Chapter 15 - The Night Dante Disappeared
Dante vanished at 8:17 p.m.
His driver was found unconscious in a parking garage.
His car was abandoned two blocks away.
No blood.
No body.
No ransom demand.
Marco blamed Luca.
Luca swore he had nothing to do with it.
For once, I believed him.
Sofia didn’t.
“You disappear for three years, return with a kidnapping, and now Dad vanishes.”
“I didn’t take him.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if I wanted him dead, he’d already be dead.”
The room went silent.
Luca immediately regretted the sentence.
Sofia slapped him.
Then she walked away.
I looked at the security footage.
Dante entered the garage alone after receiving a text.
The sender appeared as me.
But I hadn’t sent it.
The message said:
I FOUND NOLAN.
COME ALONE.
Dante believed I was in danger.
So he went.
Guilt hit me before logic could stop it.
Marco noticed.
“Don’t.”
“He went because of me.”
“He went because someone lied.”
There was a difference.
I needed to remember that.
Agent Torres traced the spoofed message to an industrial building near the river.
We moved fast.
Too fast.
The building was empty.
Except for Dante’s phone.
It lay on a chair beneath a handwritten note.
BRING THE ORIGINAL WEST FULTON DEED.
NO POLICE.
MIDNIGHT.
Sofia looked at me.
“They want you.”
“No.”
I picked up Dante’s phone.
“They want the property.”
Luca stared at the note.
“Without West Fulton, the ledger theft becomes harder to exploit.”
I understood.
Nolan needed the legal owner to transfer the building.
Then he could control access to whatever remained inside.
Sofia grabbed my arm.
“You’re not going.”
I gently removed her hand.
Weeks earlier, I might have obeyed whoever sounded strongest.
Not anymore.
“I’m going.”
Torres started to object.
I continued.
“But not the way Nolan expects.”
We had less than three hours.
I thought about everything Nolan had taught me accidentally.
He underestimated silence.
He underestimated witnesses.
Most of all, he underestimated women he believed he had already broken.
May you like
Tonight, I intended to make those mistakes expensive.
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