Chapter 2 - Room 317
Penelope read the message three times.
Then she looked at Dominic.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s convenient.”
Dominic extended his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Penelope.”
“No.”
He lowered his hand.
There was something almost approving in his expression.
She hated that too.
Around them, the dinner had collapsed into controlled chaos.
Guests were being escorted toward side exits.
Vincent had disappeared with his men.
Dominic’s security team spoke quietly into earpieces.
Someone replaced broken glasses as if cleaning up the evidence of violence before the room could remember it had happened.
Penelope remained exactly where she stood.
“Who was my father?” she asked.
Dominic glanced around.
“Not here.”
“People keep saying that when they don’t want to answer me.”
“I will answer.”
“Now.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You invited me into a room full of men who apparently carry guns to dinner. One of them humiliates me for sport. I slap him, you threaten him, then he tells me you lied about my dead father. So forgive me if your preferred schedule for honesty is no longer relevant.”
Dominic studied her face.
“You sound like Eleanor.”
Penelope flinched.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Use her name like you knew her better than I did.”
His expression softened.
“I would never claim that.”
“But you knew her.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Very.”
That answer hurt more than she expected.
Her mother had kept secrets.
Penelope had known that.
Everyone kept some.
But this was different.
Dominic Moretti was not an old college friend accidentally forgotten in family stories.
He was a man newspapers photographed entering federal courthouses.
A man whose enemies vanished from headlines.
A man powerful enough to make wealthy people lower their voices when he passed.
Why had Eleanor known him?
Why had she written Penelope’s name on a letter twenty-seven years ago?
And why had someone ordered her to Room 317?
“Is there a room 317 in this house?” Penelope asked.
“No.”
“Then where?”
Dominic glanced at the key.
“I know one place.”
Penelope waited.
“The Belladonna.”
She frowned.
“The hotel?”
“Yes.”
The name stirred something.
Then she remembered.
The old matchbook from her mother’s metal box.
Belladonna Hotel.
Midtown Manhattan.
She had searched it after the funeral.
The hotel had once been one of Manhattan’s grandest properties before closing after a fire nearly fifteen years ago.
It had never reopened.
“You own it,” Penelope said.
Dominic’s face revealed enough.
“Of course you do.”
“My family does.”
“And Room 317?”
He looked at the key again.
“It was your mother’s.”
Penelope felt the floor tilt.
“My mother had a hotel room?”
“For several years.”
“For what?”
Dominic’s eyes shifted away.
That was answer enough.
Penelope’s throat tightened.
“You were sleeping with her.”
“No.”
She looked at him sharply.
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what happened there?”
Dominic spoke carefully.
“People met there when they needed privacy.”
“What people?”
“Your mother. Your father. Me.”
Penelope stared.
It sounded absurd.
A secret hotel room.
Her quiet mother.
Dominic Moretti.
The father who had supposedly abandoned them.
“What was his name?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Gabriel Hayes.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
His silence returned.
Penelope stepped back.
“You were going to give me a different name.”
“Gabriel Hayes was the name he used.”
“Used?”
Dominic looked at the remaining guests being escorted away.
Then he turned to his security chief.
“Carlo.”
A thickset man approached.
“Clear the west study.”
“Yes, sir.”
Penelope shook her head.
“I’m not going anywhere private with you.”
“You came here voluntarily.”
“Before I knew everyone lied for entertainment.”
“Then leave.”
That surprised her.
Dominic nodded toward the front doors.
“No one will stop you.”
She studied him.
“Is that supposed to make me trust you?”
“No. It’s supposed to remind you that you have a choice.”
That mattered.
More than Penelope wanted it to.
She looked down at her mother’s unopened letter.
Then at her phone.
Room 317. Midnight. Come alone.
Current time: 10:48 p.m.
Dominic saw her checking.
“You’re not going.”
Penelope looked up.
“There’s the order again.”
“Someone stole that key from a locked archive.”
“So?”
“So only six people knew it still existed.”
“And Vincent was apparently number seven.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Then he stole it.”
“Possibly.”
“From you?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Possibly.”
Penelope slipped the phone back into her clutch.
“Then your security problem is not my problem.”
“It became yours the moment someone sent you that photograph.”
She hated that he was right.
Dominic led her toward a side corridor.
After a moment, Penelope followed.
The west study was smaller than she expected.
Dark wood shelves.
No visible cameras.
No guards inside.
Dominic closed the door but did not lock it.
Penelope noticed.
Again, he noticed her noticing.
“Sit,” he said.
“I prefer standing.”
He nodded.
Dominic walked to a safe hidden behind a painting.
Penelope almost rolled her eyes.
“You actually have a safe behind a painting?”
“Tradition.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“My father installed it.”
“Your father was dramatic.”
“You have no idea.”
He entered a code and opened the safe.
Inside were documents, cash, two pistols, and a black leather folder.
Dominic removed the folder.
He placed it on the desk.
Penelope opened it.
The first photograph showed her mother at approximately twenty-five.
Laughing.
Alive.
Beside her stood Dominic, much younger.
And Gabriel.
Her father.
