THE MAFIA BOSS'S MEN MOCKED A CLUMSY WAITRESS ON HER KNEES... UNTIL HE SAW HER WRIST AND DEMANDED: "WHO TOUCHED MY WIFE?"

Chapter 03 - A Key Beneath the Floorboards

Isabella lived in a second-floor apartment above a laundromat on the west side, in a building with thin walls and a landlord who collected rent in cash. She had chosen it because there was no doorman, no private garage, and no reason for anyone connected to the Morettis to look twice at the place.

She arrived just before midnight and knew immediately that someone had been inside.

The deadbolt was locked, but the small scratch she had made beside the keyhole was gone. A chair stood too close to the window. Her drawer of old receipts had been pushed shut with care, the way a person might tidy a room after searching it. Nothing valuable was missing. Her laptop sat on the table, and the little gold earrings her mother had left her were still in a teacup beside the sink.

Only the floorboard beneath her bed had been disturbed.

Isabella knelt, ignoring the ache in her wrist, and lifted it. The brass key she had hidden there was gone.

She sat back on her heels. For weeks she had carried that key in her shoe, then hidden it in the apartment whenever she had to work. It opened a deposit box at Union Station, where Marco had left a package for her shortly before his death. She had delayed collecting it because she knew someone was watching the people who had been close to him.

Now someone had beaten her to it.

Her phone vibrated. An unknown number had sent a photograph of the front of her building, taken from across the street. Beneath it were six words.

YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED GONE, ISABELLA.

She did not call the police. The first report she had made after Marco’s death had resulted in a polite interview and a warning not to interfere with an open investigation. Two days later, someone had left a dead flower on her doorstep. She had learned that the truth could be dangerous long before she had learned how to prove it.

She called the one person she had promised herself she would never call again.

Dante answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Are you safe?”

“Someone searched my apartment.”

A silence followed. Then his voice changed from personal worry to the measured calm she remembered from business emergencies.

“Don’t touch anything else. I’m sending someone.”

“No. You’re not sending anyone.”

“Isabella—”

“I’m telling you what happened, not asking you to take over.”

He exhaled slowly. “All right. Do you want me to come?”

The question unsettled her more than an order would have. She looked at the disturbed floorboard, the open drawer, and the message glowing on her phone.

“Yes,” she said at last. “But come alone.”

Dante arrived twenty minutes later in a plain dark coat, without his driver or the men who usually followed him. He examined the door, the window, and the floorboard without moving anything. He did not ask why she had called him, and he did not tell her that she should have moved to a safer apartment.

“Who knew about the key?” he asked.

“Marco. Me. Rosa.”

“Rosa Bell?”

“My mother’s old housekeeper. She helped me after I left.”

Dante looked at her. “You weren’t alone.”

“I was lonely. There’s a difference.”

He accepted that, too.

They checked the apartment together. The intruder had taken nothing except the key and a small notebook filled with dates, names, and restaurant reservations. Isabella had written them in code, using the first letters of the people Marco had mentioned in his final voicemail. She had not wanted to put the full story in one place.

Dante read the list without asking permission. When he reached the name Silas, his expression tightened.

“Why is my captain on this list?”

“Because Marco called him the night before he died.”

“Silas told me he never spoke to Marco.”

“Then one of them lied.”

Dante set the notebook down. “Silas has been with me for fifteen years.”

“People can be loyal for a long time and still make one terrible choice.”

“That sounds like something you’ve been telling yourself about me.”

“It is.”

He looked away, and for a moment the room held the shape of their old marriage: two people who knew exactly where to press and had finally learned that winning an argument could still leave both of them alone.

Dante took out his phone and called Silas, putting it on speaker. The older man answered with the weary confidence of someone who had expected to be called.

“Boss?”

“Did you speak to Marco Rossi the night before his accident?”

A pause. Not long, but long enough.

“No.”

Dante’s gaze moved to Isabella.

She leaned toward the phone. “Silas, this is Isabella. I’m asking you once. Did Marco tell you he was afraid?”

Another pause.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Moretti,” Silas said quietly. “I was told you were gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know. Victor said you’d left the country and wanted no contact with the family.”

Isabella felt the room tilt. “When did he tell you that?”

“The day after the funeral.”

Dante’s face went still. Victor had known she was alive, or at least had suspected she might be. He had been telling people she was gone while his men searched her apartment.

Silas continued, “There’s something else. Marco asked me to keep a package safe. I didn’t take it. I thought he was trying to protect the shelter records.”

“What package?” Dante asked.

“I don’t know. He said if anything happened to him, I should give it to Isabella. But when I went to his apartment, the police had already cleared it.”

The line went silent. Silas had ended the call.

Dante called back. No answer.

Isabella went to the window and looked down at the street. A black sedan had been idling beneath the broken streetlamp. It pulled away as soon as she moved the curtain.

She turned toward Dante. “You need to find Silas before Victor does.”

Dante’s phone lit up with a new message from an unknown number. It contained a photograph of Marco’s wrecked car, taken from the road below the guardrail. A red circle had been drawn around the front wheel.