Chapter 2 - THE CONTRACT WRITTEN BY A DEAD MAN
Dante did not wait until dessert.
The restaurant doors locked.
Phones disappeared into security boxes.
Nobody left.
His entire demeanor changed from embarrassed husband to mafia boss in less than five seconds.
“Who drafted this version?”
His attorney, Michael Raines, opened his laptop.
“The original framework came from Bellini counsel. Revisions were consolidated through Moretti legal.”
“Who?”
Michael hesitated.
“Marco DeLuca’s office.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
Marco was his consigliere.
His father’s closest friend.
The man who had toasted our wedding.
Vittorio looked toward his own lawyer.
“Our edits went through Stefano.”
Stefano Bellini nodded quickly.
“I never saw Orfeo.”
I asked for the electronic file.
Michael sent it.
I opened the document properties.
Creation date.
Revision history.
Embedded user IDs.
Most had been scrubbed.
Almost.
One identifier remained.
ACV-17.
My skin went cold.
“What?” Dante demanded.
I closed the laptop.
“Five years ago, the contracts I investigated in Geneva were prepared by an attorney named Alessandro Carlo Vieri.”
Vittorio knew the name.
His expression confirmed it.
“Vieri represented offshore shipping companies,” he said.
“He represented everybody who paid enough.”
Dante asked, “What does ACV mean?”
“His initials.”
Silence.
Michael frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Alessandro Vieri died six months ago.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
“Heart attack. Monaco.”
“No.”
I knew Vieri.
A compulsive runner.
Fifty-two.
Medical examinations every year because he was terrified of dying young like his father.
A heart attack was possible.
Convenient was more likely.
Dante came around the table.
His anger was no longer directed at me.
“Start from Geneva.”
I looked toward the other men.
“This isn’t something I tell strangers.”
Vittorio immediately stood.
“Then the Bellinis will leave.”
Dante blocked him.
“No one leaves until I know whether someone at this table helped put my wife’s name into a dead man’s contract.”
That silenced the room.
My wife.
An hour earlier, I had felt like an accessory around his neck.
Now the distinction mattered.
I opened my clutch and removed my phone.
There was one message.
Unknown number.
Italian.
I read it once.
Then again.
Dante saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the screen toward him.
The message contained a photograph.
Me.
Taken through the restaurant window less than twenty minutes earlier.
Beneath it:
THE WHITE FOX SHOULD HAVE STAYED BURIED IN GENEVA.
Dante’s expression emptied.
May you like
Then a second message arrived.
THIS TIME, YOUR HUSBAND WILL WATCH YOU DIE.
