Chapter 2 - The Truth About Miguel
The next morning, the estate behaved as if nothing had happened.
Florists arrived with white roses.
Chefs argued over crates of vegetables.
Men carried cases of wine into the cellar.
Black cars rolled through the iron gates one after another.
Sophie had been moved into a third-floor bedroom once used by Dante’s mother.
Bruno lay across the doorway like a living barricade.
I stayed with her until eight.
Then Dante sent for me.
His study smelled of coffee, leather, and last night’s rain.
He was standing at the window.
“You have ten minutes,” I said.
“Fair.”
He turned.
“I need to ask about Miguel.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No.”
“I found something.”
“I said no.”
He crossed to his desk but did not come closer to me.
“There were names in the tunnel.”
“What names?”
“Delivery records carved into a beam. Dates. Initials.”
I wanted to leave.
I did not.
“One set of initials was M.V.”
The room went quiet.
Miguel Vasquez.
“He worked at a garage,” I said.
“I know.”
“You knew him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because my uncle used that garage.”
The air left my lungs.
Dante continued carefully.
“For vehicles that were never supposed to appear in company records.”
I shook my head.
“Miguel would never—”
“I’m not saying he agreed.”
I looked at him.
Dante’s voice softened.
“I think he discovered what Vincent was doing.”
“What?”
“Moving money. Weapons. Documents. Whatever he could sell to rivals.”
“No.”
“The car Miguel was driving when he died?”
My hands began shaking.
“It wasn’t his.”
I knew that.
The garage owner had asked him to return a customer’s sedan.
Dante opened a folder.
He slid one photograph toward me.
A black Lincoln.
Same model.
Same plate.
My husband’s final car.
“Registered through a shell company controlled by Vincent.”
I stared at the picture.
For three years, I had believed Miguel had died because the universe was cruel and random.
The possibility that it had been deliberate was somehow worse.
Dante said, “I don’t know yet whether Vincent ordered it.”
I looked up.
“But you think he did.”
“I think my father suspected him. I think your husband may have learned something my uncle couldn’t afford to leave alive.”
My vision blurred.
“You brought me here afterward.”
“My mother did.”
“Because she knew?”
“I’m starting to think she suspected.”
I hated them all then.
The dead mother.
The dead father.
Vincent.
Dante.
Every polished floor.
Every generous paycheck.
Every Christmas gift Sophie had received with a card signed Teresa.
“What kind of people bring a widow into the house of the man who killed her husband?”
Dante took the accusation without moving.
“The kind who mistake protection for absolution.”
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the study.
I had never struck anyone in my life.
My palm burned.
Dante did not raise a hand.
Did not call anyone.
Did not even touch his face.
“I deserved that,” he said.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make this easier by being decent for five minutes.”
His eyes met mine.
“I’m not decent, Elena.”
For the first time since I had known him, I believed him completely.
And strangely, that was the beginning of my trust.
Not because he claimed to be good.
Because he stopped claiming anything.
That afternoon, Sophie was drawing pictures on old recipe cards when Dante came upstairs.
She had drawn Bruno as a lion.
Bruno as a horse.
Bruno wearing a crown.
Dante sat several feet away.
“Can I ask you another question?”
Sophie nodded.
“Did Uncle Vince ever talk to you after the garden?”
“Yes.”
My heart jumped.
“What did he say?”
“He asked if I liked Florida.”
Dante and I exchanged a glance.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’ve never been.”
“And then?”
“He said maybe Mama and me should take a vacation.”
My skin crawled.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Dante rose.
He walked to the window.
Down below, Vincent Moretti crossed the lawn in a cream sweater, silver-haired and elegant, waving at workers as though he owned sunlight.
Dante watched him.
Then said, almost too softly to hear, “He knows.”
That evening, Dante quietly replaced half the security staff.
Anyone who objected was sent away from the property.
The tunnel was examined.
Its far entrance surfaced beyond the garden wall near an abandoned boathouse.
Fresh tire tracks surrounded it.
Dante did not close it.
He left it open.
That frightened me more than anything.
“You’re expecting them.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“At the dinner.”
“The sixth toast.”
I folded my arms.
“And Sophie?”
“Third floor. You with her. Bruno with both of you.”
“What about you?”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“I’ll be downstairs holding a glass.”
I hated that smile.
It looked too much like a man saying goodbye without permission.
“Dante.”
It was the first time I had used his first name.
He noticed.
I noticed that he noticed.
“You promised me forty-eight hours,” I said.
“I remember.”
“Then survive them.”
The smile vanished.
May you like
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a man feared by half the city, he had no idea what to do when a maid ordered him to stay alive.
