Chapter 2 - The Only Rule Dante Ever Broke
Eleven years earlier, Vincenzo Moretti walked out of a North End bakery carrying a box of cannoli.
He never reached his car.
Dante remembered the rain more clearly than the gunshots.
Cold November rain.
It ran from rooftops, collected in gutters, and washed through the alley where his father lay dying.
Dante had been thirty-one.
Old enough to understand what death looked like.
Young enough to believe his father couldn't die.
The bakery box had been crushed beside Vincenzo's body. White cream and powdered sugar dissolved into the black pavement.
“Dad.”
Vincenzo's hand caught Dante's collar.
His fingers were already cold.
“Listen.”
“Ambulance is coming.”
“Listen to me.”
Dante did.
Vincenzo Moretti had spent his life teaching lessons that other fathers didn't teach.
Never sit with your back to a door.
Never threaten when silence will work.
A man who has nothing to lose is more dangerous than a man with everything to gain.
But Vincenzo's final lesson was different.
“Never love anything they can take from you.”
Then his grip loosened.
Dante remained kneeling in the rain.
He didn't cry.
Eventually he heard a whimper.
It came from beneath a dumpster.
Dante found a soaked beagle puppy trembling there.
The puppy had crawled as close to Vincenzo as it could.
Perhaps the old man had fed it.
Perhaps it had simply found him after the shooting.
Dante never learned which.
He should have walked away.
Instead he opened his coat.
The puppy crawled against his chest.
Dante carried it home.
He named him Bruno.
It became the only rule of his father's he deliberately broke.
Years passed.
Dante grew colder.
Bruno grew older.
And Dante discovered that his father had been right about one thing.
Love created leverage.
That was why there had been no wife.
No children.
No photographs on his desk except one old picture of Vincenzo.
No one an enemy could grab and use to force Dante to his knees.
Only Bruno.
And Bruno was protected better than most senators.
Now, eleven years after the alley, Dante stood in his study with Sophie's blue button on his desk.
Tommy entered carrying a folder.
“I found Elena.”
Dante gestured toward the chair.
Tommy remained standing.
That told Dante the information wasn't simple.
“Elena Rossi. Twenty-eight. Born in Providence. No criminal record. Worked hospitality jobs. Married at twenty-two.”
“Married?”
“Widowed, according to her application.”
“According to?”
Tommy opened the folder.
“Her husband isn't dead.”
Dante looked up.
Tommy placed a photograph on the desk.
The man was handsome in a cheap, aggressive way.
“Gabriel Vale.”
Dante knew the name.
Not well.
Enough.
Vale worked around the edges of Boston's criminal world. Gambling. Collections. Stolen cars. Small-time narcotics. The sort of man who desperately wanted powerful people to believe he was powerful too.
“He's Sophie's father?” Dante asked.
“Looks that way.”
“Why did Elena say he was dead?”
“Maybe she wishes he was.”
Tommy slid another page forward.
Hospital report.
Three years earlier.
Elena Rossi—then Elena Vale—had arrived at an emergency room with a fractured wrist and bruised ribs.
She told doctors she'd fallen down stairs.
Two months later, another visit.
Another fall.
Then another.
Dante's jaw hardened.
“And the gray sedan?”
“Registered to one of Vale's guys.”
Dante leaned back.
“So she's hiding.”
“Yeah.”
“Here.”
“Probably figured nobody would come looking on Moretti property.”
Smart.
And dangerous.
Not because Dante cared that Elena had lied about her marriage.
People lied when they were afraid.
What concerned him was that her fear had followed her through his gates.
A knock sounded.
Dante looked toward the door.
Nobody entered his study without permission.
The knock came again.
Smaller this time.
Then the door opened two inches.
Brown curls appeared.
“Bruno?”
Dante stared.
The door opened wider.
Sophie slipped inside.
She carried her stuffed rabbit.
Dante looked behind her.
No Elena.
No housekeeper.
No guard.
“Does anyone in this house know where you are?”
Sophie considered it.
“Bruno does.”
Bruno lifted his head from the rug beside Dante's desk.
Sophie smiled.
“There you are.”
She walked straight past Dante as though he were furniture and sat beside the enormous dog.
Bruno rolled onto his side.
“You're supposed to be downstairs.”
“Mommy's working.”
“That doesn't answer what I said.”
“She said don't bother anybody.”
“And yet here you are.”
Sophie whispered into Bruno's ear.
Dante heard every word.
“He's grumpy.”
Bruno's tail moved.
Dante looked at Tommy.
Tommy suddenly studied the ceiling.
“Tommy.”
“Yeah?”
“Leave.”
