Chapter 1 - The Slap
Penelope’s hand struck Vincent Costa across the face.
“Say it again.”
Dominic Moretti stepped forward and noticed the silver key Vincent had dropped beside the overturned wineglass.
A number was engraved into it.
Dominic stopped smiling.
That key did not belong to Vincent.
For three long seconds, nobody in the private ballroom moved.
The silence was so complete Penelope Hayes could hear red wine dripping from the edge of the white linen tablecloth onto the marble floor.
Drop.
Drop.
Drop.
Vincent Costa slowly turned his face back toward her.
A red mark was beginning to form across his cheek.
Penelope’s palm burned.
She refused to rub it.
That would have looked like regret.
And if there was one thing she did not feel, it was regret.
“What did you just do?” Vincent asked.
His voice was almost gentle.
That frightened the guests more than shouting would have.
Four men positioned along the walls slipped their hands beneath their jackets.
Penelope noticed.
Of course she noticed.
She had spent the entire evening noticing things.
The locked doors.
The men who never touched their drinks.
The security cameras hidden behind floral arrangements.
The way conversations stopped whenever Dominic Moretti entered the room.
She had known this dinner was dangerous before dessert arrived.
What she had not expected was to become the danger.
Vincent took one step toward her.
Penelope held her ground.
“A woman like you,” he said quietly, “should learn when she’s being tolerated.”
Penelope stared at him.
Vincent had spent the previous forty minutes making sure everyone at the table understood exactly what he meant by a woman like her.
Not born rich.
Not born connected.
Not polished by generations of Manhattan money.
A woman who had grown up above her mother’s dry-cleaning shop in Queens.
A woman whose father had disappeared before her tenth birthday.
A woman whose invitation to the dinner had arrived without explanation three days earlier in a cream envelope bearing a black M.
A woman whose black satin gown had cost less than the watches worn by half the men in the room.
Vincent had asked whether she understood which fork to use.
He had asked whether her dress was rented.
He had suggested, loudly, that Dominic’s charity foundation had apparently started “rescuing strays.”
Penelope had ignored him.
Until he leaned close enough for her to smell expensive bourbon on his breath and whispered, “Maybe Moretti brought you here so the rest of us could remember what cheap looks like.”
That was when she slapped him.
Now Vincent smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because powerful men often smiled when they believed another person had just made a fatal mistake.
“You’re going to apologize,” he said.
“No.”
A woman near the end of the table inhaled sharply.
Vincent’s smile faded.
“No?”
Penelope lifted her chin.
“You heard me the first time.”
One of Vincent’s men moved.
“Enough.”
The single word came from behind Penelope.
No one needed to ask who had spoken.
Dominic Moretti walked toward them.
He was fifty-seven, silver-haired, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a black suit tailored so perfectly that he looked less like a guest than the owner of everything visible.
In practice, he nearly was.
Newspapers called him a real estate investor.
Federal prosecutors had called him many other things.
None had ever managed to prove enough.
In certain parts of New York, however, Dominic Moretti required no title.
His name was the title.
Vincent watched him approach.
Something changed in his posture.
Not fear exactly.
Calculation.
Dominic glanced once at Penelope.
His eyes moved to her hand.
Then Vincent’s cheek.
Then the four men reaching beneath their jackets.
“Take your hands away from your weapons,” Dominic said.
Vincent laughed once.
“This doesn’t concern you.”
Dominic looked at him.
The laugh died.
“Everything in my house concerns me.”
Penelope’s pulse quickened.
My house.
She had assumed the mansion belonged to some corporation or old-money family.
Of course it belonged to him.
Vincent gestured toward Penelope.
“She assaulted me.”
Dominic’s gaze shifted to Penelope.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
There was no point lying.
“Why?”
Vincent opened his mouth.
Penelope answered first.
“He insulted me.”
Dominic waited.
“That’s it?”
Penelope almost laughed.
“What were you expecting? An assassination attempt?”
Someone at the table coughed into a napkin.
Dominic’s mouth moved slightly.
Not quite a smile.
Vincent looked furious.
“She doesn’t understand who she’s speaking to.”
Penelope turned toward him.
“I understand exactly who I’m speaking to. That’s the problem.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“So you think being Moretti’s guest makes you untouchable?”
Penelope said nothing.
Because the truth was she had no idea why she was Dominic’s guest.
Dominic had never met her before tonight.
At least she did not think he had.
The invitation had been strange enough.
Ms. Hayes,
Your presence is requested at a private dinner concerning the estate of Eleanor Hayes.
Penelope had read that sentence twelve times.
Her mother, Eleanor, had been dead for nine months.
Cancer had taken her quickly.
Too quickly for explanations.
Too quickly for Penelope to ask about the locked metal box she found beneath her mother’s bed after the funeral.
Inside had been one photograph, one old hotel matchbook, and one handwritten name.
Dominic Moretti.
Penelope had nearly thrown everything away.
