Chapter 5 - ROOM 614Dante did not go alone.
He pretended he did.
That was the difference.
By the time we reached the Belladonna, the hotel was officially closed because of a “mechanical emergency.”
Unofficially, armed security controlled every stairwell, elevator, loading dock, and parking entrance.
Vanessa had chosen Room 614 for a reason.
Dante knew the room immediately.
“It was Elena’s.”
I frowned.
“She lived in the hotel?”
“No. She used it when she worked late.”
“Worked?”
Dante looked at me.
“You thought she just married me?”
“I didn’t think much about it.”
“She helped design this place.”
That surprised me.
“She was an architect?”
“Interior restoration. Half the original building would have been demolished without her.”
Room 614 occupied the end of a private corridor.
Dante inserted the brass key into an old-fashioned lock hidden behind a brass plate.
It turned.
Inside, the room looked untouched.
Dust covered the furniture.
White sheets draped the sofa and bed.
Dante walked toward the fireplace.
“Elena insisted this room never be renovated.”
“Why?”
He stared at a carved wooden panel.
“Apparently she had reasons.”
The key opened a second compartment.
Inside were stacks of files.
Photographs.
Bank ledgers.
And one old cell phone.
Marco powered it on.
There were eighty-seven recordings.
The first showed Vincent Russo meeting Charles Laurent in the hotel garage six years earlier.
The second showed trucks being redirected.
The third showed Julian.
My stomach tightened.
Julian stood beside Vincent at a warehouse.
He was younger.
Nervous.
But unmistakably involved.
Dante watched without expression.
“Keep going.”
Recording after recording built the story.
Vincent and Charles had been stealing money through Dante’s legitimate companies.
Julian discovered it.
Instead of stopping them, he joined.
Elena found out.
She gathered evidence.
Then came the final video.
Date: two days before the fire.
Elena faced the camera.
“If Dante is watching this, I failed to tell him in person.”
She looked exhausted.
“Vincent knows I discovered the accounts. Charles knows too. Julian says he wants out, but I don’t trust him.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Vanessa has been asking strange questions about the hotel.”
I looked at him.
“How old was Vanessa?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Did you know her?”
“Barely.”
The video continued.
“There is something else Dante doesn’t know.”
Elena looked toward the door.
“I’m pregnant.”
Dante stopped breathing.
The room vanished around him.
Six years of grief seemed to hit him in one second.
“No.”
Elena smiled sadly at the camera.
“Seven weeks. I was going to tell him after dinner.”
Dante walked away from the laptop.
Marco lowered his head.
I didn’t know where to look.
Dante put both hands against the window.
His shoulders trembled once.
Then stopped.
He had lost a wife.
Now he had learned he might also have lost a child he never knew existed.
I approached carefully.
“Dante.”
“Don’t.”
I stopped.
Several seconds passed.
Then he spoke.
“Keep playing.”
The recording continued.
“If something happens to me, protect the baby first.”
Dante shut his eyes.
The next file was corrupted.
The one after that showed the night of the fire.
Not the fire itself.
The parking garage beneath the Belladonna.
Elena entered frame.
Vincent followed her.
Then Julian.
Then two men from Laurent Security.
The timestamp was forty minutes before the Russo house burned.
Elena had never been home when the fire started.
“They took her from here,” Marco said.
Dante nodded.
The final recording showed Charles Laurent speaking to someone outside the frame.
“We keep the woman alive until we know where the original ledger is.”
A male voice replied.
“What about the husband?”
Charles smiled.
“He’ll be easier to control once he believes he failed her.”
Dante paused the recording.
“Whose voice is that?”
Marco shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or thought I did.
I had heard it earlier.
At the veterinary clinic.
Smooth.
Measured.
Julian.
But something bothered me.
“It’s not him.”
Dante looked at me.
“What?”
“It sounds like Julian, but listen to the end.”
Marco replayed the line.
Once he believes he failed her.
I shook my head.
“Julian has a slight Chicago accent. That person doesn’t.”
Dante replayed it again.
