Chapter 3: What a Grieving Widow Shouldn't Know
The rain hadn't let up.
Dante held the phone away from his ear so the men closest to him could hear.
His face was stone.
His eyes were on me.
Vanessa's voice came through clearly.
"The lawyer already called.
Everything transfers automatically.
You made sure of that, remember?
So don't worry.
It's all taken care of."
Nobody moved.
She thought she was talking to Marco.
She'd answered without checking the name on the screen.
Dante brought the phone back slowly.
"Hello, Vanessa."
The silence on the other end lasted exactly three seconds.
"Dante." Her voice changed completely.
Warm became careful.
"I — I was confused.
I thought you were — the lawyer called earlier and I—"
"You thought I was Marco."
"No.
No, I don't know what you mean.
I was half asleep, I—"
"Stop."
She stopped.
Dante looked out at the ravine where his car had disappeared.
His jaw moved once.
Then he said, very quietly, "Come home."
The call ended.
He handed the phone back without looking at who took it.
Then he turned to the man who had spoken Marco's name.
"Where is he now?"
"Last position was the restaurant.
Twenty minutes ago."
"Lock it down.
Nobody leaves." He finally looked at me.
"You.
What's your name?"
"Cara.
Cara Fields."
"How long have you worked at Bellini's?"
"Three years."
"You've served my table before."
It wasn't a question.
I answered anyway.
"Yes."
He studied me the way people study something they can't immediately classify.
Not threatening.
Not warm.
Somewhere in between that felt more dangerous than either.
"Why did you follow me?"
"Because there wasn't time to do anything else."
"You could have called the police and stayed at the restaurant."
"I did call.
They weren't going to make it."
"So you followed a man you don't know up a mountain road in the rain."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked at him.
His shirt was torn.
There was bl00d drying at his temple.
He was sitting on wet ground on the edge of a ravine with a dozen armed men around him, and he was asking me why I'd tried to save his life like it was a question with a suspicious answer.
"Because she was going to let you d*e," I said.
"And I didn't think that was right."
Something shifted in his expression.
Not softness.
More like recalibration.
"Get her into one of the cars," he said.
"She doesn't leave my sight."
One of the men touched my elbow.
Not rough.
Just firm.
"Mr.
Moretti," I said quickly.
Dante turned back.
"I have a shift tomorrow morning.
I need my job."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then something crossed his face that might, in different circumstances, have been the beginning of a smile.
"You won't need it," he said.
That should have frightened me.
Instead I got into the car.
We drove back down the mountain in a convoy.
I sat in the middle seat of the second SUV, still wearing the jacket someone had put over my shoulders.
It smelled like cigarettes and expensive cologne.
I kept my hands in my lap and watched the rain streak the windows.
The man beside me hadn't spoken once.
He was watching the road with the focused stillness of someone paid to notice things.
"What happens to me now?" I asked.
He didn't look at me.
"That's up to the boss."
"And if he decides I'm a liability?"
He did look at me then.
His expression was unreadable.
"Then you'd already be at the bottom of that ravine," he said.
"So I wouldn't worry about it."
I turned back to the window.
The city lights appeared below us as the road curved down.
Somewhere in that city, Vanessa Moretti was sitting in a house that she had already decided was hers.
Somewhere in that city, a man named Marco was still at the restaurant, not yet knowing that Dante was alive.
And I was in a car full of men I didn't know, heading toward a night I hadn't planned for, wearing a jacket that didn't belong to me.
The SUV in front of us slowed as we reached the city limits.
Dante's vehicle.
I watched it through the windshield.
The man beside me spoke without looking up from his phone.
"He's going to the house first.
Not the office."
"Why does that matter?" I asked.
May you like
He pocketed the phone.
"Because Vanessa will be there."
