Chapter 8 - The Guest Who Was Supposed to Be DeadElena refused to let Sophie attend the party preparations.
“She has been frightened enough,” she told Dante. “She needs a quiet room, not another hundred strangers wandering around.”
Dante agreed.
The little girl was moved to an upstairs suite beside the private medical room. Bruno remained at her side, while two armed guards watched the corridor.
For once, Sophie didn't complain.
She sat on the carpet drawing pictures of Bruno wearing a crown.
Dante found her halfway through the second drawing.
“That's quite a crown,” he said.
“He's the king of the house.”
“Does that make me the king's servant?”
Sophie considered the question seriously.
“Sometimes.”
Dante almost smiled.
Then he crouched beside her.
“Sophie, I need you to tell me something. When you saw the man with the ring, did you recognize anything else?”
She studied her paper.
“His shoes.”
“What about them?”
“They made a squeaky sound.”
“Like wet shoes?”
“No. Like the floor was sticky.”
Dante frowned.
“Anything else?”
“He had a smell.”
“What smell?”
“Cigarettes. And oranges.”
The answer was unexpected.
Dante knew someone who smoked clove cigarettes scented with orange peel.
Carlo Bellini.
The older man had smoked them for decades, always claiming he disliked ordinary tobacco.
Dante kept his expression neutral.
“Did he speak to you?”
Sophie nodded.
“He said I was a good girl.”
“Anything after that?”
“He asked where Mommy kept Papa's things.”
Dante felt his stomach tighten.
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn't know.”
“Good girl.”
Sophie looked up at him.
“Was he bad?”
Dante took a moment before answering.
“Sometimes people hide bad choices behind nice words.”
She thought about that.
“Like when people say they're helping but they're really hurting?”
“Exactly.”
Sophie returned to her drawing.
Dante stood, troubled by what he had learned.
Before he could leave, Rossi appeared in the doorway.
“Boss, Carlo is here.”
“Tell him the party is canceled.”
“He says the guests are already arriving.”
Dante glanced through the window.
Cars were entering the estate, one after another. Black sedans, limousines, and security vehicles filled the driveway. Men in tailored suits stepped onto the marble entrance beneath the estate's enormous chandelier.
Dante recognized several faces from the city's underworld.
He also recognized the elderly man emerging from a silver sedan.
Silas Vane.
The man supposedly killed twenty years earlier.
Silas was thinner than Dante remembered from old photographs, his hair completely white. A cane supported his right hand, and a faint scar crossed his throat. But his eyes were sharp.
Very sharp.
He looked directly toward Dante's window and smiled.
“Keep Sophie upstairs,” Dante told Rossi. “Nobody approaches her without my approval.”
“Understood.”
“And get Elena to the secure room.”
Rossi nodded.
Dante walked downstairs.
The entrance hall was already filled with guests who spoke in low voices, pretending not to notice the armed men stationed at every corner.
Carlo approached with a glass of champagne.
“You're late,” he said.
“You're early.”
“People are worried about you.”
“They should worry about themselves.”
Carlo's smile barely moved.
“You can't cancel a gathering this important because of an old rumor.”
“Is that what we're calling a hidden passage and a surveillance camera?”
“Your men are investigating it.”
“My men are investigating you.”
The older man's expression finally changed.
Only slightly.
“Be careful what you say in front of these people.”
Dante leaned closer.
“Why? Afraid someone might hear the truth?”
Before Carlo could answer, Silas Vane approached.
“Dante Moretti,” he said. “You've grown into your father's chair.”
Dante looked at him without offering his hand.
“I thought you were dead.”
Silas chuckled.
“Many men thought that. Some worked very hard to make it true.”
His eyes shifted toward Carlo.
The two men exchanged a glance.
It lasted less than a second.
But Dante saw it.
“You knew each other,” Dante said.
Silas smiled.
“Your father and I had business together.”
“You tried to destroy my father.”
“I tried to negotiate with him. He was too proud to listen.”
“And now?”
“Now I have a proposal.”
Silas handed Dante a folded document.
Dante didn't open it.
“What's inside?”
“A transfer agreement.”
“For what?”
“Your estate. Several business holdings. A few distribution routes. In exchange, I let your employees keep their jobs and your enemies remain peaceful.”
Dante stared at him.
“You came to my house to offer me a surrender agreement.”
“I came to give you a choice.”
“And if I refuse?”
Silas leaned on his cane.
“Then tonight will be remembered as the evening the Moretti family ended.”
A hush settled over the entrance hall.
Dante's men shifted, their hands moving toward their weapons.
Carlo lifted his champagne.
“Gentlemen. We are here to celebrate, not threaten one another.”
Dante looked at him.
“You arranged this.”
“I invited guests.”
“You invited a dead man.”
Silas laughed.
“Dead men are often the most reliable guests. They have nothing left to lose.”
Then he leaned toward Dante and lowered his voice.
“Ask Carlo what happened to Rafael Alvarez. Ask him why your father died. Ask him what happened to the last member of the Three Keys.”
Dante's face remained still.
Silas stepped back.
“And when you've learned the truth, decide whether your pride is worth the price.”
He moved toward the ballroom.
Dante caught Carlo by the arm.
“Who is the last member of the Three Keys?”
Carlo pulled free.
“An obsolete organization.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It is the only answer you'll get here.”
Carlo walked away.
Dante watched him cross the room, then looked down at the folded transfer agreement.
A small photograph slipped from inside.
It showed Dante's father standing beside Rafael Alvarez and three other men.
Every man wore a silver ring.
Except one.
The last figure stood partly in shadow, his face hidden by the angle of the camera.
On the back, someone had written a sentence in black ink.
THE FOURTH KEY WAS NEVER MISSING.
Dante stared at the photograph.
He had spent the entire morning searching for three traitors.
But Rafael's message had never said there were only three.
And the hidden archive beneath his own estate might contain evidence that a fourth man had been working against his family all along.
May you like
A man who had never been suspected.
A man who was still alive.
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