Chapter 3 - THE NAME ON THE MANIFEST
Marco's death had lived inside Dante like a locked room. He visited it rarely because he knew every object by heart: the restaurant receipt, the borrowed car, the police photograph of a burning sedan. The anonymous caller had just opened the door.
Dante summoned Victor Serno and asked a question he had avoided for seven years.
"Who benefited when Marco died?"
Victor's eyes narrowed. "The Russos. You know that."
"Who else?"
"Your father was already dead. Marco had enemies. We all did."
"That isn't an answer."
Victor's hands rested on the head of his cane. "Sometimes the absence of proof is the only truth you'll get."
Dante watched him leave, troubled less by the words than by the speed with which Victor had chosen them.
At the docks, Carlo examined the stopped container with an independent customs attorney present. The manifest listed industrial pumps. Inside were crates of imported medical imaging components, many bearing serial numbers associated with equipment reported stolen from hospitals in three states. The fraudulent authorization would have assigned responsibility for the shipment to Dante's companies while transferring the proceeds to an offshore account.
"They wanted the police to find it," Carlo said.
"After it sailed," Dante replied. "Then every document would point to me."
Carlo handed him the consignee's name: Bellwether Maritime. The company had been used in an old insurance dispute, one Marco had investigated shortly before his death.
Dante stared at the paper. "Get me Marco's files. Everything he kept."
In the kitchen, Elena was packing Sophia's dinner when she found an envelope slipped beneath the pantry door. Inside was a photograph of her daughter on the garden path, taken from beyond the estate wall. Across the back someone had written: CHILDREN SHOULD STAY QUIET.
Elena carried it directly to Dante. She expected anger. Instead, he asked whether Sophia had seen it.
"No."
"Good. Keep it that way."
"Mr. Moretti, I need to take her somewhere else."
He did not argue. "You can leave tonight. I'll arrange transport, but you choose the destination."
"I don't have a destination." Her voice broke. "Her father's gone. My parents are gone. This job is everything."
Dante looked at the photograph. For once, the empire surrounding him seemed smaller than the fear in a mother's face.
"Then we'll find you somewhere safe," he said. "And your job will still be here if you want it."
She studied him, uncertain whether a promise from a man like Dante Moretti was protection or another debt.
May you like
"I don't want Sophia to owe anyone," she said.
"Neither do I."
