Chapter 3 - The Empty Back Office
The narrow hallway smelled of damp cardboard and old metal. When Dante and I reached the back office, the overhead bulb flickered casting erratic, strobe-like shadows across the room.
The space was completely empty.
The stack of ledger books Leo had been playing with lay scattered across the floor, pages torn and fluttering in the draft from an open window that led out to the rear alley. A box of colored pencils spilled across the linoleum like spilled blood.
"Mia!" I shouted, rushing into the room and checking behind the heavy metal shelving units. "Leo!"
There was no answer. The heavy metal door leading directly to the exterior alleyway was ajar, swinging slowly on its hinges in the cold Chicago wind.
Dante was already moving, his boots crunching on the glass from a small window pane that had been cleanly punched out from the outside. He shoved the door open wider, stepping out into the alley with his weapon raised, scanning the dark brick walls and the shadowed spaces between parked delivery trucks.
I ran to the threshold, the freezing wind hitting my face like a physical blow.
"They're gone," I choked out, the reality crashing down on me with suffocating weight. "Dante, they took them."
Dante lowered his gun slowly, though the muscles in his back remained coiled like spring wire. He walked back inside, kneeling down beside the spilled box of colored pencils. He reached out and picked up a small, blue plastic toy truck Leo had clutched in his hand ever since we left Zurich.
"Who knew you were coming here?" Dante asked, his voice dangerously calm—the terrifying quiet before a hurricane.
"No one," I said, pressing my hands against my temples as my mind raced backward through every movement of the day. "Mia picked us up at the airport. We drove straight here. We didn't stop."
"Someone followed you," Dante said, standing up to his full height. He looked at me, his eyes dark and hard. "Or someone tracked your flight manifest the second you landed. Carter logistics routes pass through three different customs databases. Victoria or my own captains could have accessed them, but..."
"But what?"
"But professional extraction doesn't leave a broken window and a dropped toy," Dante muttered, walking toward the open alley door. He bent down, examining a smudge of black grease on the brick frame. "This wasn't a kidnapping for ransom, Elena. And it wasn't the cartel. The cartel uses cars. This is foot-work."
"Then who?"
"A message," Dante said, his jaw tightening. "Someone wants to remind me that my house is still made of glass."
He turned back to face me, his expression softening just enough to reveal the raw agony underneath.
"Get your phone," he commanded gently.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to call every capos, every informant, and every corrupt detective on my payroll," Dante said, his voice hardening into steel. "And if anyone in Chicago thinks they can touch my son to get to me, I will burn this city to the ground to find him."
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I pulled it out, expecting another threatening text from an unknown number. Instead, it was an incoming call from Mia’s cell phone.
"It's Mia," I whispered, holding the screen up.
Dante stepped close, his shoulder brushing mine as I swiped the screen and hit speakerphone.
"Mia? Where are you? Are you and Leo okay?"
For a second, there was only static and heavy breathing on the other end. Then, a man’s voice spoke—smooth, cultured, and entirely unfamiliar, carrying a faint European accent that sent a shiver straight down my spine.
"Good evening, Elena. And greetings to you too, Mr. Moretti. I trust you're enjoying your family reunion?"
Dante snatched the phone from my hand, pressing it to his ear.
"Who is this?" Dante demanded, his voice dropping into the terrifying register of a man ready to kill. "Give me the boy."
"Oh, the boy is quite safe for the moment," the voice replied smoothly. "Sleeping like an angel, in fact. But if you want to see him—or your friend, and your dear sister Victoria, who is currently being detained in our downtown office—you’re going to have to play a very specific game."
Dante froze. "Victoria?"
"Naturally," the voice chuckled softly. "You didn't really think the Carter family’s alliance with the Morettis was a secret to everyone else in the syndicate, did you, Dante? Some debts don't get paid with shipping lanes. Some debts require blood."
The line clicked dead.
Dante stared at the dead screen for three seconds before throwing the phone against the brick wall, shattering it into a dozen plastic pieces.
"Dante..." I whispered, the cold reality of our situation closing in around us. "Who was that?"
Dante turned to me, his face pale, the mask of the untouchable mafia boss completely stripped away.
May you like
"That," Dante said, his voice shaking with a fury I had never heard before, "was the man who engineered my marriage to your sister—and he just invited us both to the execution."
---
