Chapter 3 - THE SENATOR’S SECRET
Mara looked at Bianca.
“What does your father know?”
Bianca smiled through tears.
“That you’re pregnant.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“How?”
Bianca wiped rain from her cheek.
“My father knows everything that happens in his house.”
Preston cursed under his breath.
“Bianca, shut up.”
“No. I’m done protecting everyone.”
She pointed at Mara.
“Three weeks ago, my father had someone search the staff rooms.”
Mara went cold.
“Why?”
“Because documents were missing from his office.”
Dante looked at Preston.
“What documents?”
Preston said nothing.
Dante stepped closer.
“Answer me.”
Preston’s face tightened.
“Campaign finance records.”
Bianca laughed.
“Campaign finance records. That’s cute.”
Preston glared at her.
“What would you call them?”
“Bribe lists.”
Mara forgot the cold.
Dante didn’t.
He removed his coat and put it around her shoulders without asking.
She almost pushed it off.
Almost.
Then another gust of wind hit her.
She kept it.
Bianca continued.
“My father has taken money from people he publicly pretends to hate. Contractors. Lobbyists. Developers.”
Her eyes moved to Dante.
“And organizations like yours.”
Dante’s expression didn’t change.
“My organization doesn’t make campaign donations.”
“No,” Bianca said. “You just make politicians disappear from committee hearings.”
One of Dante’s men shifted.
Dante raised a hand.
“Careful.”
Bianca smiled.
“You think I’m afraid of you?”
“Yes.”
The answer came so calmly that even Mara looked at him.
Bianca’s smile vanished.
Preston stepped forward.
“Mara needs to leave.”
Dante looked at him.
“Agreed.”
“With me.”
“No.”
Mara snapped.
“Both of you stop.”
They did.
She pointed at Preston.
“You divorced me when it became inconvenient to be married to someone without money.”
His face fell.
“Mara—”
“No. You don’t get to look ashamed now.”
Then she turned to Dante.
“And you don’t get to appear six months later and decide I belong in your car because we made a baby neither of us planned.”
Dante’s jaw flexed.
“I didn’t say you belonged to me.”
“You said I’m coming with you.”
“Because someone just fired bullets into a cemetery.”
“Then say that.”
He stared at her.
Mara stared back.
Finally he nodded.
“Fair.”
Bianca looked between them.
“You two are insane.”
Mara almost laughed.
Then Bianca’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her face changed.
Preston noticed.
“Who is it?”
“No one.”
“Bianca.”
She declined the call.
It rang again.
Dante took one step toward her.
“Answer it.”
“You don’t order me around.”
“Today I do.”
Bianca answered.
“What?”
A man’s voice came through the speaker.
“Where are you?”
Mara knew that voice.
Senator William Thorne.
Bianca swallowed.
“The cemetery.”
“With Mara?”
Silence.
The senator continued.
“Listen carefully. Do not let her leave with Vale.”
Dante’s face became stone.
Bianca looked at him.
“Dad…”
“Do you understand me?”
“Why?”
“Because she has something that belongs to me.”
Mara stared at the phone.
“I don’t have anything.”
The senator heard her.
“Mara.”
Her skin crawled.
“Sir.”
“Your mother left you something before she died.”
Mara looked toward Eleanor’s grave.
“What are you talking about?”
“A key.”
Mara’s fingers tightened around the muddy silver bracelet.
A key.
Her mother had said something strange two days before she died.
If powerful people suddenly become kind to you, run.
Mara had thought the morphine was making her confused.
The senator’s voice hardened.
“Give Bianca the bracelet.”
Mara slowly looked down.
The charm hanging from the bracelet wasn’t solid silver.
There was a tiny seam through the middle.
Dante saw it.
So did Preston.
Bianca took a step forward.
“Mara, give it to me.”
Mara backed away.
The senator shouted through the phone.
“BIANCA, TAKE IT!”
Mara closed her fist around the bracelet.
May you like
And Dante quietly said:
“Now we know why they were shooting.”
