Chapter 5
“What wrong story?”
She scrunched her face, concentrating.
“He said, ‘The old man was supposed to be alone.’”
Dante's chest tightened.
His father, Vittorio Moretti, had died twelve years earlier in what everyone believed was a robbery gone wrong.
Marcus had been the first man at the scene.
The man who identified the attackers.
The man who promised Dante that justice had been done.
Dante slowly sat down.
“Did he say anything else?”
Sophie nodded.
“He said he kept the papers.”
Clara looked between them.
“What papers?”
Sophie shrugged.
“The ones in the blue book.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“What blue book?”
“The one he put in his bag. It had a gold bird on it.”
Dante knew that book.
A leather-bound ledger his father had kept in his private office.
It had vanished after the funeral.
He had spent twelve years believing it had been destroyed.
And Marcus had kept it all along.
Dante stood.
“Rafael.”
His security chief appeared.
“Find Marcus's bag. Coordinate with the detectives. There's a blue leather book inside.”
Rafael nodded and left.
Sophie watched Dante.
“Are you sad?”
Dante looked down at her.
“A little.”
She held out her arms.
“Mommy gives me hugs when I'm sad.”
Dante hesitated.
Then he knelt.
Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck.
It was an awkward hug.
Small.
Warm.
Uncomplicated.
And something inside Dante Moretti, something that had been closed for almost half his life, quietly broke open.
## CHAPTER 6 — THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS FATHER
The ledger was recovered that night.
Dante didn't sleep.
By morning, investigators had confirmed enough of its contents to reopen the case of Vittorio Moretti's death.
The entries were precise.
Dates.
Payments.
Names.
Marcus's name appeared repeatedly.
Among the documents was an old photograph of Marcus standing beside one of the men accused of killing Vittorio.
The picture had been taken three weeks before the murder.
There was also a handwritten statement from a former driver, hidden between two pages.
It described a meeting arranged by Marcus on the night Vittorio died.
Dante read the statement twice.
Then a third time.
The words did not change.
His father had not died in a random robbery.
He had been betrayed.
And the man who helped arrange it had spent the next twelve years eating at Dante's table.
Dante sat alone in his study as morning sunlight crept across the floor.
For years, he had believed grief made him stronger.