofia rubbed her face.
“What do you want from me?”
“A nervous breakdown would feel appropriate.”
“I’m considering scheduling one Tuesday.”
That night Sofia did not sleep.
Neither did Dante.
Across the city, he sat in his own study with the photograph of Luciana and Peter Vale.
His consigliere—though Dante disliked the theatrical term—was a fifty-year-old attorney named Gabriel Rinaldo.
Gabriel had known Dante for twenty-three years.
He studied the photo.
“You never saw the boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Vittorio did?”
“I assume.”
“You’re assuming a lot tonight.”
Dante looked at him.
“My dead sister’s daughter appeared in a restaurant wearing Luciana’s pendant.”
“DNA?”
“Not yet.”
“Get it.”
“I will.”
“And until then?”
“She’s Luciana’s daughter.”
Gabriel sighed.
“This is why I’m here. You become irrational about family.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“Careful.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel sat.
“If Luciana lived, Vittorio lied.”
“Yes.”
“If Vittorio lied, why?”
“Control.”
“Too broad.”
Dante knew.
Vittorio had raised him after his father’s health collapsed.
Taught him business.
Taught him how to identify weakness.
How to never make threats he did not intend to carry out.
How to separate legitimate companies from the shadow economy around them.
Much of what Dante became came from Vittorio.
That made suspicion painful.
Gabriel asked:
“What did Luciana own?”
Dante looked up.
“At the time?”
“Yes.”
“Shares in the original hospitality holding company.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-five percent.”
Gabriel became still.
“And after her death?”
“Transferred under family succession documents.”
“To?”
“Part to my father. Part to Vittorio as trustee until I turned twenty-five.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“And eventually?”
“Most merged into Moretti Hospitality.”
“Current value?”
Dante understood.
“Significant.”
“How significant?”
“Her original interest adjusted through reorganizations?”
“Yes.”
“Potentially tens of millions.”
Gabriel sat back.
“Now we have a motive for somebody caring whether Luciana was legally dead.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“And Sofia?”
“If Luciana had a living child at the time…”
Dante already knew.
Inheritance rights.
Trust rights.
Possible fraud across decades.
Not only criminal family history.
Corporate exposure.
Tax consequences.
Civil claims.
Enough money to terrify men who believed they had buried the past.
Dante looked at Luciana’s photograph.
“What happened the night she ‘died’?”
Gabriel said:
“We find out.”
Dante called Vittorio.
His uncle answered on the third ring.
“Dante.”
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I need to see you tomorrow.”
“About?”
Dante looked at Luciana.
“A woman named Sofia Vale.”
Silence.
It lasted perhaps one second.
Too long.
Then Vittorio said:
“Who?”
Dante felt something inside him go cold.
Vittorio was an exceptional liar.
But Dante had known him too long.
He had heard the hesitation.
“You heard me.”
“No. Who is she?”
“A waitress.”
Vittorio laughed lightly.
“And why do I care about a waitress?”
Dante did not answer.
He waited.
People often filled silence.
Vittorio finally asked:
“What does she want?”
Not who is she?
What does she want?
Dante’s suspicion sharpened.
“I didn’t say she wanted anything.”
Another silence.
Vittorio changed tone.
“You sound strange.”
“Tomorrow.”
Dante ended the call.
Gabriel watched him.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Dante looked at the pendant photograph.
“That Luciana didn’t die where he told me she did.”
The next morning, Sofia received an email from an unknown address.
No message.
One attachment.
A scanned page.
Her mother’s handwriting.
Sofia recognized it immediately.
At the top:
Sofia, if Dante finds you, he will be angry. Let him be angry. Anger is not what you need to fear in that family.
The rest of the page was missing.
Whoever stole the lockbox had just proved they possessed Luciana’s letter.
And for some reason—
May you like
they wanted Sofia to know Dante was not the person her mother feared most.
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