Chapter 2
I did not move.
If I moved, I might kill him right there in front of her parents.
In front of that little white coffin.
In front of God, if God still bothered looking into rooms like mine.
“What did she see?” I asked.
Marco shook his head.
“Not here.”
I stepped toward him.
Bruno stepped with me.
“What did she see?”
Elena’s mother began crying harder.
Her father, Luis, lifted his head.
His face was gray.
“What is he saying?” Luis asked. “What did he do to my daughter?”
Marco backed into the wall.
“I didn’t mean for her to get hurt.”
“That is not an answer.”
“She was behind the restaurant.”
Luis stood.
“My restaurant?”
Marco looked at him and flinched.
That was enough.
Tony grabbed Marco’s arms and pinned him against the wall.
Two of my men closed the doors.
The funeral director whispered, “Please, not here.”
I looked at him once.
He disappeared into the hallway.
I turned back to Marco.
“Speak.”
Marco’s breathing turned ragged.
“She saw me with Victor Salerno.”
The name hit my men like a gunshot.
Victor Salerno was supposed to be dead.
Not missing.
Not hiding.
Dead.
I had watched his closed casket lowered into the ground five years earlier after he betrayed my family and started a war that killed my cousin Nico.
I had paid for that funeral myself.
“What did you say?”
Marco closed his eyes.
“He’s alive.”
My hands curled into fists.
Luis staggered.
His wife whispered Elena’s name.
I could not look at them.
Not yet.
Because if Victor was alive, then half the peace I had built was a lie.
And if Marco was meeting him behind Luis’s restaurant, then Elena had not stumbled into an accident.
She had walked into a secret powerful men needed buried.
“She recognized you?” I asked.
“She saw me pass him a file.”
“What file?”
Marco said nothing.
Bruno lunged half a step.
Marco cried out.
“Bank routes,” he said. “Shipping schedules. Names.”
My stomach turned.
“You sold my routes.”
“I was trapped.”
“You were paid.”
“He threatened my wife.”
“Do not hide behind your wife.”
Marco’s face twisted.
“She heard Victor say your name. The kid. She was hiding behind the trash bins with that bunny in her arms. She dropped it. I saw her.”
Luis made a broken sound.
“My baby was waiting for me to close.”
I stared at Marco.
“What happened next?”
Marco swallowed.
“She ran.”
“And you followed.”
“I tried to scare her. That’s all.”
“By hitting her with a car?”
“No. No, Dante, I swear. Victor’s driver did it.”
“Name.”
Marco shook his head.
I stepped closer.
“Name.”
“Rafael Mora.”
Tony looked at me.
Rafael was one of Victor’s old soldiers.
A ghost with hands.
I looked at Elena’s coffin.
Bruno whined again.
Then scratched once at the lid.
The sound split the room.
Elena’s mother screamed.
I held up my hand.
“Open it.”
Luis stared at me.
“What?”
“Open the coffin.”
The funeral director returned, shaking.
“That is not allowed.”
“Open it.”
Marco suddenly fought Tony’s grip.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
That one word told me more than confession ever could.
I leaned close.
“Why not?”
Marco’s face collapsed.
“Because she wrote something.”
Luis stepped forward.
“What did my daughter write?”
May you like
Marco whispered.
“On the inside.”
