Chapter 2 - The Ghost in the Photograph
The air inside the Pierre Hotel ballroom seemed to vanish all at once. My lungs refused to expand, every sound in the room dissolving into a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I stared at the phone screen in Dante Moretti’s hand, willing my brain to reject what my eyes were seeing.
It was Danny.
There was no mistaking the oversized blue hoodie he had worn everywhere during his final autumn, nor the slightly uneven way he stood, favoring his left hip. He was standing on a cobblestone courtyard somewhere in the city, his back half-turned to the camera, while a few feet away, a small figure in a miniature tuxedo stood beside him.
Luca.
“Where did you get this?” my voice came out raw, barely scraping past my throat.
Dante didn’t answer immediately. His dark gaze burned into me, searching my face for any sign of deceit, any twitch of guilt that would confirm whatever theory his criminal mind was constructing. The bodyguard holding my arm tightened his grip, the leather of his glove biting into my skin.
“A secure server,” Dante said, his voice dangerously low. “Sent to one of my encrypted devices less than an hour before this gala began. The metadata places the location in an alleyway three blocks from my Manhattan residence. The boy in the photo is Luca. But the other child—the one dead for three years—is apparently walking around New York.”
“He’s dead,” I whispered, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “I buried him. I watched them lower the casket. I visited his grave every Sunday until I couldn’t afford the subway fare anymore.”
“People fake deaths every day in my line of work,” Dante replied coldly. “And people plant distractions. You walk into my son’s personal space, you use a precise, obscure behavioral trigger to calm him down within seconds, and at the exact same moment, an image of my son with a dead boy bearing your family resemblance lands in my inbox. You expect me to believe in coincidences, Miss Vance?”
“I don’t care what you believe!” I snapped, the adrenaline finally overriding my terror. “My brother is dead! Someone is playing a sick game with you—and with me!”
Luca let out a distressed whimper at my raised voice, his small fingers still gripping my sleeve. Instantly, Dante’s demeanor shifted. The fury in his eyes remained, but he held up a single gloved hand, signaling his men to hold their positions. He knelt down slowly, coming down to his son’s eye level.
“Luca,” Dante said, his voice softening into a register I suspect very few people in the world had ever heard. “Look at me, *piccolo*.”
Luca shook his head, keeping his face buried against my shoulder. But after a moment, he raised one hand against the marble floor and tapped once. Twice. Three times. Four.
He was waiting for my answer.
Dante looked from his son’s hand to my eyes. Without a word of permission, he reached out and gently took my trembling hand, placing my fingertips against the cold floor next to Luca’s.
I swallowed hard, breathed in, and tapped back.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
Luca let out a long, shuddering exhale. He slowly turned his head, looking at his father with wide, terrified eyes. Dante didn’t grab him or pull him away; he simply rested his large hand lightly on his son’s small back, maintaining a steady, anchoring presence.
“He trusts you,” Dante murmured, rising back to his full height. His eyes were no longer accusing; they were calculating. “Which means either you are an elite operative trained in psychological manipulation, or you are telling the truth about knowing how to reach him.”
“I’m telling the truth,” I said, pulling my hand back and rubbing my wrist where the bodyguard had bruised it. “Now let me go. I have an eviction notice waiting on my kitchen table, and I need to find a way to pay rent before tomorrow morning, let alone solve whatever conspiracy you’ve stumbled into.”
Dante didn’t smile. He turned to the silver-haired guest who had first accused me—a man I now recognized as Richard Vance, no relation, but a minor board member of several shell companies tied to the Bellucci syndicate. Richard looked pale under the harsh ballroom lighting.
“Vance,” Dante said softly. “You mentioned her father worked for the Belluccis.”
Richard swallowed hard. “I... I heard rumors, Mr. Moretti. Years ago. Frank Vance was an accountant for Victor Bellucci before he vanished.”
“My father died of a stroke in a charity ward six years ago,” I spat out, stepping toward Richard. “He didn’t work for the mafia; he worked seventy hours a week at a dry cleaner’s until his heart gave out trying to pay off medical bills!”
Dante raised a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Vance,” he said, looking back at the silver-haired man. “My men will verify every word you just said. If you lied to spark a panic in my presence, you won’t live to see sunrise.”
Richard staggered backward, knocking over a tray of empty champagne flutes.
Dante looked down at Luca, who had now buried his face in his father’s lap, finally exhausted by the sensory overload of the evening. Dante scooped the boy up effortlessly, cradling him against his chest with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the aura of violence surrounding him.
He turned his dark gaze back to me.
“You’re not leaving, Sophie,” Dante said.
“You can’t keep me here against my will! That’s kidnapping!”
May you like
“In New York, perhaps,” Dante replied smoothly, motioning to the four armed men blocking the exit doors. “In my world, it’s an investigation. You are coming with me. Because whether you realize it or not, someone out there wants us connected—and until I find out why, you are safest right beside my son.”
***
