Chapter 4 - The Secret Behind the Garden Gate
The name was Victor Salerno.
Dante hadn't heard it spoken aloud in years.
Salerno had once been one of Vincenzo Moretti's closest allies.
Three months after Vincenzo's murder, Victor disappeared.
Everyone assumed he had fled the country.
Dante had eventually stopped looking.
Now Elena sat across from him in the study.
Sophie slept upstairs.
Bruno guarded her door.
Tommy stood near the window.
“Start from the beginning,” Dante said.
Elena folded her hands.
“Gabriel worked for Salerno.”
“Salerno is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Dante's eyes hardened.
“How did you get the ledger?”
“Gabriel brought it home.”
“Why?”
“He'd been drinking. He liked showing me things that made him feel important.”
She swallowed.
“The ledger contained dates, payments, initials. I copied it because I thought it could help me escape.”
“And Vincenzo?”
“There was an entry dated November seventeenth.”
Dante remembered the date.
He would remember it when he was ninety.
“What did it say?”
“A payment. Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“To?”
“Gabriel said it was payment for a North End job.”
Dante's jaw clenched.
“Who received it?”
“I don't know. Initials only.”
“Which initials?”
Elena hesitated.
“T.R.”
Tommy moved behind him.
Dante slowly turned.
Tommy Russo.
T.R.
Tommy's face went pale.
“Boss.”
Dante said nothing.
“I swear to God—”
“Leave us.”
“Dante—”
“Leave.”
Tommy walked out.
Elena watched him go.
“I don't think it was Tommy.”
“Why?”
“The entry is older than Gabriel's involvement. And there were dozens of initials.”
Dante stared at the closed door.
Suspicion was poison.
Once swallowed, it spread.
“What else?”
“Salerno wanted the ledger back. Gabriel blamed me. That's when I ran.”
“With Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“Why not police?”
Elena gave him a tired look.
“Some names in that ledger wore badges.”
Dante believed her.
That evening, he walked alone to the garden.
Bruno eventually joined him.
The dog sat beside him.
“You remember him?”
Bruno looked up.
“My father.”
The dog rested his chin against Dante's knee.
Dante looked toward the gates.
For eleven years, he'd believed his father's murder had been the price of power.
Now he wondered if it had been something else.
Betrayal.
Behind him, small footsteps approached.
Sophie appeared wearing pajamas beneath her coat.
“You're supposed to be asleep.”
“I woke up.”
“Where's your mother?”
“Sleeping.”
“Then you should be too.”
Sophie climbed onto the bench.
“Are you sad?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
Dante sighed.
“Yes.”
“Because your daddy died?”
He stared at her.
“Who told you?”
“Mommy.”
Dante looked toward the mansion.
Sophie placed her stuffed rabbit in his lap.
“For you.”
“I don't need a rabbit.”
“You need something.”
He almost laughed.
Instead, he held the toy.
“My father told me never to love anything people could take away.”
Sophie frowned.
“That's silly.”
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“He was a very serious man.”
“Still silly.”
“Why?”
“Because then you don't get to love anybody.”
Simple.
Brutal.
True.
Before Dante could answer, Bruno stood.
His ears lifted.
A low growl rolled from his chest.
Dante immediately rose.
“What is it?”
Bruno faced the hedge.
Movement.
Dante reached inside his jacket.
A figure burst from the shadows.
Dante pushed Sophie behind him.
Bruno charged.
The intruder ran.
Guards shouted.
Dante lifted Sophie into his arms and sprinted toward the house.
Then Sophie screamed.
“Bruno!”
Dante turned.
The dog had disappeared through the hedge after the intruder.
Gunshot.
One.
Then silence.
Dante stopped breathing.
“Bruno!”
No response.
He handed Sophie to a guard.
“Take her inside.”
“No!”
“Sophie.”
“BRUNO!”
Dante ran toward the hedge.
He found the intruder gone.
Then saw Bruno.
The dog lay on his side.
Blood darkened the fur near his shoulder.
For one terrible second, Dante was thirty-one again.
Rain.
An alley.
His father's blood.
Something he loved lying on the ground.
“Bruno.”
The dog lifted his head weakly.
Dante dropped beside him.
“No.”
Sophie escaped the guard.
She ran toward them.
Elena followed.
Sophie fell to her knees beside Bruno.
“Wake up.”
“He's awake,” Dante said.
“Bruno?”
The dog's tail moved once.
Sophie burst into tears.
“You can't die! I adopted you!”
Dante pressed his hand against the wound.
“Tommy! Get the car!”
Sophie clutched Bruno's collar.
“Forever,” she sobbed. “Remember?”
Dante looked at the old dog.
Something inside him broke open.
Not rage.
Fear.
The fear his father had warned him about.
The terrible price of loving something.
But as Dante lifted Bruno into his arms, another realization came with it.
His father had been wrong.
The answer wasn't to love nothing.
The answer was to fight like hell for what you loved.
Dante carried Bruno toward the car.
Sophie ran beside him.
And none of them noticed the tiny black device attached beneath Bruno's collar.
A tracker.
The intruder hadn't come to kill the dog.
He had come to mark him.
Which meant whoever was hunting them didn't need to breach Dante's estate anymore.
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They only needed Bruno to lead them wherever Sophie went.
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