Chương 5
“I thought you said not to go home alone.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I am here.”
“That seems like the same thing with extra steps.”
For a second, Dante looked almost amused.
Almost.
“You are different when you are annoyed.”
“I’m usually annoyed.”
“I noticed.”
Mabel folded her arms.
“Why are you here?”
“Because someone called you.”
Her expression changed.
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It is the answer I have.”
Mabel disliked how often he admitted things without pretending.
It made him harder to argue with.
“Who are you really?” she asked.
The question surprised him.
Not because he did not expect it.
Because he seemed to consider answering.
“I own several companies.”
“That is the public answer.”
“Yes.”
“And the private one?”
Dante looked toward the street.
Cars passed between them and the rest of the world.
“My family has been involved in businesses that were not always legal.”
Mabel stared at him.
“That is a very careful way to say something terrible.”
“Yes.”
“You are not denying it.”
“No.”
She almost stepped back.
The honesty frightened her more than a lie would have.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“Then why tell me?”
“Because you are going to find out pieces of it anyway.”
Mabel looked away.
She hated that he was probably right.
“What happened with my grandmother?”
Dante’s expression changed slightly.
Not enough for most people to notice.
Enough for her.
“You should ask Victor.”
“I did not ask him.”
“I know.”
“Why are you avoiding the question?”
“Because I do not know the full answer.”
That was not what she expected.
She had imagined powerful people always knew everything.
But standing there, watching him choose his words carefully, she saw something different.
Power did not mean having all the answers.
Sometimes it only meant having more people willing to hide your uncertainty.
Dante opened the car door.
“Come with me.”
Mabel looked inside.
“No.”
He paused.
“Why?”
“Because every time someone says something like that in a movie, the person who gets in the car regrets it.”
“That is your reason?”
“It is one of them.”
For the first time, Dante actually smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
“My office is nearby.”
“I can meet you there.”
“Fine.”
The agreement came too easily.
Mabel noticed.
“So you were expecting me to say no?”
“Yes.”
“And you had another plan?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“That is unsettling.”
“I know.”
They walked toward his office building separately.
Mabel followed several steps behind.
She noticed things she would not have noticed before.
The security cameras.
The employees who straightened when Dante entered.
The way conversations lowered around him.
People were not afraid of him exactly.
They were aware of him.
There was a difference.
Inside the office, Dante placed the letter and the photograph on a table.
Mabel looked around.
The room was modern but strangely empty.
No family pictures.
No personal decorations.
Nothing that suggested anyone actually lived there.
“You have no pictures,” she said.
Dante looked at her.
“You noticed that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because people usually put things around them that remind them they belong somewhere.”
His eyes moved briefly across the room.
“My father believed attachments created weaknesses.”
Mabel did not know what to say.
Dante picked up the photograph.
“He was wrong.”
The statement sounded like something he had not planned to admit.
Mabel sat down.
“Who are the other people?”
Dante looked at the photograph.
“The man is Thomas Vale.”
“And the woman?”
Dante was silent.
That silence was different.
Not uncertainty.
Pain.
“Her name was Clara Moretti.”
Mabel looked at him.
“Your family?”
“My mother.”
The answer changed something.
Until that moment, Mabel had seen Dante as a man connected to power.
Not a person connected to loss.
“She worked with my grandmother?” Mabel asked.
“Yes.”
“Doing what?”
Dante placed the photograph back on the table.
“Trying to expose what people like us had spent years hiding.”
Mabel looked at the photograph again.
The woman beside Eleanor suddenly felt less like a stranger and more like a missing piece of a story she had only heard fragments of.
“Your mother worked with my grandmother,” she said.
Dante nodded.
“She did.”
“On what?”
He walked to the window.
For several seconds, he watched the city below.
Mabel noticed that he did that whenever he needed time.
Not because he did not know what to say.
Because he knew exactly what words could change everything.
“My family built its reputation on control,” he said.
“That is a polite way of saying power.”
“Yes.”
“And your mother wanted to expose it?”
“She wanted to understand it first.”
Mabel frowned.
“That sounds different.”
“It was.”
Dante turned back toward her.
“My mother was not interested in destroying people.”
“Then what was she interested in?”
“The truth.”
Mabel almost smiled.
“That sounds simple.”
“It was not.”
He sat down across from her.
“My father died when I was nineteen.”
She had not expected him to offer personal information.
The sudden change made her careful.
“I’m sorry.”
Dante looked down at the table.
“I was not.”
The honesty made her uncomfortable.
“My father hurt people,” he continued.
“People inside the company, people outside it.”
Mabel listened quietly.
“I spent years believing that if I became stronger than him, I could fix what he created.”
“And did you?”
Dante looked at her.
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“That is why your mother and my grandmother worked together,” Mabel said.
“Yes.”
“Because they thought they could fix it.”
“They thought they could stop it from continuing.”
The distinction mattered.
Mabel looked at the letter.
“What happened?”
Dante did not answer.
The silence lasted long enough that she thought he would refuse.
Then he said, “They disappeared.”
The word sat between them.
Mabel blinked.
“Disappeared?”
“My mother died.”
Her expression softened.
“I thought you said disappeared.”
May you like
“I did.”
Dante looked at the photograph.
