Chapter 7 – THE GHOST OF THE PAST

“Your father is alive?” I asked, stunned.

Dante stood up slowly, the rain washing the blood from his hands.

“Ten years ago, a fire broke out in the federal penitentiary,” Dante said numbly. “They told me his cell block burned. They gave me ashes.”

“He faked his death,” Chloe said, her voice shaking. “To escape the feds.”

“And to let me build the empire for him,” Dante realized, his jaw clenching. “He waited until the trust was fully funded. Until Mia was old enough to be a pawn. He used Vance and the Morettis as a distraction so he could walk right into my house and take her.”

Dante turned to the car. “Get Isabella to a hospital. Now.”

“I’m going with you,” I said, stepping in front of him. “Mia is my responsibility too.”

Dante looked at me. In his eyes, I saw the raw, protective fury of a father pushed to the edge. “Sarah, my father is a ghost. He has no rules. If you come, you might not survive.”

“I love that little girl,” I said firmly. “I’m not leaving her.”

Dante nodded once. He threw me the keys to a secondary vehicle Vance had parked nearby.

We left Chloe to take Isabella to the hospital, and Dante and I sped toward the abandoned St. Jude’s Orphanage on the edge of the city.

The building was a crumbling gothic nightmare, surrounded by dead trees and rusted fences.

Dante kicked the front doors open, his weapon raised.

The main hall was dark, filled with rotting pews and shattered stained glass.

Sitting at the far end of the room, in a dusty wooden chair, was an older man with silver hair, wearing a pristine white suit.

He was holding Mia on his lap.

Mia was crying quietly, clutching her mother’s music box.

“Hello, son,” the older man smiled. “It’s been a long time.”

Dante aimed his gun directly at his father’s chest. “Let her go, old man. Or I’ll put a bullet through your heart right now.”

His father laughed, a dry, terrifying sound. “You won’t shoot me, Dante. Because if my heart stops, the detonator in my pocket triggers the explosives wired beneath the floorboards of this room.”

Dante froze.

I looked down. Through the cracks in the wooden floor, I could see the blinking red lights of C4 explosives.

“I want the transfer documents for the casino shares, Dante,” his father said smoothly. “Sign them over to me, and you and the housekeeper can walk out of here with the girl.”

Dante slowly lowered his weapon. “You’d blow up your own granddaughter for money?”

“It’s just business, son.”

Dante reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavy silver pen. “Fine. Give me the papers.”

His father smiled triumphantly. He gently pushed Mia off his lap. “Go to your father, child.”

Mia ran across the room, sobbing, and buried herself in my arms. I held her tight, backing toward the exit.

Dante walked forward, taking the documents his father handed him.

He clicked the pen.

But instead of signing the paper, Dante drove the heavy steel pen straight through his father’s hand, pinning it to the wooden armrest of the chair.

The old man screamed in agony, dropping the detonator.

Dante snatched the detonator from the floor in a fraction of a second.

“You’re right, Dad,” Dante whispered, his eyes cold and dead. “It’s just business.”

Dante raised his pistol and fired.

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