Chapter 7 - The Fortress Had Teeth MissingDante did not shout.
He did not curse.
He did not smash the phone against the wall.
He simply stood.
And every guard in my apartment understood that something terrible had happened before he said a word.
“Call Rafe,” he ordered.
One man already had his phone out.
Dante took two steps toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me.
For a moment, I saw the war inside him again. His son was in danger. I was injured, shaken, holding a key that apparently mattered enough for people to kill over. Every instinct in him wanted to control both disasters at once.
“Go,” I said.
His eyes narrowed.
“Clara—”
“Your son first. Always.”
Something shifted across his face, fierce and painful.
Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him.
Apparently, “go” had not meant leaving me behind.
We moved fast.
Too fast for my stitches. By the time we reached the SUV, I was sweating cold beneath the borrowed coat, but I refused to make a sound. Dante noticed anyway.
“Pain?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do not lie badly. It wastes time.”
“Then stop asking questions you already know the answer to.”
His mouth tightened, but his attention snapped back to the phone pressed to his ear.
“Rafe.”
I could hear nothing from the other side, but Dante’s face told me enough.
“Say it again.”
Silence.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Lock the entire house. No one exits. No one enters. Put Matteo in my office vault room. You carry him yourself.”
Vault room.
For a child.
My stomach turned.
Dante ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The photo was taken twenty-seven minutes ago. Rafe was outside Matteo’s room the entire time.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It means the photographer was already inside.”
“Staff?”
“Or family.”
The way he said family made clear that word had never meant safety.
The ride back to the Moretti estate felt longer than the ride out. Dante made calls in Italian, each one colder than the last. Men answered him with yes, boss and understood. Names were spoken. Orders were given. Doors were sealed.
I sat with the brass key digging into my palm.
My mother had carried this secret into her death.
Dante’s wife had died because of a folder.
Matteo remembered a woman with red nails, a man with a watch, and a black car.
And Michael—useless, selfish, cowardly Michael—was somehow connected to people who knew more about my mother than I did.
“Who is your enemy?” I asked.
Dante lowered the phone.
“Which one?”
“The one who would use Matteo.”
His eyes darkened.
“Only someone who wants me broken before they want me dead.”
“That sounds personal.”
“It is.”
“Vincent?”
He looked out the window.
“Vincent knows what Matteo means to me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the only answer I have.”
The gates opened before we reached them. Men swarmed the driveway. Lights blazed across the house. The beautiful fortress now looked wounded, exposed, furious.
Dante was out of the SUV before it fully stopped.
I followed slower.
The moment we entered the foyer, Matteo’s cry echoed from somewhere deep in the house.
“Papa!”
Dante moved toward the sound like a man pulled by gravity.
We found Matteo in Dante’s office, not crying from fear now, but rage. He stood barefoot on a leather couch, cheeks wet, while Rafe tried to wrap a blanket around him.
“I told you!” Matteo sobbed. “I told you the bad things come back!”
Dante crossed the room and took him into his arms.
Matteo hit his father’s chest with both fists.
Tiny, furious blows.
“You left!”
“I came back.”
“You left Clara too!”
That startled me.
Dante looked over Matteo’s head at me.
I stayed near the door, suddenly unsure where I belonged in a room full of men with guns and family pain.
Matteo twisted around. “Clara.”
I stepped closer.
“I’m here.”
He reached for me.
Dante hesitated only a second before letting him take my hand.
That second did not go unnoticed.
Not by Rafe.
Not by the guards.
Not by the woman standing pale and rigid near the bookshelves.
Mrs. Vale.
Her temple was bandaged. Her eyes looked bruised and ashamed.
“Miss Hayes,” she said quietly. “I owe you an apology.”
I blinked.
That was not what I expected.
“I did not welcome you kindly,” she continued. “But tonight, someone used my keys.”
Dante turned sharply.
Mrs. Vale lifted her trembling hand. A ring of keys hung from her fingers.
“One is missing.”
“Which?” Dante asked.
“The service passage behind the east room.”
The room went silent.
My skin prickled.
“There’s a service passage behind my room?”
Dante’s eyes closed briefly.
Not from surprise.
From anger at himself.
“It has been sealed for years.”
Mrs. Vale shook her head. “It was supposed to be.”
Rafe swore under his breath.
Dante handed Matteo to him. “Show me.”
“No,” Matteo cried.
“I am not leaving the house.”
“No!”
The boy’s panic ripped through the room.
Dante looked at me.
I understood the request before he made it.
I also understood the danger of saying yes.
“I’ll stay with him,” I said.
Dante’s eyes held mine.
“Inside the office. Door locked. Rafe stays.”
“Go.”
He left with Mrs. Vale and four guards.
The office door locked behind them.
Matteo crawled into my lap before I could tell him my back hurt. I absorbed the pain because he was shaking, because he was five, because sometimes people needed arms more than comfort needed conditions.
Rafe stood by the door.
His jaw was tight.
“You think Dante should have known about the passage,” I said.
“He did know. We all did. It was welded shut after Sofia died.”
“Then someone opened it.”
“Yes.”
“From inside?”
Rafe’s gaze cut to me.
“That is what bothers me too.”
Matteo lifted his head. “Mama used the secret hall.”
My entire body went cold.
Rafe turned.
“What did you say, little man?”
Matteo sniffed. “Mama used it when she cried. She said walls have ears but old houses have bones.”
I stared at him.
His mother had used the passage.
Maybe to hide.
Maybe to meet someone.
Maybe to move the folder.
The brass key in my pocket suddenly felt hot.
“Rafe,” I said slowly, “where did that passage lead?”
He hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“To the old chapel room.”
“Chapel?”
“Family room. Not used anymore.”
I pulled the brass key from my pocket.
Rafe’s eyes dropped to it.
He went very still.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
He crossed the room in two strides.
“Clara.”
His voice had changed completely.
“What?”
“That key has the Moretti crest.”
I looked down.
I had never noticed before.
On the worn brass head of the key, nearly rubbed away by years of handling, was a tiny symbol.
A lion with a broken crown.
Dante’s crest.
The office phone rang.
Everyone froze.
Not a cell phone.
The old black landline on Dante’s desk.
Rafe moved toward it slowly, gun in hand.
He pressed speaker.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
Soft.
Elegant.
Familiar only because Matteo had described it.
“Hello, little prince.”
Matteo went white.
Rafe’s gun lifted toward nothing.
The woman laughed.
“Tell your father Lucia sends her love.”
May you like
The line clicked dead.
Dante’s dead sister-in-law was alive.