Marco frowned.
“She’s right.”
“So who?”
The hotel door suddenly locked behind us.
A red light appeared on the electronic panel.
Marco reached for his weapon.
Smoke began pouring beneath the door.
“Fire!”
Dante grabbed the files.
Marco tried the handle.
Dead.
The windows were sealed.
I coughed.
“Another exit?”
Dante looked around.
“Elena restored this room.”
“So?”
“She loved old buildings.”
I understood.
“Service passage.”
We searched the wall.
Smoke thickened.
Then I remembered the photograph of Elena with Samson.
Behind them had been decorative paneling identical to the wall beside the bed.
I pressed the carved rose.
Click.
A narrow door opened.
“Move!”
We entered a hidden servants’ corridor seconds before flames filled Room 614.
The passage descended through the walls.
Halfway down, we heard voices.
Dante raised one hand.
We stopped.
A woman was speaking below us.
Vanessa.
“…supposed to be alone.”
A man answered.
“He never follows instructions.”
Not Julian.
Older.
Calm.
Dante’s face changed.
He recognized it.
So did Marco.
They exchanged a look.
“Who?” I whispered.
Dante barely moved his lips.
“My father.”
I stared at him.
“Your father is dead.”
“No.”
His voice was nearly silent.
“My father is in a private care facility.”
I remembered his earlier words.
My father was dying.
Not dead.
Dante’s father, Salvatore Russo, had suffered a massive stroke six years ago.
Publicly, he could barely speak.
Apparently that had been another lie.
We descended farther.
Through a crack in the wall, we saw Vanessa standing in an old service kitchen.
Beside her was Julian.
And seated in a wheelchair was an elderly man with silver hair.
Salvatore Russo.
Dante’s father.
Perfectly alert.
Perfectly capable of speech.
Vanessa paced.
“You promised Dante would marry me.”
Salvatore looked bored.
“And he would have.”
“Not now.”
“That waitress complicated matters.”
My blood chilled.
Julian leaned against the counter.
“You shouldn’t have kicked her.”
Vanessa snapped toward him.
“Shut up.”
“You were supposed to plant the tracker discreetly.”
“I did.”
“You also humiliated her in front of two hundred cameras.”
“She was touching that filthy dog.”
Salvatore lifted a hand.
Both went silent.
“So Samson survived.”
Julian nodded.
“And Elena?”
“Contained.”
Dante’s fingers tightened around the edge of the hidden doorway.
Alive.
They had her.
Salvatore sighed.
“Six years. Six years we kept that woman quiet. And now one dog threatens everything.”
Vanessa looked nervous.
“What about Dante?”
“My son remains predictable.”
Dante’s face became stone.
“How?” Vanessa asked.
Salvatore smiled.
“He still thinks love makes him strong.”
The cruelty in the old man’s expression made my stomach turn.
“It has always made him weak.”
Julian looked away.
Then Salvatore added something worse.
“The child was the only complication.”
Dante went rigid.
Vanessa frowned.
“What child?”
Salvatore looked at her.
“You really thought Elena’s pregnancy ended in that basement?”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Dante stared through the crack.
Salvatore smiled.
“No. The boy is alive.”
Dante’s knees nearly buckled.
His son.
Alive.
Somewhere.
Six years old.
Julian spoke quietly.
“And if Dante finds him?”
Salvatore’s expression became cold.
“He won’t.”
A phone rang.
Salvatore answered.
“Yes?”
He listened.
Then smiled.
“Good.”
He looked toward Vanessa.
“Elena is being moved tonight.”
“Where?”
“To the lake house.”
Dante silently backed away from the wall.
His eyes burned with something beyond anger now.
Not vengeance.
Purpose.
His wife was alive.
His son was alive.
And the man behind six years of suffering was his own father.
But before we could retreat, my phone vibrated.
A tiny sound.
Almost nothing.
Vanessa’s head snapped toward the wall.
“What was that?”
Nobody breathed.
She walked closer.
May you like
Dante whispered one word.
“Run.”
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