Chapter 2 - THE MAN DANTE CALLED BROTHER
Dante looked at Elena for several seconds.
Then he glanced at Mia.
Back to Elena.
“Marco Bellandi didn’t steal that money.”
Elena forgot the restaurant around them.
The candles.
The silverware.
The expensive people pretending not to listen.
“What did you say?”
“He didn’t steal from anyone.”
Her chair moved back.
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew Marco for twenty-two years.”
Elena stared at him.
“No.”
Dante’s face remained calm.
“He never told you.”
“Told me what?”
“That he worked for my family.”
Elena stood so quickly the table shook.
Mia looked up.
“Mama?”
Elena immediately lowered her voice.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t.
Nothing about this was okay.
She looked at Dante.
“My husband sold restaurant equipment.”
“For the last five years of his life.”
“And before that?”
Dante hesitated.
That frightened her.
“Before that,” he said, “Marco worked directly for me.”
“Doing what?”
“Finding money people wanted hidden.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“You’re saying he was involved with—”
“No.”
Dante understood the question before she finished.
“He wasn’t muscle. He didn’t carry a gun for me. Marco understood accounts. Shipping manifests. Payroll. He could look at a page of numbers and tell me which line was lying.”
That sounded like Marco.
Pain hit Elena unexpectedly.
Marco balancing grocery receipts at their kitchen table.
Marco laughing when she rounded a number.
“Pennies tell you what dollars are hiding,” he used to say.
She had thought it was one of his strange little habits.
“You called him Marco Bellandi?”
“Always.”
“So there was no secret name?”
“No.”
“Then what was secret?”
Dante’s gaze dropped.
“That he was family.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“What does that mean?”
“My father brought him into our house when Marco was thirteen. His father had died. His mother was already gone.”
Elena knew that much.
Marco rarely spoke about childhood.
He only said he had survived it.
Dante continued.
“We went to school together. Ate at the same table. Fought over the same stupid things. My mother called him her third son.”
“You have a brother?”
“Had.”
The word closed something in Dante’s face.
“Nico died twelve years ago.”
Elena looked away.
Mia had stopped eating.
She watched Dante with the serious expression children wore when adults used words they understood but emotions they didn’t.
“So Daddy knew you?” she asked.
Dante looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Was he your friend?”
Dante’s voice softened.
“My best one.”
Mia considered that.
Then she pushed the bread basket toward him.
“You can have one.”
Dante stared at the bread.
Elena nearly cried.
Instead she sat.
“Mia, keep eating.”
“I’m full.”
She wasn’t.
Elena knew.
Dante knew too.
He took one small piece.
“Thank you.”
That satisfied her enough to return to the pasta.
Elena lowered her voice.
“If Marco was your best friend, where were you when people came after me for his debts?”
Dante did not defend himself.
“I thought the debts were real.”
“You just said he wasn’t a thief.”
“I learned that later.”
“When?”
“Too late.”
The answer made anger rise through her.
“How late?”
“Two years after he died.”
Elena stared at him.
“And you never came looking for us?”
“I did.”
“No.”
“I found an address in Milwaukee.”
“We never lived in Milwaukee.”
“I know that now.”
“Who gave you the address?”
Dante’s expression changed.
“My uncle.”
“Your uncle lied to you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Elena laughed once.
There was nothing funny in it.
“You expect me to believe a man powerful enough to terrify this entire restaurant couldn’t find a widow and a child?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
Dante leaned forward.
“I expect you to believe I failed to look hard enough because part of me was still angry with Marco.”
“For what?”
“He disappeared with two million dollars from a fund my mother created.”
Elena went still.
There it was.
The accusation she had been living under.
“The money everyone said he stole.”
“Yes.”
“But you just told me he didn’t.”
“Because two years after his death, I found the first account that proved someone had used his authorization after he left.”
“Who?”
“That is the problem.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“I never found out.”
Mia held up her fork.
“Mommy, look.”
Three strands of pasta hung neatly around it.
Elena forced a smile.
“Perfect.”
Mia beamed.
Then she looked at Dante.
“My daddy did it like this.”
Dante’s eyes changed.
“He taught you?”
“I was little.”
“You still remember?”
“Some.”
She tapped her chest.
“He gave me this too.”
Elena’s head turned.
Mia pulled a thin cord from beneath her yellow raincoat.
A small silver medal hung from it.
Elena had seen it hundreds of times.
Marco’s St. Christopher medal.
Mia refused to sleep without it.
Dante stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Daddy.”
Elena instinctively covered Mia’s hand.
“Why?”
Dante’s face had gone pale again.
“That wasn’t Marco’s.”
Elena frowned.
“Yes, it was.”
“No.”
He reached toward it, then stopped before touching Mia.
“May I see it?”
Mia looked at Elena.
Elena nodded.
Mia lifted the medal over her head and handed it to him.
Dante turned it over.
His thumb moved across the scratches on the back.
Three letters.
N.M.F.
Elena had always assumed they were the maker’s mark.
Dante closed his eyes.
“My mother gave this to Nico when he was ten.”
Elena felt cold.
“Your brother?”
“When Nico died, Marco kept it.”
“Why?”
“Because Marco was the one who found him.”
Dante returned the medal to Mia.
Very carefully.
“He never took it off afterward.”
Mia put it back around her neck.
“Daddy said it keeps lost people from being lost.”
Dante looked away.
Elena saw him swallow.
She hated that this dangerous stranger suddenly knew pieces of her husband she did not.
“Why would Marco leave that with Mia?”
Dante’s gaze returned to the medal.
“I don’t know.”
Then something caught his attention.
A thin corner of paper showed behind the medal’s silver backing.
Dante frowned.
“That shouldn’t be there.”
Elena leaned closer.
“What?”
The back plate had shifted slightly.
Dante used his thumbnail.
It opened.
Inside was a piece of paper folded so tightly Elena could hardly believe it fit.
Her hands began shaking.
“Marco did that?”
Dante placed the paper in front of her.
“You should open it.”
Elena unfolded it.
Marco’s handwriting.
She knew every stroke.
Every uneven capital.
Every number seven he crossed through the middle.
There were only nine words.
ELENA — IF DANTE FINDS YOU, HE FINALLY KNOWS ENOUGH.
Her throat closed.
Underneath was a date.
The day before Marco died.
And beneath that—
One name.
ENZO MORETTI.
Dante stared at it.
“My uncle.”
Elena looked across the table.
“The man who gave you the false Milwaukee address.”
“Yes.”
Mia whispered, “Mama?”
Elena turned.
“What, sweetheart?”
Mia touched the medal.
“Uncle Enzo.”
Both adults froze.
Elena stared at her daughter.
“Mia, what did you say?”
The little girl looked confused by their faces.
“Daddy said that name.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were three.”
Mia thought hard.
Then she said the sentence that made Dante slowly rise from his chair.
May you like
“Daddy said, ‘If Uncle Enzo comes, don’t open the door.’”
---
