Chapter 2 - WHO TOUCHED YOU?
The first thing Marco Vitelli did after kidnapping me was apologize for the car ride.
I stared at him from the back seat, one hand pressed against the side of my aching head.
“You had me dragged off the street.”
“Yes.”
“You put a hand over my mouth.”
“That wasn’t my hand.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently kidnapping had etiquette.
Marco sat across from me in the black SUV as Chicago slipped past the tinted windows.
“You are not going to be killed, Emma.”
“Very comforting.”
“I need Moretti’s attention.”
“You could call him.”
“He stops taking my calls.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
One corner of Marco’s mouth moved.
Then his expression hardened.
“The letter you carried tonight concerned something your mother took eighteen years ago.”
My anger vanished.
“My mother?”
“Laura Chase.”
Hearing her name from him made my skin go cold.
“You knew her?”
“I knew of her.”
“My mother worked at a medical billing office.”
“Later.”
“What does that mean?”
Marco didn’t answer.
The SUV turned through iron gates and stopped behind an old brick house somewhere far from downtown.
My purse was taken.
My dead phone disappeared with it.
Nobody tied me to a chair.
Nobody put me in a dungeon.
That almost made things worse.
They placed me in an upstairs bedroom with barred windows, a bed, a bathroom, and a tray of untouched food.
On the first morning, Marco came in carrying coffee.
“What did Laura give you before she died?”
“Medical bills.”
He didn’t smile.
“Think.”
“I watched my mother die for six months. I remember what she gave me.”
“A book?”
“No.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
“A key?”
“No.”
“A ledger?”
I stared at him.
“What ledger?”
Something shifted in his eyes.
He had expected me to recognize the word.
“I really don’t know, do I?” I whispered.
“No.”
For the first time, he seemed to believe me.
That should have helped.
It didn’t.
On the second day, another man questioned me.
His name was Luca.
He was younger than Marco, maybe thirty-five, with colorless eyes and a black onyx ring on his right hand.
He didn’t believe anything I said.
“What did your mother tell you about St. Agnes?”
“Nothing.”
His fingers tightened around my arm.
“What about North Pier?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You expect us to believe Laura Chase raised you without ever mentioning Carlo Moretti?”
“I didn’t know who Dante Moretti was until four nights ago.”
The grip became painful.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
He squeezed harder.
I cried out.
Marco appeared in the doorway.
“Enough.”
Luca released me.
Purple marks already bloomed beneath my skin.
Marco looked at them.
Something angry moved behind his face.
“I said no damage.”
“She’s wasting time.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“You’re getting soft.”
Marco’s voice dropped.
“Leave.”
Luca did.
But as he passed me, his onyx ring caught the light.
A small letter was carved into its face.
M.
The third day was worse because nobody came.
Silence became its own kind of interrogation.
I thought about my mother.
About the final months when she had been so thin I could lift her almost by myself.
About the hospital bills stacked in a grocery bag because she was too ashamed to leave them visible.
About the small silver locket she made me promise never to sell.
I still wore it.
The men had searched me when I arrived.
They had taken my earrings and watch.
Oddly, nobody had taken the locket.
Maybe because it looked cheap.
It was cheap.
At least I had always believed it was.
On the fourth evening, the house changed.
Footsteps thundered downstairs.
Someone shouted.
A crash shook the wall.
I backed into the corner.
Another crash.
Then silence.
The bedroom door exploded inward.
I screamed.
A man filled the doorway.
Black coat.
Dark eyes.
Scar through his left eyebrow.
Dante Moretti.
For one frozen second, neither of us moved.
His gaze swept the room.
Bed.
Window.
Untouched food.
Then me.
He looked at my face.
My bare feet.
The bruises wrapping both arms.
Something terrible happened to his expression.
Not rage exactly.
Rage still has heat.
This was colder.
“Who touched you?”
The question was so quiet that I almost didn’t understand it.
“I—”
Dante crossed the room.
Then stopped three feet away.
He didn’t touch me.
That mattered.
Behind him, armed men moved through the hallway.
“Emma.”
