Chapter 4 - The House With Open Windows
By evening, Elena had made a decision everyone found inconvenient.
She would leave the hospital for Sofia’s home.
Not Dante’s mansion.
Not a remote estate.
Not a private apartment selected by men who reported to her husband.
Detective Bennett discussed practical precautions with both sisters. Sofia’s building had controlled entry, cameras, and neighbors who noticed everything. Temporary protection could be arranged while investigators pursued the threat.
Dante listened.
Then he asked Elena, “Would you like me to pay for additional security through someone Bennett recommends?”
She considered the question.
“Yes. Someone who answers to me.”
“All right.”
It was a small sentence.
For Dante, it was the beginning of learning an entirely different language.
At Sofia’s apartment, Elena slept in a room with yellow curtains and a radiator that clicked at night.
There was no marble.
No one knocked before bringing her water because Sofia simply shouted, “You drinking enough?”
For the first time in months, Elena slept six hours.
The following morning, she woke to the smell of toast and found a cardboard box outside her bedroom.
Inside were maternity clothes, her sketchbooks, the slippers she liked, and the framed ultrasound picture from her nightstand.
Dante had included a note.
Marco packed these with the housekeeper. Nothing was searched. If anything is missing, send a list.
At the bottom, in different handwriting, the housekeeper had added:
Your blue sweater is being cleaned. I will send it tomorrow. —Rosa
Elena touched the paper and cried again.
She had missed being treated like a person with ordinary needs.
At ten, Dante arrived for the visit she had agreed to.
He brought breakfast from a place she liked and left the bag on the kitchen counter.
Sofia inspected it.
“No suspicious diamonds in the croissants?”
“No.”
“Good. She prefers butter.”
Elena nearly laughed.
Dante heard it and resisted the impulse to turn that small sound into proof everything was improving.
They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table.
He gave her a written account of the threats, meetings, and financial investigation.
Names.
Dates.
Things he knew.
Things he suspected.
Things he had done that required answers of his own.
She read in silence.
“You approved cash payments to make problems disappear.”
“Yes.”
“What problems?”
“Labor disputes. Stolen cargo. People threatening our businesses.”
“Were people hurt?”
Dante looked at the table.
“Sometimes.”
Sofia stopped moving at the sink.
Elena waited.
“I didn’t order an attack on you,” Dante said. “But I helped maintain a system where everyone believed fear was an acceptable business tool. I can’t pretend I only discovered that yesterday.”
The room became very quiet.
Elena had known his world was dangerous.
Knowing was different from hearing him admit that its danger had not merely happened around him.
“What are you going to do?”
“Cooperate. Separate the legitimate companies from the rest. Accept what follows.”
“For me?”
He took a breath.
“I want you back. But if that is the only reason I change, you’ll spend your life wondering what happens when you disappoint me.”
She looked at him for a long time.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that sounds like you’ve thought beyond getting me home.”
After he left, Bennett called.
The photograph outside the hospital room had come from a hospital contractor’s account. Someone had paid an employee for access to a corridor camera feed.
The employee had been detained.
More significantly, investigators had recovered deleted instructions from the household server.
Elena’s intercom had been activated remotely during her call to Sofia.
The access credentials belonged to Beatrice’s assistant.
“But we haven’t established who used them,” Bennett cautioned.
Elena thanked her.
Then she called Dante herself.
He answered immediately.
“Is everything all right?”
“No.”
He waited.
“I want to speak to your mother. With the detective present.”
“Elena—”
He stopped himself.
She heard the effort.
“I’ll give Bennett her number,” he said.
That afternoon, Beatrice Moretti swept into the interview room wearing pearls and visible offense.
She glanced at Elena’s plain sweater.
Then at Dante.
“I assume we can settle this privately.”
May you like
Elena rested a hand on her stomach.
“No,” she said. “That’s how we got here.”
