Chapter 3 - The Woman Ruby Had Buried
Ruby dropped the phone.
Dante caught it before it hit the floor.
He looked at the photograph.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Ruby stared at him.
“No.”
Dante enlarged the image.
A woman sat beside a window.
Older.
Thinner.
Gray threaded through dark hair that Ruby remembered as almost black.
But the face was unmistakable.
Evelyn Gallagher.
Ruby’s mother.
Ruby had stood beside her coffin twelve years ago.
She had watched it lowered into the ground.
She had touched the polished wood before the earth covered it.
“No,” Ruby said again.
Dante studied the background.
“You said she was dead.”
“I believed she was.”
“You investigated my family.”
“Yes.”
“How did you miss this?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruby snatched the phone.
“She died in a hospital.”
“Ruby.”
“I saw the funeral.”
“Did you see her body?”
The question struck hard.
Ruby searched her memory.
Her father had handled everything.
The doctors said Evelyn had suffered catastrophic bleeding.
Her face had been damaged during emergency surgery.
Closed casket.
Her father had insisted.
Ruby had been seventeen.
Broken.
She had not questioned him.
“Oh God.”
Dante approached.
Ruby stepped away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
She looked at the photograph again.
Her mother’s left hand rested on her lap.
A scar crossed the base of her thumb.
Ruby remembered that scar.
A broken wineglass when she was six.
Evelyn had laughed while a doctor stitched it.
“Mommy fought the glass,” she had joked.
Ruby sank into a chair.
“She’s alive.”
Dante crouched in front of her.
“I need to confirm the image.”
“She’s alive.”
“It could be manipulated.”
“That scar.”
“What?”
Ruby pointed.
“That scar is real.”
Dante looked.
His eyes narrowed.
He stood.
“Send this to Marco.”
A guard took the phone.
Ruby grabbed Dante’s sleeve.
“If my mother is alive, my father knew.”
Dante did not answer.
“He had to know.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t say maybe.”
“Ruby, we do not know enough.”
“You knew enough to build an acquisition plan around my family.”
Dante absorbed the blow.
“You are right.”
She stared at him.
His agreement almost made her angrier.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Being calm.”
“I am not calm.”
“You look calm.”
“That is different.”
Ruby laughed bitterly.
“What happens now?”
“We confirm where the photograph was taken.”
“And my father?”
“We bring him home.”
“And my mother?”
“If she is alive, we bring her home too.”
Ruby looked at him.
“We?”
Dante held her gaze.
“Yes.”
“You think there is still a we?”
His face tightened.
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
He continued.
“But whatever happens between us, I will not leave you alone in this.”
Ruby looked away.
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
A technician entered.
“Boss. We traced the image metadata.”
Dante straightened.
“Where?”
“It was scrubbed, but not perfectly. The device touched a private network twelve hours ago.”
“Location?”
The technician hesitated.
“Gallagher House.”
Ruby stood.
“My mother is there.”
“Or someone wants us to think she is,” Dante said.
Ruby turned on him.
“I’m going.”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Try stopping me.”
Dante stared for a long moment.
Then he sighed.
“Fine.”
Ruby blinked.
“Fine?”
“You stay behind me.”
“I don’t take orders.”
“Tonight you do.”
“Dante—”
“Someone just sent you a photograph of a woman you buried twelve years ago. I am not debating security protocol.”
Ruby opened her mouth.
He raised one eyebrow.
For the first time that night, something almost familiar passed between them.
Then it vanished.
Thirty minutes later, two armored vehicles left the Moretti estate.
Ruby sat beside Dante in the rear.
Neither spoke.
The contract rested inside a metal case at Dante’s feet.
The original.
Ruby had assumed the copy upstairs was the only version.
She was wrong.
“What happens if Serrano gets it?”
Dante looked through the window.
“He gains proof that I intended to absorb Gallagher Holdings through our marriage.”
“That could hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“Enough.”
“Be specific.”
“It could fracture alliances. Trigger investigations. Give rivals leverage.”
Ruby watched him.
“And you’re bringing it anyway.”
“My leverage is replaceable.”
“My father isn’t.”
Her throat tightened.
Dante glanced at her.
Neither said more.
Gallagher House appeared beyond iron gates at 1:14 a.m.
Dark.
Silent.
The house looked exactly as Ruby remembered and completely foreign.
They entered through the side.
Dante’s men spread out.
Ruby saw the old portraits.
Her mother smiling from the staircase wall.
Her father younger.
Ruby at ten.
A family that had apparently never existed the way she believed.
“Ruby.”
Dante pointed.
Blood on the floor.
Her pulse jumped.
They followed the trail.
Library.
The doors stood open.
Inside was an empty chair.
Rope lay on the floor.
Blood stained the carpet.
Her father was gone.
Dante touched the blood.
“Fresh.”
Ruby saw something on the desk.
A cassette recorder.
Old.
Her mother had used one to record bedtime stories when Ruby was a child.
Ruby walked toward it.
“Wait.”
Dante checked the device.
“No explosives.”
Ruby pressed play.
Static.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Ruby.”
Ruby stopped breathing.
Her mother.
“If you are hearing this, your father finally ran out of time.”
Ruby clutched the desk.
The recording continued.
“I need you to know that Thomas Gallagher did not kill me.”
Dante looked at Ruby.
“But he did bury my identity.”
Ruby’s eyes filled.
“He did it because the people hunting me were connected to the Morettis.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
Ruby slowly turned toward him.
The recording crackled.
“Dante Moretti may tell you he did not know.”
Ruby stared at her husband.
“He may even believe that.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“But his father knew.”
Silence filled the library.
Then Evelyn’s voice returned.
“And if Dante ever learns what his father did to me, he will have to choose between the truth and his empire.”
The tape clicked off.
Ruby and Dante stood motionless.
A noise came from upstairs.
A floorboard.
Dante raised his weapon.
“Stay here.”
Ruby ignored him.
They climbed the stairs together.
At the end of the corridor, Ruby’s childhood bedroom door stood closed.
Light showed beneath it.
Dante approached slowly.
Ruby followed.
He reached for the handle.
The door opened from the inside.
A woman stood there.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Scar on her thumb.
Ruby whispered, “Mom?”
Evelyn looked at Ruby.
Then at Dante.
Her face changed.
She stepped backward.
“No.”
Dante froze.
Evelyn pointed at him with a trembling hand.
“You have his eyes.”
Ruby turned toward Dante.
May you like
And Evelyn whispered one name.
“Salvatore.”
