Chapter 3 - THE BROKEN WATCH
The armored Mercedes tore through the empty streets, the speedometer buried past ninety.
Dante steered with one hand, his other gripping the cracked silver pocket watch. The metal felt warm against his palm, like a live coal.
Carlo was supposed to be in federal lockup. He had been serving a life sentence for racketeering for over a decade. He had mentored Dante, taught him how to lead, and willingly taken the fall to protect the syndicate.
Or so Dante had believed.
If Carlo’s men had attacked Harper, it meant Carlo had been running a shadow faction from behind bars. It meant Carlo had ordered the hit on Julian seven years ago.
And now, Carlo was coming for Julian’s son.
Dante’s phone buzzed. It was Marco, his head of security.
“Boss, the hospital is locked down,” Marco reported. “Two men on her door, four in the lobby. She’s safe.”
“Good,” Dante said, swerving onto the highway on-ramp. “I’m heading to the suburbs. Send a cleanup crew to Harper’s apartment in the city. See if they tossed it.”
“Understood. Boss… there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The police report from the alley. A patrol car found Harper, but they didn’t call the ambulance right away. The timeline is off by twenty minutes.”
Dante’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “A dirty cop?”
“Looks like it. Someone on the payroll wanted to make sure they had time to get away with the photograph before the paramedics arrived.”
“Find out who signed the patrol log,” Dante ordered. “And break his jaw before you ask him questions.”
He hung up.
The rain had stopped, but the fog rolling off the river was thick and suffocating. Dante pulled into the quiet, affluent suburb where Harper had hidden her life.
The house was a modest, two-story colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac. The porch light was on. It looked terrifyingly normal.
Dante parked two houses down and cut the headlights.
He unholstered his weapon, a matte black 9mm, and stepped into the damp air. He moved silently across the wet lawns, staying in the shadows of the ancient oak trees.
The front door was locked. The windows were dark.
Dante moved to the back of the house. The wooden gate to the backyard was slightly ajar.
His heart hammered a slow, violent rhythm against his ribs.
He slipped through the gate and approached the glass patio doors. They were shattered. Glass covered the wooden deck like diamonds in the moonlight.
“No,” Dante whispered.
He stepped through the broken frame, his gun raised, scanning the dark kitchen.
“Hello?” a small, frightened voice called out from the darkness.
Dante froze.
He flicked on his tactical flashlight, the beam cutting through the gloom.
Sitting under the kitchen table, clutching a small, stuffed bear, was a little boy.
He had Julian’s dark, unruly hair. He had Julian’s eyes.
Dante lowered his gun instantly, sinking to one knee.
“Leo?” Dante asked, keeping his voice incredibly soft.
The boy nodded, tears streaking his dirt-smudged face. “Are you a policeman? My grandma told me to hide when the bad men broke the glass.”
Dante’s chest tightened painfully. “I’m a friend of your mom’s, Leo. My name is Dante.”
Leo sniffled, crawling out from under the table. “Where is my mom? She didn’t come home for dinner.”
“She’s at work,” Dante lied smoothly, holstering his weapon. “She sent me to come get you. Where is your grandma?”
Leo pointed a shaking finger toward the hallway. “She told the bad men to leave. Then they went into the living room, and she went to sleep on the floor.”
Dante closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He knew what “sleep on the floor” meant.
“Okay, Leo,” Dante said, standing up and holding out his hand. “I need you to be very brave. I’m going to pick you up, and I want you to bury your face in my shoulder. Close your eyes and don’t look around. Can you do that for me?”
Leo nodded, stepping into Dante’s arms.
Dante lifted the boy, shielding his face, and walked swiftly toward the living room to secure the perimeter.
Harper’s mother lay on the rug. She had been shot twice in the chest.
Dante didn’t stop. He carried Leo out the front door, moving quickly down the street toward the armored SUV.
He placed the boy in the backseat, buckling him in.
“We’re going to go for a ride, Leo,” Dante said, forcing a calm smile. “You’re safe now.”
As Dante closed the door and turned toward the driver’s side, a heavy, metallic click echoed in the quiet street behind him.
Dante froze.
“Turn around slowly, Dante.”
The voice was raspy, aged by cheap cigars and prison air.
Dante turned.
Standing ten feet away, leaning heavily on a wooden cane and holding a suppressed pistol, was Uncle Carlo.
He wasn’t in a federal penitentiary. He was standing in a suburban driveway.
“You’re supposed to be in a cell,” Dante said, his voice deadly calm.
“And Julian was supposed to be the heir to the family,” Carlo replied, a cruel smile stretching across his weathered face. “Plans change, nephew.”
Carlo looked past Dante, staring at the boy in the back seat of the SUV.
“He looks just like his father,” Carlo mused. “It’s a shame he’s going to share his fate.”
Dante’s hand drifted toward his holster, but Carlo raised his gun.
“Ah,” Carlo warned. “I wouldn’t. My men are watching from the trees. You draw, the boy dies.”
Dante stopped. “Why, Carlo? Why Julian? Why Harper?”
“Because Julian was weak!” Carlo spat, sudden fury twisting his features. “He wanted to take the family legitimate. He wanted to dismantle everything your father and I built. I had to remove him.”
“And the boy?”
“The boy is the true heir,” Carlo said coldly. “As long as he lives, your loyalists will eventually rally around him. I can’t take the throne back with a legitimate heir breathing.”
Carlo reached into his coat with his free hand.
He didn’t pull out another weapon. He pulled out a crumpled, blood-stained ferry ticket.
He tossed it onto the wet pavement at Dante’s feet.
“I’m giving you a choice, Dante,” Carlo said. “Because I raised you. You take that ticket. You get on the midnight ferry to Blackwood Island, and you leave the city forever. Give me the syndicate, and I’ll let you and the boy live.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I kill the boy right now, and I kill the secretary in her hospital bed in five minutes.”
Dante looked at the ferry ticket. Then he looked at the man who had taught him how to survive.
“Answer one question, Carlo,” Dante said softly.
“What?”
“If your men are watching from the trees… why aren’t they shooting?”
Carlo frowned.
Before Carlo could react, a suppressed gunshot shattered the silence.
Carlo screamed, dropping his pistol as his kneecap exploded into a spray of blood. He collapsed onto the pavement.
From the shadows of the neighbor’s driveway, Marco stepped forward, his rifle raised.
“Perimeter secure, Boss,” Marco said. “His men are dead.”
Dante walked over to his bleeding uncle. He looked down at him with absolute, freezing contempt.
“You taught me to never leave an enemy at my back, Carlo,” Dante whispered.
He picked up the ferry ticket from the wet ground.
“But I’m not going to kill you,” Dante continued. “I’m going to find out exactly who helped you walk out of a federal prison.”
Dante turned and got into the SUV.
As he drove away, leaving Carlo bleeding in the street, he looked at the ferry ticket in his hand.
May you like
Written on the back, in elegant, feminine cursive, was a single name.
Isabella.
