My mother arrived at the Romano estate forty-three minutes later.
I counted every one.
When the SUV finally came through the gates, I ran outside before anyone could stop me.
“Mama!”
Rosa Marino stepped from the vehicle wearing her old blue cardigan over her nightgown, an oxygen tube beneath her nose and absolute fury on her face.
“Bella!”
I wrapped my arms around her.
She smelled like lavender lotion and home.
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are there men with guns carrying my oxygen tanks?”
One of Dante's guards looked genuinely uncomfortable.
I almost laughed.
Mama saw Isabella behind me.
Recognition crossed her face.
“You're the woman from the rain.”
Isabella approached.
“And you must be Bella's mother.”
Mama looked from her to the mansion.
Then toward Dante standing beneath the portico.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Oh.”
I knew that “oh.”
It meant she understood exactly whose house we were standing in.
Dante stepped forward.
“Mrs. Marino.”
Mama looked him up and down.
“My daughter tells me you're a mafia boss.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mama.”
“What? You told me.”
Dante's mouth twitched.
“Your daughter is direct.”
“She gets that from her father.”
Something changed in his expression.
That brought us back to the photograph.
Inside, Dante placed it on the library table.
It showed my father, Michael Marino, much younger than I remembered him.
Maybe thirty.
He stood outside a warehouse beside three other men.
One was Dante's father, Vittorio Romano.
I knew because I'd seen his portrait in the entrance hall.
Another was Carlo Vescari.
The fourth man was unfamiliar.
My mother sat completely still.
“Mama?”
She didn't answer.
“You know them.”
Her eyes stayed on the photograph.
“Rosa,” Isabella whispered.
My head snapped toward her.
“You know my mother?”
Neither woman answered quickly enough.
I stepped back.
“Oh, you've got to be kidding me.”
“Bella,” Mama said.
“No. Everybody stops saying my name like I'm five years old and starts explaining.”
Dante looked at my mother.
“She deserves the truth.”
Mama gave him a sharp look.
“Don't tell me what my daughter deserves.”
“Then tell her yourself.”
I stared between them.
“What truth?”
Mama took a slow breath.
“Your father didn't always repair heating systems.”
I blinked.
That was the last thing I'd expected.
“What does that mean?”
“Before you were born, Michael worked for Vittorio Romano.”
My chair scraped backward.
“For them?”
Isabella lowered her eyes.
Mama nodded.
“He handled books.”
“Accounting?”
“Mostly.”
Dante spoke quietly.
“My father trusted Michael.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“My dad worked for the mob.”
“Bella—”
“No. Let's use simple words today.”
Mama's eyes glistened.
“Yes.”
I walked toward the window.
Memories began rearranging themselves.
Dad checking the locks twice every night.
Dad never letting us answer unknown phone calls.
Dad insisting we move apartments three times before I turned ten.
Dad telling me that if anyone ever asked about his work, I should say he fixed furnaces.
He had fixed furnaces.
Eventually.
Apparently, that hadn't been the whole story.
“How did he die?”
Mama went silent.
My chest tightened.
I turned around.
“The police said it was a car accident.”
“It was.”
“You hesitated.”
“Because accidents can be arranged.”
The words hit like cold water.
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Mama.”
“Michael discovered money disappearing from Vittorio's businesses. Millions over several years. He believed Carlo Vescari was stealing it and using the money to build his own organization.”
Dante leaned against the table.
“My father never found enough proof.”
“Michael did,” Mama said.
Dante straightened.
The room changed.
“What proof?”
“I don't know.”
“You never saw it?”
“No.”
My mother looked at me.
“Your father came home one night terrified. He told me he'd found something Carlo would kill to recover. He said if anything happened to him, I was to take Bella and disappear from anyone connected to the Romanos.”
“And then he died?”
“Three days later.”
I felt sick.
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“The detective I spoke to was on Vescari's payroll.”
Dante cursed under his breath.
Mama continued.
“The next morning, somebody left a dead bird outside our apartment with your school picture beneath it.”
My anger disappeared.
I understood.
She had been protecting a six-year-old child.
Me.
“So you ran.”
“Yes.”
“We moved constantly because of this?”
“For years.”
“Why Chicago?”
“Because eventually the safest place to hide was the place no one expected us to return.”
I looked at Isabella.
“And you?”
Tears shone in her eyes.
“Michael saved my husband's life once.”
“How?”
“Vittorio was supposed to attend a meeting at a warehouse. Your father discovered the meeting had been compromised. He stopped him from going.”
Dante looked at my mother.
“I didn't know that.”
“Your father did.”
“So why did nobody protect him?”
My voice cracked.
Nobody answered.
That answer hurt more than words.
I turned away.
“My father died because he helped your family.”
Isabella's face crumpled.
“Yes.”
“And yesterday I helped you.”
“Yes.”
“And now Carlo Vescari is after me.”
“Yes.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently kindness really does run in the family.”
“Bella.”
Dante's voice was softer now.
I looked at him.
“If you're about to tell me you're sorry, don't.”
“I'm not.”
That surprised me.
He came closer.
“Sorry doesn't protect you. I intend to do something useful.”
“Such as?”
“Find out why Vescari suddenly believes you have whatever your father hid.”
I glanced at the photograph.
“He's had eleven years.”
“Exactly.”
Dante tapped the image.
“So something changed yesterday.”
A guard entered.
“Mr. Romano, we found something on the man from the apartment.”
He handed Dante a phone.
A message was open.
