Chapter 3: Someone at the Gate
Dante didn't look toward the gate immediately.
He looked at Mia first — at the way her eyes had gone to the far end of the yard, past the guests, past the tables, toward the iron fence that separated the property from the street.
"Who?" he said.
"I saw him when I was coming back from the house." Mia's voice was barely above a whisper.
"He was standing outside the gate.
He didn't come in.
He was just — watching."
"Who, Mia."
She swallowed.
"Uncle Renzo."
The name landed like something dropped from a height.
Leo went still beside his father.
Even Javier, still standing three feet away with his fist at his side, stopped breathing for a moment.
Dante turned slowly toward the gate.
It was empty now.
Whoever had been there was gone.
"You're sure," Dante said.
Not a question.
"I know his face, Dad."
Dante was quiet for four full seconds.
Then he turned back to Javier.
"Did he send you?"
Javier's jaw tightened.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"That's the second lie you've told me in the last three minutes." Dante stepped closer.
"You want to try for a third?"
"I came here on my own."
"You came here on your own," Dante repeated slowly, "walked into my home, put your hands on my children, and swung at me in front of thirty witnesses." He tilted his head slightly.
"And you expect me to believe that was your idea."
Javier said nothing.
One of the associates — a broad-shouldered man named Caruso who had worked with Dante for eleven years — moved quietly from the barbecue table and positioned himself six feet behind Javier without being asked.
Javier felt it.
His shoulders shifted.
"Whatever Renzo told you," Dante said, "he left something out."
"I told you, I don't—"
"He left out what happens to the men he uses." Dante's voice was almost gentle now.
"He never tells them that part."
Mia touched her father's arm again.
"Dad.
There's more."
Dante looked at her.
"He wasn't just watching." She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out her phone.
Her hand was still unsteady, but her voice had steadied.
"He was on a call.
I could see him through the fence.
He was talking to someone and looking directly at you."
She turned the phone screen toward her father.
She had taken a photograph through the iron bars.
The image was slightly blurred at the edges — taken quickly, from a distance — but the figure was clear enough.
Lorenzo Caretti.
Dante's older brother.
Standing outside the gate of Dante's own home, phone pressed to his ear, eyes fixed on the yard.
Dante looked at the photograph for a long time.
"Leo," he said finally, without looking up.
"Yeah."
"Take your sister inside."
"Dad—"
"Now."
Leo put his hand on Mia's shoulder and guided her toward the house.
She went, but she looked back once at the gate, then once at Javier, then at her father's face.
Dante was still looking at the photograph.
Caruso stepped up beside him.
"You want me to find out if he's still on the street?"
"He's not." Dante handed the phone back to Mia before she disappeared through the back door.
"Renzo doesn't stay anywhere he can be found." He finally looked at Javier again.
"But you're still here."
Javier straightened.
Some of the bravado had come back — or he was performing it.
"You can't do anything to me.
Not here.
Not in front of all these people."
"I'm not going to do anything to you here." Dante turned and walked back toward the barbecue tables.
"Caruso."
"Boss."
"Make sure Mr.
Javier gets home safely." A pause.
"And make sure he understands that the next time he sets foot on my property, I won't catch his fist.
I'll let it land.
And then I'll let the men behind me decide what comes after."
Javier opened his mouth.
Caruso's hand landed on his shoulder — not rough, just final.
The guests began to move again, slowly, conversations restarting in low voices.
Ice clinked in glasses.
Someone near the far table laughed at something, quietly, the way people laugh when they are relieved the storm passed over them.
Dante picked up his drink from the table where he'd left it.
It was still cold.
He stood with his back to the yard and looked at the gate.
Empty iron.
The street beyond it.
An ordinary afternoon.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He looked at the screen.
May you like
The number was one he hadn't seen in four years.
It was Renzo.
