Chapter 4 - THE MIDNIGHT DOSSIER
Dante did not flinch.
He did not curse, or slam his fist against the desk, or raise his voice.
He simply stood there, his jaw tightening so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek, his gray eyes turning as black as obsidian.
"Richard Bennett," Dante said, tasting the name like poison on his tongue.
"He's going to be your father-in-law," Elena whispered, stepping back from him, her arms wrapping defensively around her waist. "His family is allied with yours. The Bennett shipping line and the Moretti import network control half of Boston's harbor. You can't touch him."
Dante let out a harsh, humorless breath through his nose.
"You still don't understand who I am, Elena," he said, turning around and walking back to his desk.
He pulled open the top drawer of the mahogany desk, reached inside, and pulled out a thick, leather-bound folder stamped with a red confidential seal.
He tossed it onto the desk in front of her.
"Open it."
Elena hesitated, her fingers hovering over the leather cover. "What is this?"
"Read page forty-two," Dante commanded, sitting down in his leather chair and lacing his fingers together on the desk.
Elena untied the silk ribbon, flipped through the crisp, heavy pages of financial audits, land deeds, and police reports, and stopped at page forty-two.
At the top of the page was a photograph of a charred, smoking brick building taken seven years ago.
Below it was a ledger of wire transfers.
From Bennett Enterprises to an offshore account registered in the Cayman Islands under the name of a shell company called Apex Holdings.
And beneath that was a police report signed by a corrupt precinct captain who had retired a month later with a full pension and a luxury villa in Palm Beach.
"This..." Elena gasped, looking up at Dante in disbelief. "This is the proof."
"Richard Bennett didn't just clear the south side tenements," Dante said quietly, leaning forward into the light of the green-shaded lamp. "He burned them down with three families still sleeping inside their apartments. One of them was your father's."
Elena’s knees went weak.
She gripped the edge of the desk to keep from falling.
"Why... why didn't the police do anything?"
"Because the police department on the south side was on Bennett’s payroll before my father even took over the family," Dante said bitterly. "And my father... my father made a pact with Bennett ten years ago to keep the peace in Boston. A pact I have been looking for an excuse to tear up since the day I took over the syndicate."
He stood up, walking around the desk until he stood directly in front of her again.
"You thought I was marrying Vanessa because I wanted her," Dante said, his voice laced with cold disgust. "You thought I didn't see what kind of family she comes from."
Elena looked up at him, her heart pounding wildly. "Weren't you?"
"I was setting a trap," Dante said. "The engagement was announced tonight to force Richard Bennett out into the open. To make him sign over his voting shares in the harbor trust under the guise of a family merger. Once those shares are transferred, his empire legally belongs to Moretti Holdings."
He reached out, his warm fingers gently wiping away the remaining tears on her cheek.
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"And by tomorrow morning," Dante whispered, "Richard Bennett won't be my father-in-law. He'll be sitting in a federal holding cell facing four counts of capital arson and first-degree murder."
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