Chapter 6 - The Child Dante Was Never Supposed to Meet
The Missing Name
I couldn't breathe.
My mind searched backward.
Six years.
Hospitals.
Rain.
A stranger's car.
A woman bleeding in my arms.
Fragments I'd spent years trying to forget.
Dante stared at me.
“What is he talking about?”
“I don't know.”
Matteo shook his head.
“You do.”
“No.”
“You helped Carmela escape that night.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Dante looked at me.
“You've met my wife?”
I couldn't answer.
Sophia stirred in my arms.
“Mommy…”
Her sleepy voice broke the tension.
Dante lowered his gun.
Matteo continued.
“Carmela discovered someone inside the family was trafficking girls through Falcone-owned properties.”
Dante's face hardened.
“What girls?”
“Runaways. Immigrants. Women who vanished without anyone caring enough to look.”
I felt sick.
“Carmela found records.”
“She did.”
“And that's why she died?”
Matteo nodded.
“She intended to expose everyone.”
Dante looked at me.
“Then where do you fit?”
I finally remembered.
Six years earlier, while working nights at a roadside diner, I had found an injured woman outside.
She wore an expensive coat.
She had blood on her sleeve.
She told me her name was Carmela.
I had hidden her in my tiny apartment.
For one night.
The next morning, men came looking.
She left before dawn.
I never saw her again.
Until now.
“You saved her,” Matteo said.
“I didn't know who she was.”
“She knew.”
Dante walked toward me.
“You never told me.”
“I didn't know until now.”
He stopped inches away.
“What else don't you know?”
Before I could answer, Sophia woke.
She looked at Dante.
Then at Matteo.
Then at the black notebook.
“Bad man.”
Matteo turned.
“Who?”
Sophia pointed at the notebook.
“Not you.”
Everyone froze.
Matteo looked at Dante.
“Then who?”
Sophia pointed toward the hallway.
“Mr. Daniel.”
Dante frowned.
“Who is Daniel?”
One guard looked confused.
“We don't have a Daniel.”
Sophia shook her head.
“Not here.”
She pointed toward the portrait of Carmela.
“He is in the picture.”
Dante grabbed the wedding photograph.
He looked at it.
Carmela.
Dante.
Guests.
Security.
He studied every face.
Then his expression changed.
One man stood in the background.
Half-hidden.
Daniel Mercer.
Dante's finance director.
A man who had worked beside him for eleven years.
Dante called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then an incoming message appeared.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
A photograph.
Sophia asleep in the safe house.
Taken twenty minutes earlier.
My blood turned cold.
Under the image were five words.
BRING HER TO THE BLUE HOUSE.
Dante looked at Matteo.
“Blue house?”
Matteo went pale.
“Carmela's childhood home.”
Dante stared at the phone.
“Why would they want Sophia there?”
Matteo answered slowly.
“Because that's where Carmela hid the last piece.”
“The last piece of what?”
Matteo swallowed.
“The evidence that can destroy the Falcone family.”
Dante looked at Sophia.
She had already fallen asleep again.
Then his phone rang.
This time the caller ID said:
CARMELA FALCONE.
Dante answered.
A woman's voice whispered.
“Dante…”
He stopped breathing.
May you like
“Carmela?”
The line went dead.
