Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
“Because, Nora... I've been looking for that woman for six years.”
Dante's words seemed to travel through the room without reaching me.
I stared at the photograph on Isabella's tablet. My mother stood between Cameron and Victor Sloane, wearing the navy coat I'd last seen in a picture taken the summer before her funeral.
She looked older.
Alive.
My mother was alive.
I reached for the tablet again, but Dante gently moved it out of my hands.
“Breathe,” he said.
“Don't tell me to breathe.”
His expression didn't change. “All right.”
“That's my mother.”
“I know.”
“You said you've been looking for her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He glanced at Isabella. She closed the office door, leaving only Gabriel and Matteo in the room.
Dante sat across from me.
“Six years ago, a woman named Margaret Bennett disappeared with financial records that could have destroyed several powerful people. Your mother's name was among the identities we investigated. I never found proof she was alive.”
“Financial records?”
“Records connected to my father's shipping companies.”
I shook my head. “My mother worked at a small accounting office. She never mentioned your family.”
“People don't always tell their children everything.”
“My mother told me everything.”
The words came out too quickly.
I remembered Sunday mornings, grocery lists, her singing while she washed dishes. I remembered her checking the locks twice before bed and asking me never to accept a ride from anyone I didn't know.
I remembered her funeral.
The closed casket.
The official report.
The ashes I'd scattered into Lake Michigan.
A sob rose in my throat.
“Someone lied to me.”
Dante's voice softened. “Yes.”
I looked at him. “Did you know she was alive?”
“No.”
“Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?”
“No.”
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
“You shouldn't believe me because I ask you to. You should ask questions and decide what the answers mean.”
That was not what I expected from a man whose name made Chicago's most powerful people lower their voices.
I looked back at the photograph.
“Why was she with Cameron?”
Dante's jaw tightened.
“That's what we're going to find out.”
“I'm going to find out. Not you. Me.”
Something almost approving crossed his face.
“Then we'll begin with what you know.”
I told him about the silver-haired man in Cameron's apartment. About the locked filing cabinet. About the evening Cameron had introduced him as a business associate, then sent me out to buy coffee. About the strange questions Cameron had begun asking after that night.
Had my mother kept old paperwork?
Did I know where her jewelry was?
Had she ever mentioned a storage unit?
At the time, I'd thought he was making conversation.
Now every question sounded like an interrogation.
Dante listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he asked, “Did Cameron ever ask about the necklace?”
My hand moved instinctively to the little silver bird resting against my collarbone.
Dante noticed.
“Your mother gave it to you?”
“When I turned eighteen.”
“Have you ever taken it apart?”
“No.”
“May I see it?”
I covered it with my hand.
“No.”
He nodded immediately.
“Then we won't touch it.”
That small act of respect unsettled me more than his questions.
Cameron had never accepted no without making me pay for it.
Dante stood and walked to the window.
“Victor Sloane is not a man who works alone. If he knows you're here, he may already be moving.”
“I don't understand why he wants me.”
“He may believe your mother left something with you.”
“I don't have anything.”
“Perhaps you don't know that.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happens now?”
“You stay somewhere secure tonight. Tomorrow, you decide whether you want to speak to the authorities, leave Chicago, or help us understand what your mother was involved in.”
“And Cameron?”
Dante turned.
“He won't come near you.”
“You can't promise that.”
His eyes held mine.
“I can promise that anyone who tries will have to get through me first.”
I should have found the statement frightening.
Instead, for the first time in two years, I felt the smallest possibility of safety.
Gabriel opened the office door.
“Boss. The car is ready.”
Dante looked at me.
“Are you comfortable going to the hotel?”
I hesitated.
“Will Cameron know where it is?”
“No.”
“Will I have a room by myself?”
“Yes.”
“And can I leave whenever I want?”
Dante's expression became serious.
“Yes, Nora. You can leave whenever you want.”
I stood.
“Then I'll go.”
As we walked toward the private elevator, Isabella caught my arm gently.
“There's something else you should know.”
I turned.
She glanced at Dante, then lowered her voice.
“Your mother came to this club eleven days ago. She asked for Dante by name. But she left before he arrived.”
“Why?”
Isabella hesitated.
“She said she needed to know whether he was still the kind of man who kept his promises.”
The elevator doors opened.
I looked at Dante.
He had gone very still.
“What promise?” I asked.
May you like
He didn't answer.
And that was when I understood that my mother's disappearance had begun long before Cameron entered my life.
