Chapter 2 - The Shadow at the Gate
By the third week, Sofia had established a routine that neither Dante nor Renata could break.
Every day at three o'clock, after finishing her schoolwork at the kitchen counter, Sofia would march into Dante's sunroom carrying two items: a box of wooden building blocks and a faded photo album she had pulled from a shelf in the library.
"You don't talk much," Sofia noted one afternoon, dumping the wooden blocks onto the Persian rug at his feet. "My uncle talks all the time. He talks so loud the birds fly away."
Dante looked down from his stack of financial reports. "You shouldn't be going through the library cabinets, Sofia."
"I found a picture of you," she said, pulling a glossy photograph from between the pages of her album. She held it up to his face. "You were standing up. You looked very angry, but you had a nice suit."
It was a photograph from five years ago. Dante stood in front of the grand fountain at the Moretti estate, flanked by his brother Leo and Marco Rossini. He looked invincible—tailored Italian wool, dark sunglasses, power radiating from every line of his frame.
Sofia pointed her small finger at Marco Rossini’s face in the photo. "I don't like this man."
Dante’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You don't know him."
"He came to our apartment last week," Sofia said casually, picking up two red blocks to build a tower. "He gave Mom some money and told her to tell him if any special packages come to this house. Mom threw the money in the trash after he left. She cried."
A cold, lethal stillness settled over Dante’s blood.
Marco Rossini was approaching his staff. He was searching for something.
Three days before his tragic car accident, Dante had secured a physical ledger containing every offshore account, corrupt political contact, and hidden asset belonging to the Moretti empire. When the car went over the bridge, the ledger had disappeared from his desk. Marco and Leo assumed Dante had hidden it before his fall—and they were terrified he would use it as leverage to regain control.
"What else did he say, Sofia?" Dante asked, his voice dangerously calm.
"He said you were broken," Sofia whispered, looking up with her big brown eyes. "He said you were just a ghost sitting in a chair."
She stood up, walked over to Dante, and placed her tiny hands on his armrests.
"Are you a ghost?" she asked softly.
Dante looked down at the child. For six months, he had believed Marco’s words himself. He had surrendered to the silence, waiting for the end. But looking into the fearless, trusting eyes of this little girl, a cold rage—the old Moretti thunder—ignited in his chest.
"No," Dante said, reaching out to gently tuck a stray curl behind her ear. "I am not a ghost."
At that moment, the heavy front doors slammed open downstairs.
May you like
Heavy footsteps echoed up the marble staircase. The sound of shouting spilled into the corridor—Renata’s frantic voice pleading, followed by the rough, mocking laugh of a man who owned the city.
Marco Rossini had arrived.
