Chapter 2 - THE SOUND NO ONE REMEMBERED
Dante Marino laughed for exactly eleven seconds.
Nobody in the room knew what to do with it.
Salvatore Genovese stopped crying.
The two guards looked at each other as if they had just witnessed a chandelier fall upward.
I stood there holding Dante’s Montblanc pen and wondering whether I had finally become too tired to understand danger.
Then Dante stopped.
The silence afterward was worse.
He looked at me.
Not angry.
Not amused.
Just intensely curious.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” I said. “The rug situation is serious.”
One of the guards made a choking noise and immediately pretended it had been a cough.
Dante’s eyes moved toward him.
The man stared at the floor.
I pushed the folder toward Dante again.
“Page six. Initial beside the red tab.”
Sal whispered, “Emily.”
I looked at him.
“You stole three million dollars using your mother’s maiden name. Please don’t make me responsible for your dignity too.”
Dante picked up the pen.
He signed.
Every page.
Then he set the gun on his desk.
That was when I understood something important.
Sal was not going to die.
At least not in front of me.
Dante looked at his guards.
“Take him downstairs.”
Sal’s face went white.
“Dante—”
“You will sit in Conference Room B until I decide whether your stupidity deserves exile or mercy.”
Conference Room B.
The guards looked almost disappointed.
I gathered the signed pages.
“Thank you.”
Dante stared at me.
“You just interrupted an execution.”
“Apparently I interrupted a meeting.”
His mouth moved again.
Not a smile.
Almost.
“Get out.”
“Gladly.”
I had one hand on the door when he spoke.
“Emily.”
I turned.
He was looking at the folder I had brought in.
“How did you find the money?”
“Your accounting software is terrible.”
His expression flattened.
“I meant Sal.”
“I know.”
I left.
Tommy was waiting behind my desk.
He looked at me as if I had returned from the moon.
“What happened?”
“Sal’s dental coverage may continue after all.”
Tommy blinked.
“You made him laugh.”
“I made a comment about rug cleaning.”
“He hasn’t laughed since Mrs. Marino died.”
“I’m aware.”
“No, you’re not.”
Something in his voice changed.
Tommy looked toward Dante’s closed office.
“The last time I heard him laugh, Clara was sitting right where you’re standing.”
I glanced at my desk.
“What?”
Tommy realized he had said too much.
He straightened.
“Nothing.”
“Tommy.”
“No.”
“You’re terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Pretending you didn’t just say something bizarre.”
Before he could answer, the elevator opened.
Three men stepped out.
The mood in the office changed instantly.
I knew the first man.
Luca Marino.
Dante’s uncle.
Sixty-two.
Silver hair.
Dark overcoat.
Old-school enough that he considered smartphones an insult to civilization.
He had been consigliere to Dante’s father and later to Dante himself.
The second man was Carlo Vitale, a capo who controlled several trucking routes near Cicero.
The third was unfamiliar.
Younger.
Maybe forty.
Expensive suit.
No expression.
Tommy leaned closer.
“Victor Rinaldi.”
That name I knew.
Not personally.
From spreadsheets.
Rinaldi family.
North Side interests.
Warehouses.
Private gaming rooms.
A long, uneasy truce with the Marinos.
Victor stopped at my desk.
“You’re Emily Davis.”
“I generally am.”
Tommy closed his eyes.
Victor studied me.
“So you’re the secretary.”
“I prefer ‘person preventing all of you from missing deadlines.’”
Luca almost smiled.
Victor did not.
Dante’s door opened.
“Inside.”
All four men entered.
I returned to payroll.
For twenty minutes, voices stayed low.
Then Luca emerged.
Alone.
He paused beside my desk.
“Miss Davis.”
“Mr. Marino.”
His gaze dropped toward my spreadsheet.
“You found Sal’s diversion?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“I found three million.”
His face became unreadable.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I looked up.
Luca’s expression had changed.
He was warning me.
I lowered my voice.
“How much am I supposed to find?”
He glanced toward Dante’s office.
“Forget I said anything.”
Then he walked away.
That was not happening.
I opened Sal’s transactions again.
Three million had moved through a shell company called Bellweather Transport.
The company looked empty.
No trucks.
No employees.
No office.
But something bothered me.
The payment schedule was too regular.
Every three months.
Same date.
Same amount.
For nine years.
I sat straighter.
Nine years.
I filtered backward.
The system only showed seven years.
I requested archived records.
My authorization worked because nobody had ever changed my access after I took over executive finance coordination.
At 1:17 p.m., the first old transfer appeared.
Bellweather Transport.
$240,000.
Nine years ago.
Two weeks before Clara Marino died.
I stopped breathing.
There were more.
Quarterly transfers.
Some from South Side gaming.
Some from warehouse leasing.
Some from union-related consulting accounts.
Not three million.
Much more.
Sal had not invented Bellweather.
He had discovered it.
And recently started skimming from it.
I totaled the transfers.
$11.8 million.
My coffee suddenly tasted terrible.
At 1:43, Dante came out.
Victor Rinaldi walked beside him.
Neither looked happy.
Victor stopped near my desk.
“We’ll discuss the Cicero corridor tomorrow.”
Dante said nothing.
Victor left.
Dante turned toward me.
“You need something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
I rotated my monitor.
He walked over.
I pointed.
“Bellweather Transport existed before Sal started stealing.”
His face did not move.
“How long?”
“Nine years.”
That did it.
Something small changed behind his eyes.
I continued.
“First payment was fourteen days before your wife died.”
Tommy, standing near the filing cabinet, became completely still.
Dante stared at the screen.
“Who authorized it?”
“The approval field is corrupted in the current system.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
“Do it.”
I hesitated.
“There’s more.”
He looked at me.
“Bellweather received eleven-point-eight million dollars.”
Silence.
“From us?”
“From companies connected to you.”
Dante stepped closer.
“How many people knew about this account?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
He turned.
“Dante.”
That was the first time I had used his first name at work.
He stopped.
I pointed at the payment dates.
“Three transfers happened after Clara died.”
He looked back.
“So?”
“They were authorized under her initials.”
For the first time since I had met him, Dante Marino looked genuinely stunned.
Not angry.
Not cold.
Stunned.
He moved toward the monitor.
C.M.
Clara Marino.
Quarterly approvals.
Years after her death.
He stared for a long time.
Then he whispered, “That’s impossible.”
I wish it had been.
But five minutes later, I found the authorization image attached to the first payment.
Not a digital signature.
A scanned handwritten note.
Clara’s handwriting.
I knew because a framed recipe card in Dante’s kitchen had the same looping C.
The note contained only seven words.
KEEP PAYING HIM. DANTE MUST NEVER KNOW.
Dante read it once.
Then again.
His face became stone.
“Who is him?”
I clicked the attachment properties.
A name appeared beneath the scan.
Recipient contact.
MATTHEW DAVIS.
My stomach dropped.
Dante looked at me.
Slowly.
“Davis.”
I could barely answer.
“Yes.”
“Your last name is Davis.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Tommy stared at me.
I shook my head.
“I don’t know any Matthew Davis.”
Dante’s expression changed.
Not suspicion exactly.
Something colder.
“Are you sure?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because I did know one.
May you like
My father.
The man who had disappeared from my life when I was twelve.
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