Chapter 7 - SECRETS OF THE CHILDREN’S HOME
The name hit Dante like an armor-piercing round to the chest.
Cadence.
His younger sister. Cadence Moretti. She had been nineteen years old when the war with the Genovese family had turned the streets of South Boston into a slaughterhouse. One rainy Tuesday in November of 2006, her car had been found abandoned near the Chelsea docks, the driver's side door open, her purse on the seat, her phone smashed on the asphalt. The city had assumed she was taken by the rivals; his father had burned four warehouses in retaliation, but her body had never been recovered. Two months later, his father had gathered the family council and issued an absolute, terrifying decree: Cadence was to be declared dead, her records sealed, and her private foundation—the Cadence Trust—dissolved and wiped from the family books forever.
Nicholas Vane had been the sole executor who handled the paperwork.
And Nicholas had spent twenty years carrying that secret to his grave.
Dante’s fingers closed so tightly around the brass key that the engraved serpent bit into his palm, drawing no blood, but anchoring him to the cold, undeniable reality of the metal.
He looked back at Clara.
The little girl was still standing there, holding her greasy paper bag of cookies, her reddish-brown hair catching the bright afternoon light. She looked at Dante with wide, curious eyes, sensing that the grown-ups were talking about something very big, very sad, and very old.
“Clara,” Dante said. His voice was no longer that of a ruthless mob don; it was the voice of a man standing on the edge of an impossible revelation. “Tell me about Mr. Henry. What did he say when he gave you this?”
Clara tilted her head, her crooked braids shifting against her faded red sweater. She reached up with one hand and twisted a loose thread on her collar, thinking hard.
“He came on Thursday,” Clara whispered softly, her words coming with the pure, uncomplicated clarity of a child. “Two weeks ago. Before the rain started. He sat with me in the small library by the garden at the home. He was breathing very hard, and his hands were cold. He gave me the key and told me to put it in my pocket and never, ever lose it.”
“Did he say what it unlocked, sweetheart?” Dante asked, his breath held tight in his throat.
“He said it unlocks the blue room at the top of the house,” Clara said simply. “The room with the big windows that look at the water. He said that inside the blue room… there’s a big wooden chest with letters in it. Letters for a boy named Dante.”
A sharp, ragged gasp tore from Dante’s chest.
Letters for a boy named Dante.
Behind him, Marco let out a low, disbelieving breath, his hand flying to his forehead as he closed his eyes, crossing himself in the autumn sun.
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“And what else did he say, Clara?” Dante pressed, leaning in half an inch closer, his large, tattooed hand hovering gently near her small arm, offering warmth without crowding her.
“He said,” Clara continued, her hazel eyes looking straight into his dark gaze, “that if he couldn't come back on Thursday… I had to look for a man with dark hair and sad eyes wearing a black shirt. He said that man was my Uncle Dante. And that he would bring me home.”