Tommy escaped before his face betrayed him.
Sophie noticed the blue button.
“You kept it!”
Dante looked at the object on his desk.
“I forgot to throw it away.”
“No, you didn't.”
“No?”
“You like it.”
“I assure you, I have no emotional attachment to buttons.”
Sophie climbed onto the chair opposite him.
Her legs didn't reach the floor.
“Mommy says people say things they don't mean when they're scared.”
Dante became still.
“Is your mother scared?”
Sophie stroked Bruno's ear.
“Sometimes.”
“Of what?”
The child hesitated.
Then she looked toward the door.
“Bad dreams.”
“What kind?”
“Daddy dreams.”
Dante's expression changed.
“Tell me about your father.”
Sophie hugged the rabbit.
“Mommy says Daddy's far away.”
“Is he?”
“I don't know.”
The study door flew open.
Elena stood there, breathless.
“Sophie!”
The child jumped.
Elena crossed the room.
“I've been looking everywhere.”
“She wasn't bothering me,” Dante said.
Elena looked surprised.
Dante nodded toward the chair.
“Sit.”
Her face drained.
“Mr. Moretti, I—”
“Sit.”
She did.
Sophie climbed into her lap.
Dante placed Gabriel Vale's photograph on the desk.
Elena stopped breathing.
“Is this man dead?”
Silence.
Sophie looked between the adults.
“Mommy?”
Elena's eyes closed.
“No.”
“Then you lied on your employment application.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elena held Sophie tighter.
“I needed work.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“I needed somewhere safe.”
There it was.
Dante leaned forward.
“Vale knows you're here.”
Elena went white.
“No.”
“He does.”
“No, he can't.”
“A car belonging to one of his associates passed my gate three times yesterday.”
Elena stood abruptly.
“We'll leave.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand someone has been surveilling my property.”
“He isn't after you.”
“That makes him stupid, not harmless.”
Elena looked down at Sophie.
“Please. I'll take her and disappear.”
Dante's voice lowered.
“Where?”
She didn't answer.
“Another motel? Another job under another name? How long before he finds you again?”
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
“You don't know Gabriel.”
“I know men like Gabriel.”
“No. You know criminals.”
The statement was dangerous.
Tommy would have gone pale hearing it.
Dante merely waited.
Elena continued.
“Gabriel doesn't want money. He wants control. When Sophie was born, I thought he'd change.”
“He didn't.”
“He got worse.”
Sophie had gone very quiet.
Elena noticed.
She kissed her daughter's hair.
“Sweetheart, go find Mrs. Bellini.”
Sophie looked at Dante.
“And Bruno?”
“Take Bruno,” Dante said.
The dog immediately stood.
Elena stared as Sophie left with him.
When the door closed, she whispered, “You shouldn't let her get attached.”
“To the dog?”
“To anything here.”
“Why?”
“Because we'll have to leave.”
Dante looked at her.
“No one leaves until I understand what's happening.”
“You can't make that decision for us.”
“No. But I can decide who enters my property.”
Elena shook her head.
“You think gates can stop Gabriel?”
Dante almost smiled.
“They've stopped better men.”
Her expression changed.
She knew who he was.
Perhaps she had always known.
“That's what frightens me.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“You.”
He said nothing.
“I brought my daughter into the house of a man everyone in Boston whispers about because somehow that felt safer than letting her father find us.”
The words landed harder than Dante expected.
Elena stood.
“That's how afraid I am.”
She reached the door.
“Elena.”
She stopped.
“If Vale comes here, he doesn't get Sophie.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“You can't promise that.”
Dante picked up the blue button.
“I don't make promises I can't keep.”
Elena left.
That evening, Bruno didn't sleep at the foot of Dante's bed.
At midnight, Dante noticed.
At 12:15, he walked downstairs.
He found the old dog lying outside the staff quarters.
Guarding Sophie's door.
Dante stood in the dark hallway.
Bruno looked up.
“You've known her two days.”
The dog lowered his head again.
Dante stared at him.
Then his phone vibrated.
Tommy.
Dante answered.
“What?”
“We got a problem.”
“What kind?”
“Gate camera.”
Dante opened the security application.
A man stood outside the estate.
Gabriel Vale.
He stared directly into the camera.
Then raised a photograph.
Elena and Sophie.
On the back, written in black marker, were six words.
YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.
Dante's face became stone.
He looked down the hallway.
Behind one door slept a woman who had spent years running.
Behind another slept her three-year-old daughter.
And stretched across the floor between them and the outside world was the only creature Dante had allowed himself to love.
Bruno raised his head.
Dante quietly said:
May you like
“Looks like we have company.”
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