Then the invitation arrived.
Now Dominic stood beside her while four armed men waited for permission to move.
Vincent pointed at her.
“She doesn’t belong here.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“Be very careful with your next sentence.”
Vincent looked between them.
Then understanding—wrong understanding—spread across his face.
“Oh.”
His grin returned.
“I see.”
Penelope hated that grin immediately.
Vincent tilted his head.
“Is that what she is?”
Dominic’s expression did not change.
Vincent continued.
“Your newest little secret?”
Penelope felt heat rise into her face.
She turned toward Dominic.
“If I’m interrupting some kind of prehistoric male ritual, I can leave.”
“No,” Dominic said.
“Excellent. Because I was already leaving.”
She grabbed her clutch from the table.
Dominic placed one hand lightly against the back of the chair in front of her.
He did not touch Penelope.
He did not need to.
“Not yet.”
Penelope’s eyes narrowed.
“That sounded dangerously close to an order.”
“It was a request.”
“You should practice making them sound different.”
This time Dominic did smile.
Very slightly.
Around them, nobody seemed capable of understanding why Penelope was still breathing.
Vincent certainly could not.
“You invited her?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dominic’s gaze remained on Penelope.
“Because her mother asked me to.”
Penelope stopped.
The room disappeared for one impossible second.
“My mother?”
Dominic reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Penelope’s muscles tightened.
He withdrew an envelope.
Old.
Yellowed at the corners.
Her name was written across the front.
Penelope recognized the handwriting before Dominic said anything.
Her mother’s.
She reached for it.
Dominic did not release it immediately.
“When did she give you this?” Penelope asked.
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
Penelope froze.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“I know.”
Her stomach tightened.
Vincent watched them.
Then he looked down.
That was when Dominic noticed the silver key lying near Vincent’s shoe.
He bent and picked it up.
Vincent’s entire body went rigid.
Dominic turned the key between his fingers.
“Where did you get this?”
Vincent shrugged.
“Never seen it before.”
Dominic looked at the engraved number.
His expression changed.
The effect was subtle.
But Penelope saw it.
For the first time all evening, Dominic Moretti looked surprised.
Then angry.
Truly angry.
He closed his fist around the key.
“Who gave this to you?”
“I said I’ve never seen it.”
Dominic stepped closer.
Vincent’s men shifted.
Dominic’s guards shifted too.
The luxurious ballroom suddenly felt very small.
Penelope looked between the two men.
“What is 317?”
Neither answered.
“Dominic.”
His eyes met hers.
She noticed that everyone else called him Mr. Moretti.
She had just used his first name.
No one corrected her.
“What is 317?” she repeated.
Dominic placed the old envelope in her hand.
“Your mother knew.”
Penelope looked down at it.
Her fingers trembled despite her effort to control them.
Vincent moved.
Too quickly.
He reached for the envelope.
Penelope pulled back.
Dominic caught Vincent’s wrist.
The entire room exploded into motion.
Chairs scraped.
Men reached for guns.
Women screamed.
Dominic twisted Vincent’s arm and shoved him against the table.
Crystal shattered.
“Everyone stays where they are,” Dominic said.
Vincent struggled once.
Then stopped.
Dominic leaned close to his ear.
“You threatened the wrong woman.”
Vincent laughed through clenched teeth.
“You don’t even know who she is.”
Dominic’s grip tightened.
“I know exactly who she is.”
Vincent looked at Penelope.
His eyes held something she had not seen before.
Not arrogance.
Not contempt.
Fear.
Then he smiled.
“You haven’t told her.”
Dominic went still.
Penelope looked between them.
“Told me what?”
Vincent began laughing.
Dominic released him and stepped back.
“Leave.”
Vincent straightened his jacket.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Leave.”
Vincent wiped blood from the corner of his mouth where he had struck the table.
Then he looked directly at Penelope.
“You want to know why your mother hid you?”
Penelope’s breath caught.
Dominic’s voice became lethal.
“Vincent.”
But Vincent continued.
“Ask him who your father was.”
Penelope turned toward Dominic.
The ballroom blurred.
“My father?”
Dominic said nothing.
That silence answered too much.
Penelope’s voice cracked.
“You knew him?”
Dominic looked at the envelope in her hand.
“Yes.”
Her heart hammered.
“Who was he?”
Dominic opened his mouth.
Vincent smiled.
Then Penelope’s phone vibrated inside her clutch.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She pulled it out.
Unknown number.
One message.
DO NOT OPEN YOUR MOTHER’S LETTER.
A second message appeared.
HE LIED ABOUT YOUR FATHER.
Then a photograph loaded beneath the words.
Penelope stared at it.
Her breath stopped.
It showed her mother standing beside a much younger Dominic Moretti.
And between them stood another man.
A man Penelope recognized from the only photograph her mother had ever kept hidden.
Her father.
May you like
On the back of the digital image were four handwritten words.
Room 317. Midnight. Come alone.
