The Threat in the Pantry
Chapter 02 - The Threat in the Pantry
Sofia laughed first.
It was small and light and meant for the room, not for me.
“Dante, honestly,” she said. “She’s a maid who dropped a tray. Must we turn it into a courtroom?”
Dante did not stand up.
He remained crouched beside me, one elbow resting on his knee, his black watch catching chandelier light.
“You answered a question before I asked it,” he said.
Sofia’s jaw tightened.
“I was trying to be helpful.”
“Were you?”
The temperature in the dining room seemed to fall.
I had seen men come into that mansion thinking money made them brave. I had seen them leave pale, careful, and suddenly very interested in being agreeable. Dante Russo did not threaten people the way ordinary men did. He simply took away the room they thought they controlled.
Sofia knew it too.
Her diamonds moved once at her throat.
Dante finally rose. “Marco.”
A tall man near the doors straightened. “Yes, boss.”
“No one leaves.”
A ripple moved through the guests.
Dante looked over the table. “Except the older guests who don’t enjoy unpleasant truth before dessert. Everyone else will stay exactly where they are until I decide dinner is over.”
That was when I understood I had not just dropped glasses.
I had dropped a match into a room full of dry silk.
Sofia placed one hand on the back of her chair. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m rarely playful when someone in my house lies to my face.”
“She is staff.”
“She is injured staff.”
“She is clumsy staff.”
I flinched before I could stop myself.
Dante saw that too.
He turned back to me. “Who grabbed your wrist?”
Nobody breathed.
I heard the service elevator hum somewhere beyond the wall. I heard rain against the tall windows. I heard my own heartbeat, stubborn and too loud.
“Emma,” he said, softer.
That frightened me more.
Because kindness, in houses like this, was sometimes only another way to open a locked door.
“Sir, please.”
“Please what?”
“Don’t ask me in front of everyone.”
For half a second, I thought he might refuse.
Then he turned to the guests.
“Dinner is finished.”
Sofia’s head snapped toward him. “Dante—”
“Finished.”
No one argued.
People stood carefully, gathering purses and dignity, avoiding Sofia’s eyes and mine. The wealthiest men in New York moved around the broken glass as though it had become sacred ground.
When the dining room had emptied except for Dante, Sofia, Marco, and me, Dante spoke again.
“Now.”
I closed my eyes.
And told him about the pantry.
Not all of it. Not at first.
I told him Sofia had stopped me before dinner. That she had asked why I had been in the east hallway. That she had squeezed my wrist when I said I was delivering towels.
Dante’s face revealed nothing.
Sofia stepped forward. “That is absurd.”
I looked at her. “You said if I spoke, my brother wouldn’t make it to morning.”
There it was.
The thing I had been carrying under my tongue all evening.
Sofia went still.
Dante looked at Marco.
Marco had already taken out his phone.
“What hospital?” Dante asked.
My mouth went dry. “St. Anne’s. Neurology floor. His name is Liam Reed.”
Dante repeated the name once.
Not loudly.
As if placing it somewhere he would never lose it.
Sofia recovered enough to scoff. “So now I’m threatening sick relatives? That’s quite a story.”
“It would be,” Dante said, “if I believed you.”
Marco stepped away with the phone to his ear. Sofia watched him, and for the first time that night, real fear crossed her face.
Not shame.
Fear.
That difference mattered.
Dante noticed.
He always noticed.
“What did you hear in the east hallway?” he asked me.
“I didn’t understand it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I pressed my bruised wrist against my apron. “Ms. Marchetti was on the phone. She said the dock gift had to go out tonight before you changed your mind.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
Sofia whispered, “Emma.”
Not a warning now.
A plea.
I looked at Dante. “Then she said if the maid had heard too much, she knew where to apply pressure.”
Marco returned.
His expression had changed.
“Boss.”
Dante did not look away from Sofia. “Say it.”
“Liam Reed is no longer at St. Anne’s.”
The floor seemed to drop beneath me.
“What?”
Marco’s voice stayed level. “Hospital records say he was transferred twenty-three minutes ago to a private facility.”
I grabbed the edge of the table with my good hand.
“I didn’t authorize that. He can’t be moved without—”
Dante lifted one hand, and somehow the panic in me stopped long enough to listen.
“Who authorized it?” he asked.
Marco looked at Sofia.
Then at Dante.
“The transfer was approved by Mrs. Russo.”
Sofia’s lips parted.
I did not understand.
Dante did.
May you like
His face went colder than the marble floor.
“I don’t have a wife,” he said.
