Chapter 2 - Cold Mahogany and Whispered Names
The third-floor library of the Moretti mansion smelled of old leather, imported scotch, and pure authority.
Sophia stood on the Persian rug in the center of the vast room.
Her uniform was stained with wine from the broken glasses, and her lip throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache.
Two armed guards had stood behind her the entire walk up the spiraling grand staircase.
Dante entered the room, shut the heavy oak doors, and turned the bronze deadbolt with a quiet, decisive click.
He didn't invite her to sit.
He walked behind his sprawling desk, tossed the multi-million-dollar sapphire necklace onto the polished wood like a set of cheap house keys, and poured himself two fingers of dark liquor.
"You didn't cry," Dante remarked, his back turned to her.
"Crying doesn't change the evidence," Sophia answered, keeping her voice as steady as her breathing would allow.
Dante turned around and leaned against the edge of the desk, crossing his long legs at the ankles.
"Evidence is easily manufactured."
"Facts are more stubborn."
"Do you know who owns the surveillance company that monitors this estate?" Dante asked.
"No, sir."
"Laurent Global Security."
"Celeste’s father sits on the advisory board."
Sophia felt her breath catch in her throat.
"Then why plant it on me?"
"If they wanted to steal their own necklace for an insurance claim, why involve a member of the catering staff?"
Dante took a sip of his scotch, his eyes never leaving hers.
"That is the question that kept me from having you thrown into a holding cell an hour ago."
He opened the center drawer of the desk and pulled out a manila file folder.
He flipped it open without breaking eye contact.
"Sophia Bennett."
"Age twenty-three."
"Hired six months ago through an auxiliary agency under the name Sophia Miller."
Sophia felt the blood drain from her face.
"Your mother, Maya, is currently receiving intensive hemodialysis at Saint Jude’s Memorial."
"Her treatments are four weeks past due on payment."
"You owe the hospital sixty-eight thousand dollars."
Dante tapped the file with his forefinger.
"And your father was David Bennett."
The name hit the room like a gunshot.
Sophia stepped forward before she could stop herself.
"My father was an honest man."
"Your father was the chief structural architect for Moretti Shipping five years ago," Dante countered smoothly.
"Until he allegedly leaked our container blueprints to competitors and drowned in the harbor before the trial could start."
"He didn't drown by accident," Sophia said, her voice shaking with five years of suppressed fury.
"And he never touched those blueprints."
"He was murdered because he discovered a shipping route being used for unregistered cargo between Marseilles and Boston."
Dante remained motionless.
Not a single muscle in his jaw shifted.
"You think I don't know who you are, Sophia?"
"I knew the day you stepped through the service entrance with forged employment papers."
"Then why didn't you fire me?"
"Because a guilty woman hides in another city."
"An angry daughter stays close to the lion's den to look for ledgers."
Dante stood up and picked up the sapphire necklace.
He held it up to the desk lamp, turning the gold clasp between his fingers.
"Look at this," he said.
Sophia hesitated, then walked to the front of the desk.
Under the bright bulb, she saw the mechanism.
"The lock is an antique triple-catch," Dante said.
"It requires two hands, a jeweler's pin, and three minutes of patience to release without snapping the hinge."
"Celeste claimed it fell off during the waltz."
"It didn't fall off," Sophia whispered, realization dawning on her.
"She took it off herself before she entered the main hall."
"And she slipped it into your apron when you refilled her ice bucket near the terrace doors," Dante concluded.
"Julian Hale and Marcus Laurent are trying to trigger an emergency clause in my board charter."
"If an item of this value disappears inside my residence under mysterious circumstances involving a security failure, my insurance underwriter has the right to freeze the estate’s corporate assets for thirty days."
"Thirty days is all Julian Hale needs to force a hostile takeover of my shipping terminals."
Sophia stared at the man across the desk.
The entire gala hadn't been about a necklace at all.
It was a corporate execution disguised as a high-society scandal.
"And I was just supposed to be the disposable body in the middle," Sophia said bitterly.
"You were supposed to be arrested, break down under interrogation, and confess that an insider gave you access," Dante said.
He closed the folder.
"They didn't count on me recognizing you."
"And they certainly didn't count on you having the nerve to stand your ground when Victoria hit you."
A sudden knocking at the door interrupted the heavy silence.
"Enter," Dante said, unlocking the door with a remote button beneath the desk.
Marcus Vance stood outside, looking paler than he had downstairs.
"Mr. Moretti, we have a problem at Saint Jude’s Hospital."
Sophia spun around instantly.
"My mother?"
"A private medical transport team arrived twenty minutes ago with signed transfer papers from the Hale Foundation," Vance reported.
"They claim Mrs. Bennett is being moved to an upstate long-term facility for non-payment."
Sophia felt her knees buckle.
They were taking her mother to leverage her silence.
Before she could speak, Dante grabbed his coat from the leather chair.
"Tell my personal driver to bring the armored Maybach to the front."
May you like
"And call the Saint Jude director."
"Tell him if Maya Bennett is moved ten feet from her room, I will buy the ground his hospital is built on and bulldoze it before dawn."
