Chapter 2 - THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST
“I'm not getting into that car.”
Those were the first words I said when Dante Moretti stepped out of the black SUV.
My manager stood behind me, looking as though he might have a heart attack.
“Olivia,” he whispered. “Please don't make this difficult.”
I ignored him.
The man standing on the sidewalk was dressed in another expensive charcoal coat. Two bodyguards waited near the vehicle, but neither approached me.
Dante studied my face.
“Did someone tell you I intended to hurt you?”
“No. But people don't usually send armed men to collect a waitress because she petted their dog.”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he opened the rear door.
An enormous black head appeared.
“Orion.”
The dog practically climbed over the seat trying to reach me.
Before anyone could stop him, his front paws landed on the sidewalk. His massive tail swung from side to side.
“Oh, handsome,” I whispered.
Orion pressed his forehead against my stomach.
I laughed despite myself.
Dante watched us with an expression I couldn't understand.
“He hasn't responded to anyone like that in years.”
“Maybe he doesn't like being treated like a weapon.”
One of the bodyguards shifted uncomfortably.
Dante didn't.
Instead, he said, “You may stay right here. I only need to show you something.”
He reached into the vehicle and removed a brown envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
The moment I saw it, everything around me seemed to disappear.
A teenage girl sat on the floor of a cramped apartment, holding a black puppy with oversized paws.
The girl was wearing a faded yellow sweatshirt.
Her hair was pulled into a crooked ponytail.
And across her lap lay a blue blanket covered in tiny white stars.
It was me.
Eight years ago.
I stared at the photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
Dante's expression hardened.
“It was inside a file belonging to my father.”
I barely heard him.
My fingers were trembling.
Because I recognized the puppy.
There was a small white scar behind his left ear.
I had cleaned that wound myself after finding him frightened and shivering near a bus depot in Queens.
“No,” I whispered.
Orion lifted his head.
I bent toward him, pushed aside the thick black fur behind his ear, and found the scar.
My knees nearly gave way.
“Bear?”
His ears shot forward.
“Bear,” I repeated, my voice breaking.
The enormous dog gave a sharp, excited whine.
Then he pushed his face against mine.
I wrapped my arms around his neck.
For eight years, I had believed that puppy was gone forever.
My mother had told me he'd been placed with a family who could afford to care for him.
I'd cried for weeks.
And now he was standing in front of me.
Alive.
Beautiful.
And belonging to Dante Moretti.
“His name was Bear,” I whispered.
Dante crouched beside us.
“Your dog?”
“He wasn't officially mine. My mother volunteered at an animal rescue in Brooklyn. We took him home while his leg healed.”
“What rescue?”
“Harbor House.”
Something changed in Dante's eyes.
He stood slowly.
“Your mother worked at Harbor House Rescue?”
“Yes. Why?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he took another page from the envelope.
It was a financial record bearing the name Nora Marshall.
My mother's name.
The amount was $48,000.
The payment date was October 2023.
I frowned.
“There must be a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother died in 2020.”
Dante looked at me.
“Are you certain?”
I stared at him.
“I held her hand in the hospital. I arranged her funeral. I spent the next six months paying off her medical bills.”
His expression softened.
“I'm sorry.”
“Then explain why someone paid her forty-eight thousand dollars three years after she died.”
“That,” he said quietly, “is what I'm trying to understand.”
I stepped backward.
Suddenly, the photograph wasn't comforting anymore.
It was frightening.
Someone had kept a picture of me inside a powerful crime family's private records.
Someone had used my dead mother's name.
And somehow the puppy I'd loved as a teenager had become a feared Mafia boss's guard dog.
“Who gave you Bear?” I asked.
Dante hesitated.
“A man who has worked for my family for nearly thirty years.”
“What man?”
“Frank Bellini.”
I had never heard the name.
But Dante seemed troubled by it.
He turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
Not printed.
Not typed.
Handwritten in slanted blue ink.
My breath caught.
I knew those letters.
My mother always curled the bottom of her capital letters and drew a little line through her sevens.
I had watched her write grocery lists that way my entire childhood.
Dante read the message aloud.
“If Bear ever finds Olivia again, don't let Frank Bellini near her.”
He stopped.
Below those words was one final sentence.
“Whatever happens, don't let Dante Moretti learn what his father did.”
May you like
I looked up at him.
And for the first time, the most feared man in New York looked genuinely afraid of an answer.