My throat tightened.
“The man named Luca.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
I told him.
Then I remembered the ring.
“Black stone.”
Dante’s face changed.
“What?”
“He wore a black onyx ring. With an M carved into it.”
Dante went completely still.
“Which hand?”
“Right.”
He looked toward one of his men.
The other man had gone pale.
“What?” I demanded.
Nobody answered.
“Dante.”
His eyes returned to me.
“That ring wasn’t Vitelli’s.”
My stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Luca wasn’t one of Marco’s men.”
“I watched Marco order him out.”
“He may have been working inside Marco’s crew.”
“For whom?”
Dante didn’t answer.
Instead he removed his coat and held it out.
I hesitated.
“I’m not cold.”
“You’re shaking.”
I looked down.
He was right.
I took the coat.
It smelled faintly of cedar and winter.
He turned toward the door.
“I’m taking you out.”
“To where?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“With you?”
His jaw tightened.
“If necessary.”
There was something almost reluctant about the answer.
Like rescuing me had created a problem he hadn’t planned to keep.
I should have been offended.
Instead I was too tired.
We made it halfway down the stairs before Marco appeared.
Two of Dante’s men held him at gunpoint.
Marco looked bruised but perfectly calm.
His eyes went immediately to me.
“Emma.”
I stopped.
Dante stepped between us.
“You don’t speak to her.”
Marco ignored him.
“Did Luca hurt you?”
“You knew he was here.”
“I knew him as Luca Bell.”
“That’s not his name?” I asked.
Marco’s eyes shifted toward Dante.
“No.”
Dante’s voice was ice.
“His name is Luca Salvi.”
Something in Marco’s face cracked.
“Salvi?”
“Yes.”
Marco swore.
I looked between them.
“Who is Salvi?”
Neither answered quickly enough.
Dante’s hand curled once at his side.
“Victor Salvi has worked for my family for thirty-one years.”
“Your family?”
“My father trusted him.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“So did mine.”
I suddenly understood why both men looked shaken.
The kidnapping had not just started a war.
Someone had infiltrated both sides before it began.
Marco looked at Dante.
“He told me Laura Chase’s daughter had the ledger.”
Dante stared at him.
“He told me you had found her first.”
My blood went cold.
“So this Luca person manipulated both of you?”
“Luca is Victor’s son,” Dante said.
I nearly missed a step.
Marco looked sick.
“He used my anger.”
“And my father’s old suspicion,” Dante replied.
I pulled Dante’s coat tighter around myself.
“What was in the envelope?”
The question silenced both men.
The envelope.
The stupid cream-colored thing that had ruined my life.
Dante looked at me.
“Not here.”
“No.”
My voice shook, but I kept going.
“You don’t get to do that.”
His brows lowered.
“Do what?”
“Decide what I can handle.”
Something passed through his eyes.
Then, slowly, he reached into his jacket.
The red-wax envelope was folded inside.
He removed the message.
There was a photograph.
Old.
Creased.
Three people stood together on a Chicago pier.
One was a younger Dante’s father.
One was a man who looked enough like Marco to be family.
And between them stood my mother.
Laura Chase.
Alive.
Young.
Smiling.
My knees almost gave way.
On the back, someone had written:
ASK LAURA’S DAUGHTER WHAT SHE INHERITED.
Dante watched my face.
“That is why I remembered your name after the ballroom.”
“You knew my mother?”
“No.”
“But your father did.”
“Yes.”
Marco spoke from behind him.
“So did my brother.”
I stared at the photograph.
Then something slipped from beneath Dante’s coat collar.
My silver locket.
The chain must have caught while I put the coat on.
Dante looked down.
Everything in him stopped.
His eyes locked on the cheap little silver medal I had worn since my mother died.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
Dante took one careful step closer.
“Emma, turn it over.”
I did.
A tiny cross was scratched into the back.
Below it were two initials.
C.M.
Dante’s face drained of color.
“That belonged to my father.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
May you like
His voice became almost inaudible.
“My father gave that locket to Laura Chase three hours before somebody murdered him.”
