Chapter 7 - THE SON WHO BROKE THE RULES
Dante learned Nora had left Chicago at 9:40 that morning.
He didn't call her.
Not immediately.
She had made it clear that she wanted control over her own decisions.
But when Rebecca discovered that the Milwaukee address was connected to a witness in an old financial investigation, Dante became concerned.
Then Nora called.
Her voice was shaking.
“Dante.”
He stood.
“Where are you?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Are you safe?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened?”
A pause.
Then:
“I found my mother.”
Dante stopped breathing.
Nora explained quickly.
The grocery store.
Agata.
The men outside.
Dante listened.
Then said:
“Call the police. Stay inside somewhere secure. I'm coming.”
By the time he arrived, local police had already responded.
The men outside had left without approaching the building.
Agata was safe.
Nora sat beside her mother in the back office.
When Dante entered, Agata stood.
For a moment, she stared at him.
Then whispered:
“Dante?”
He stopped.
His face changed.
“Agata.”
She stepped toward him.
He looked like a boy again.
A seventeen-year-old brother who had watched his sister leave and never found the courage to follow.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
Agata began crying.
He embraced her.
Nora watched.
For the first time, she saw Dante without the armor he wore in Chicago.
No cold expression.
No calculated silence.
Just a man holding the sister he had believed dead.
Later, Dante called Salvatore.
“Papa.”
“What?”
“Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Please.”
A pause.
Then Salvatore said:
“I'm sitting.”
Dante looked at Agata.
“She's alive.”
Silence.
“Who?”
Dante swallowed.
“Agata.”
The old man made a sound Nora had never heard before.
Not a word.
Not a cry.
Something between disbelief and grief.
Then he whispered:
“Bring my daughter home.”
But Agata shook her head.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
She continued.
“Not until I know who separated us.”
Nora took her mother's hand.
For the first time in her life, she understood why Pietro had always been afraid.
May you like
Someone had spent twenty-six years keeping a mother and daughter apart.
And that person still had something to lose.