Except Gabriel looked nothing like the man Penelope remembered.
The man in the photograph wore a tailored suit.
Expensive watch.
Confident smile.
Penelope remembered work boots.
Denim jackets.
Cigarettes smoked on the fire escape.
A father who fixed broken appliances for neighbors because they could not afford repairmen.
“What happened to him?” she whispered.
Dominic leaned against the desk.
“He disappeared.”
“I know that.”
“No. You were told he abandoned you.”
Penelope looked up.
Dominic’s face was grim.
“He didn’t.”
Her eyes burned.
“Then where did he go?”
“We believed he was killed.”
“Believed?”
“We never found his body.”
Penelope swallowed.
“Who killed him?”
Dominic looked toward the folder.
She turned another page.
A newspaper clipping.
GABRIEL SANTORO WANTED IN FEDERAL RACKETEERING INVESTIGATION.
Penelope stared.
Santoro.
Not Hayes.
Below the headline was her father’s face.
She read it twice.
Then a third time.
“No.”
“His real name was Gabriel Santoro.”
Penelope’s knees weakened.
She sat without realizing it.
“My mother knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“He was my closest friend.”
Penelope looked at Dominic.
“My father was Mafia.”
Dominic did not insult her by denying it.
“He was involved.”
“Involved.”
“He was trying to leave.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everyone in organized crime is always trying to leave right before something terrible happens.”
Dominic accepted the criticism.
“Gabriel wanted you away from it.”
“So he changed our name?”
“Your mother did after he disappeared.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“From whom?”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Vincent’s father.”
Penelope went completely still.
Dominic continued.
“Anthony Costa believed Gabriel had evidence that could destroy several families. He searched for your father for years.”
“And when he couldn’t find him?”
“He looked for Eleanor.”
Penelope remembered moving apartments repeatedly as a child.
Queens.
Brooklyn.
Then back to Queens.
Her mother always blamed rising rent.
“Was she running?”
“Yes.”
Penelope pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“So tonight Vincent knew exactly who I was.”
“I don’t know.”
“He called me a stray.”
“That’s how Vincent speaks to people he considers beneath him.”
“Comforting.”
“He may not have known until he saw the key.”
“But somebody knew.”
“Yes.”
Penelope looked down at the letter.
“What’s in this?”
“I don’t know.”
“She gave it to you.”
“She made me promise not to open it.”
“For twenty-seven years?”
“Yes.”
“And you kept that promise?”
Dominic looked offended.
“Yes.”
Penelope almost smiled despite herself.
“Strange place to develop ethics.”
A low sound escaped him.
Half laugh.
Half sigh.
Then his face turned serious.
“Open it.”
Her fingers touched the seal.
The paper was fragile.
She broke it carefully.
Inside were two pages.
The first line made Penelope stop breathing.
My dearest Penny,
If Dominic has given you this letter, then I am gone, and the past has finally found you.
Penelope blinked hard.
She continued.
I spent most of your life hoping you would never need to know what happened to your father. I told myself silence was protection. Maybe it was cowardice. Gabriel loved you more than anything. Whatever anyone tells you, remember that.
She looked away.
Dominic remained silent.
Penelope read on.
The last night I saw him, Gabriel went to Room 317 at the Belladonna. He carried evidence that could destroy Anthony Costa and someone far more dangerous. Dominic tried to stop him. I tried too. Gabriel said that if he did not return, I was to take you away and never look back.
Penelope’s hand tightened.
Someone far more dangerous.
She continued.
There was one more instruction.
If Penny ever receives the silver key, it means the person who betrayed Gabriel is still alive.
Penelope’s heartbeat thundered.
She looked at Dominic.
“What?”
He took the letter.
Read the line.
His face drained of color.
Penelope whispered, “You didn’t know?”
“No.”
She continued reading.
The key will open the wall safe inside Room 317. What is inside must never fall into Costa hands.
Penelope looked at the clock.
11:06 p.m.
Dominic took out his phone.
“We’re going to the Belladonna.”
Penelope stared at him.
“You just told me not to.”
“That was before the letter.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“Yes.”
“The message said alone.”
“That’s exactly why you won’t be alone.”
Penelope stood.
“Dominic—”
The lights went out.
Complete darkness swallowed the study.
Penelope froze.
A second later, glass shattered somewhere outside.
Dominic grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind the desk.
A gunshot cracked through the hallway.
Then another.
Men shouted.
Penelope’s breathing turned shallow.
Dominic opened a drawer and removed a pistol.
“You keep another gun in the desk?”
“Tradition.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
The study door handle slowly turned.
Dominic raised the weapon.
The door opened.
A man staggered inside.
Carlo.
Blood soaked the front of his white shirt.
He collapsed against the wall.
Dominic rushed toward him.
“Who?”
Carlo grabbed Dominic’s jacket.
His eyes found Penelope.
“They took the key.”
Dominic looked at his empty hand.
The silver key was gone.
Carlo coughed.
“And Vincent wasn’t the one who took it.”
May you like
A shadow moved in the hallway behind him.
Then a familiar woman’s voice said Penelope’s name.
