Chapter 2 - The Second BirdDante had watched the coffin close.
He remembered every detail.
His mother, Caterina Moretti, had been fifty-eight when cancer finally defeated a woman no enemy ever had.
Before the funeral, Dante had placed the second mechanical bird beside her hands.
One bird belonged to him.
One went with her.
Nobody outside the immediate family knew the pair existed.
Or so Dante had believed.
Nico shut the kitchen door.
“Elena, take Sophia downstairs.”
Elena lifted her daughter.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“No?”
“My daughter just became part of whatever this is.”
“She became part of nothing.”
“Someone has apparently been moving around this house at night, and Sophia saw him. That makes her part of it whether either of us likes it or not.”
Dante disliked being contradicted.
He disliked even more that she was right.
He looked at Nico.
“Double security around the staff quarters.”
Elena’s expression sharpened.
“We don’t need guards.”
“You do now.”
“I can take Sophia home.”
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
Elena stared at him.
Dante corrected himself.
“Until I know who that man is, leaving the estate could be more dangerous.”
Sophia tugged Elena’s sleeve.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“The angry man knows our apartment.”
Silence.
Elena slowly lowered her eyes.
“What?”
Sophia nodded.
“He said your street.”
Dante stood.
“What street?”
Sophia struggled with the name.
“Mulberry.”
Elena’s face went white.
Their apartment was on Mulberry Street.
Dante turned to Nico.
“Move them into the east guest wing.”
Elena immediately protested.
“Absolutely not.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“And Sophia is my daughter.”
Their eyes locked.
For perhaps the first time in years, Dante found himself facing someone who was frightened of him but refused to let fear make decisions for her.
He respected that more than he intended to.
So he changed tactics.
“Someone you don’t know knows where your child sleeps.”
Elena’s anger faltered.
“If you leave tonight, I can’t guarantee what happens outside these gates.”
That did it.
She looked down at Sophia.
“All right.”
“Temporary,” Dante said.
“Very.”
Nico almost smiled.
Dante noticed.
Nico stopped.
That evening, Isabella returned from Manhattan shortly after seven.
She entered the dining room wearing cream cashmere and diamonds.
She kissed Dante lightly.
“You look exhausted.”
“Long day.”
She poured herself wine.
“Our tasting is Thursday. The florist needs a final count tomorrow.”
Dante watched her.
Three weeks until their wedding.
Four hundred guests.
Two senators.
Judges.
Bankers.
Men who publicly denied knowing Dante and privately called whenever they needed something solved.
Isabella had planned every detail.
Dante had mostly agreed.
He had mistaken absence of objection for happiness.
Now he wondered when that had happened.
“Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
Her wineglass stopped halfway to her lips.
“For what?”
“Curiosity.”
“Here, mostly.”
“Upstairs?”
A fraction of a second.
Then she smiled.
“I suppose.”
“Did you enter my study?”
“No.”
Dante watched her pupils.
No obvious panic.
No tremor.
Nothing.
She was good.
Maybe too good.
“Why?”
“I misplaced something.”
“What?”
He let the silence stretch.
Then smiled.
“My patience.”
She laughed.
Too late.
After dinner, Isabella went upstairs.
Nico entered through the service door.
“She lied.”
“I know.”
“Want me to search her room?”
“No.”
Nico stared at him.
“No?”
“If she has the bird, she’ll move it now.”
“You want to follow her.”
“Yes.”
At 11:46 p.m., Isabella left her bedroom.
She wore black pants, flat shoes, and a dark coat.
Dante watched from the security room as she descended the servants’ staircase.
She exited through the greenhouse.
Then crossed the rain-soaked garden.
Nico whispered into his radio.
“North team ready.”
“No contact.”
Isabella reached the old chapel near the edge of the estate.
The building had not been used in decades.
A man waited beneath the stone arch.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Broad shoulders.
Even from a distance, Sophia’s description made sense.
Like Dante.
Older.
The man stepped into the light.
Dante stopped breathing.
Nico whispered one word.
“Impossible.”
Dante had not seen that face in twenty-three years.
Not since his father’s funeral.
The man was Vittorio Moretti.
Dante’s uncle.
The man accused of betraying Dante’s father.
The man who had disappeared before Dante could kill him.
Isabella removed something from her coat.
Gold flashed beneath the chapel light.
She handed Vittorio the bird.
He examined it.
Then Dante heard Isabella through the directional microphone.
“This is the wrong one.”
Vittorio’s voice came through clearly.
“Then find the one Caterina took to her grave.”
Isabella folded her arms.
“And if I refuse?”
Vittorio stepped closer.
“You won’t.”
“Why?”
The old man smiled.
“Because if Dante learns who your father really was, you’ll never make it to the altar.”
Dante’s hand slowly closed into a fist.
Then Vittorio said something worse.
“Besides, Isabella, you’re not stealing from the Morettis.”
He handed the gold bird back to her.
May you like
“You’re taking back what Dante’s father stole from us.”
And for the first time in his life, Dante wondered whether the history of his own family had been a lie.
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