Chapter 6: The Short List
I showed Dante the message at seven the next morning.
He read it once.
Handed the phone to the man who had sat beside me in the car the night before — I'd learned his name was Ric — and said two words.
"Trace it."
Ric left the room.
Dante poured coffee from a pot on the sideboard and set a cup in front of me without asking how I took it.
Black.
I drank it anyway.
"How many people knew my number?" I asked.
"It's not your number they found.
It's your identity." He sat down across from me.
"Someone ran you last night.
Name, address, employment, phone.
The question is who had the reach to do it that quickly."
"Your short list."
"Yes."
"So one of the people who gave Marco the access codes also knows who I am."
"And wants you to know that they know." He looked at his own coffee.
"Which means they're rattled.
Rattled people make mistakes."
"Or rattled people hurt waitresses to stop them from talking."
"That won't happen."
"You sound very certain."
"I am."
I looked at him.
In the morning light the cut at his temple was darker, more visible.
He looked like a man who had slept three hours and felt fine about it.
"Dante," I said.
It was the first time I'd used his name directly.
He noticed.
"I need to understand what I'm in the middle of.
Not the version where you manage it for me.
The actual version."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Marco was my logistics head," he said.
"He had access to my vehicle codes, my schedule, my route preferences.
He also had access to three accounts that I used for specific operations.
Two days ago, those accounts were quietly restructured.
The transfers were small enough not to trigger a review.
But they were there."
"Someone was preparing."
"Someone has been preparing for longer than two days." He set his cup down.
"Vanessa and Marco didn't plan this alone.
The financial restructuring required someone with legal access.
A name on the right documents."
"Who?"
"My cousin," he said.
"Enzo."
The name sat between us.
"Does Enzo know you're alive?"
"He does now.
I called him at six this morning."
"What did he say?"
"He said he was relieved." Dante's expression didn't change.
"He said it very well."
"But you don't believe him."
"I believe he's careful.
Which is more dangerous than someone who panics." He stood and moved to the window.
The street outside was quiet.
"Enzo has wanted my position for eleven years.
He's never moved against me directly because he's not certain he'd win.
But if I were g*ne — if Vanessa were the grieving widow with control of the estate — he would have been her first call."
"So Vanessa, Marco, and Enzo."
"Possibly.
Or Enzo used Marco without Vanessa knowing the full picture.
Or Vanessa used Enzo without Marco knowing.
These arrangements are rarely clean."
I thought about that.
Three people, possibly working together, possibly each running their own version of the same plan.
"And the text to my phone," I said.
"Which one of them sent it?"
"Enzo," he said.
Without hesitation.
"Why are you sure?"
"Because Marco is in custody as of four this morning.
And Vanessa doesn't know your name."
The room felt smaller suddenly.
"You have Marco."
"Yes."
"Since four."
"Yes."
"Is he—"
"Alive," Dante said, before I could finish.
"And talking.
Slowly, but talking."
I wrapped both hands around the coffee cup.
"What has he said so far?"
Dante turned from the window.
"He confirmed Enzo provided the access codes.
He confirmed the financial restructuring was Enzo's design.
He says Vanessa believed it was only about the brakes — that she didn't know about the accounts." A pause.
"I don't know yet if I believe that."
"Does it matter?
She still—"
"It matters for what comes next," he said.
"For how this ends." He looked at me directly.
"I need you to do something today that you won't like."
I waited.
"I need you to go back to Bellini's."
My stomach dropped.
"Why?"
"Because Enzo doesn't know how much you heard.
He knows you were there.
He knows you followed me.
He doesn't know if you're a witness or just a frightened woman I've taken in." He came back to the table and sat down.
"If you disappear into this house, he assumes the worst and moves faster.
If you go back to work — if you appear normal — he waits.
And while he waits, we finish building what we need."
"You want me to be bait."
"I want you to be visible.
There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"You'll have two of my men in the restaurant at all times.
A third outside.
You won't be alone for a single minute."
"And if Enzo decides visible is still too dangerous?"
Dante's jaw tightened slightly.
"Then we'll know it's Enzo," he said.
"And we'll have him."
I looked at the coffee cup.
The window.
The door.
"You're asking me to trust you," I said.
"Yes."
"I pulled you out of a car twelve hours ago.
I don't know you."
"No," he said.
"But you know what I do to people who betray me." He held my gaze.
"I protect the ones who don't."
I thought about the text on my phone.
*You should have stayed at the restaurant.*
I thought about Vanessa upstairs, composed and calculating, even at the end.
I thought about Enzo, who had sent that message at some point in the night, who knew my name, my number, who I was — and had chosen to warn me instead of act.
Which meant he wasn't certain yet either.
"Okay," I said.
Dante nodded once.
"Ric will drive you.
Be there by nine.
Act normal." He paused.
"Can you do that?"
"I've been acting normal in that restaurant for three years," I said.
"While powerful people didn't notice me."
He looked at me for a moment.
"They noticed more than you think," he said quietly.
Before I could answer, Ric appeared in the doorway.
"Boss." His voice was flat.
"The trace came back."
"And?"
"The text didn't come from Enzo."
Dante went very still.
"Then who?"
Ric glanced at me.
May you like
Then back at Dante.
"It came from inside this house."