Dante read it.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
“The order wasn't to kill you.”
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“It was to bring you in alive.”
“Why?”
He handed me the phone.
The message contained six words.
THE GIRL MAY HAVE MICHAEL'S KEY.
I read it twice.
“What key?”
Mama suddenly made a sound.
I turned.
Her hand had flown to her mouth.
“Mama?”
She stared at my wrist.
At the bracelet Isabella had given me.
No.
Not the bracelet.
Something beside it.
The thin silver chain I'd worn since I was twelve.
A tiny metal pendant hung from it.
It had belonged to my father.
Mama stood.
“Take that off.”
“What?”
“Bella, take it off.”
I unclasped the necklace.
Dante held out his hand.
I hesitated, then gave it to him.
He examined the pendant.
It was shaped like a little coffee bean.
Dad had given it to Mama before I was born. She gave it to me on my twelfth birthday.
Dante pressed his thumbnail along the edge.
Nothing happened.
One of his men brought a magnifying lens.
Under magnification, tiny numbers appeared along the pendant's groove.
Dante went still.
“What?”
“This isn't jewelry.”
My mouth went dry.
“What is it?”
“A security token.”
Mama sat down heavily.
I stared at the little object.
For fourteen years, I'd worn it to school.
To prom.
To my father's funeral.
To job interviews.
To Bolero Café.
I'd slept with it around my neck.
“Security for what?”
“We don't know.”
A strange thought hit me.
“Yesterday.”
Dante looked at me.
“What?”
“The old woman—I mean Isabella—grabbed my hand when I helped her.”
Isabella nodded.
“And?”
“One of her guards took a picture.”
Dante's face hardened.
Isabella looked horrified.
“No. My men wouldn't—”
“Not your men,” Dante said.
He pulled out his phone.
“Security footage from yesterday. Bolero Café exterior.”
Within minutes, video appeared on a laptop.
Rain blurred the sidewalk.
There I was, kneeling beside Isabella.
People hurried past.
Dante slowed the footage.
A man stood beneath an awning across the street.
Phone raised.
Taking pictures.
He zoomed in.
The pendant had fallen outside my blouse while I bent to pick up an orange.
Visible.
Dante leaned back.
“That's what he saw.”
I felt suddenly naked.
“Carlo recognized it.”
“Or someone working for him did.”
Mama stared at the pendant.
“Michael told me never to throw it away.”
I turned.
“You knew?”
“I thought it was sentimental.”
“You've got to stop having new secrets every five minutes.”
“I didn't know, Bella.”
For once, I believed her.
Dante placed the pendant carefully on the table.
“If Vescari has been searching eleven years for this, whatever it opens matters.”
A bodyguard appeared in the doorway.
“Boss, you need to see this.”
He held out a tablet.
Security footage showed a dark sedan stopped outside the estate's outer perimeter.
A man stepped from it.
Gray hair.
Long coat.
He placed something beside the gate and returned to the car.
The vehicle drove away.
“What did he leave?” Dante asked.
“An envelope.”
“Scan it.”
“Already done. Clean.”
Dante nodded.
“Bring it.”
The envelope arrived sealed inside a clear evidence sleeve.
My name was written on the front.
Again.
But this handwriting wasn't elegant.
It was blocky and hard.
Dante opened it.
Inside was another photograph.
My father.
This one showed him holding me as a baby.
On the back were three sentences.
I read them.
Bella,
Your father stole something that belongs to me.
Bring me the key, or Rosa finishes what Michael started.
I stared at those words until they blurred.
Then something inside me changed.
Fear had gotten me through the morning.
Anger took over after that.
I looked at Dante.
“I want to find what the key opens.”
“No.”
I blinked.
“No?”
“You and your mother stay protected. I'll handle Vescari.”
“This is my father.”
“And Vescari is my problem.”
“He threatened my mother.”
“Which is why—”
I stepped closer.
“You don't get to lock me in a pretty room and solve my life for me.”
His jaw tightened.
“This isn't a movie, Bella.”
“I know. In movies, broke café girls don't have overdue electric bills.”
“Carlo Vescari has killed people.”
“And he killed my father.”
“We don't know that yet.”
I pointed at the photograph.
“You believe it.”
He didn't answer.
“Tell me I'm wrong.”
Silence.
I nodded.
“That's what I thought.”
Dante stared at me for a long moment.
Then he reached for my father's pendant.
“All right.”
Isabella frowned.
“Dante.”
He kept his eyes on me.
“If you're involved, you follow my rules.”
“I don't follow orders well.”
“I noticed.”
“And if I tell you to stop?”
“You'll probably ignore me.”
“Definitely.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“Then we understand each other.”
He handed me the pendant.
Our fingers touched.
A tiny, ridiculous spark ran through me.
Wrong man.
Wrong moment.
Wrong universe.
I pulled my hand away.
Then Mama spoke.
“There might be something.”
We both turned.
She looked frightened.
“Something Michael said the night before he died.”
“What?”
“He told me that if the past ever came looking for Bella, she should go back to where he taught her to count.”
My heart stopped.
Dante frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I knew exactly what it meant.
When I was five, my father used to take me every Sunday morning to Union Station.
We would sit beneath the giant clock while he taught me numbers by counting trains, columns, steps, and travelers.
One place in particular had been our secret.
A row of old storage lockers in a lower corridor.
Dad used to hide candy in one and make me solve little math problems to figure out which locker held it.
I looked at Dante.
“I know where we need to go.”