Chapter 5 - The Invoice for Protection
By midnight, the Vance Auction House had been transformed into an official crime scene under the command of the NYPD Major Case Squad.
Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the wet windows of Madison Avenue, casting rhythmic crimson shadows across the high gallery walls. The guests had finally been cleared after three hours of interviews, leaving behind half-empty champagne glasses, discarded programs, and an atmosphere of thick, unspoken suspicion.
Gia stood near the rear service entrance, wrapping her remaining tools in a heavy canvas canvas roll. Her equipment crate was currently sitting in an evidence locker, leaving her with three cardboard boxes and two brass poles to transport back to her warehouse in Long Island City.
“Miss Parker?”
She turned to see Detective Miller standing with his notepad open. “We’re done with your statement for tonight. You’re free to go, but don't leave the tri-state area. We’ll need you to review the security footage tomorrow morning at the Nineteenth Precinct.”
“Fine,” Gia said, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. “Can I get my brass supports back?”
“They’re evidence, ma'am. You’ll get them back when the DA clears them.”
Gia let out a heavy sigh. “Wonderful. Two thousand dollars in equipment down the drain.”
“I believe I promised to cover your losses tonight, Miss Parker.”
Dante Moretti walked out from the shadows of the service hallway. He had put his heavy charcoal coat back on, his bodyguards waiting quietly near a sleek, black armored sedans idling at the curb outside.
Miller looked at Dante with a long, hard stare. “Moretti. I thought you left an hour ago.”
“I was waiting for my ride, Detective,” Dante replied smoothly. “And ensuring that Miss Parker wasn't subjected to unnecessary harassment.”
Miller grunted, flipped his notebook closed, and walked away toward the main hall without another word.
Gia looked at Dante, her arms crossed over her copper sweater. “You shouldn't have taken that paper out of the case.”
Dante didn't look surprised that she had noticed. “It didn't belong to the police.”
“It was evidence in a federal art theft investigation!”
“It was a private family matter,” Dante corrected her, stepping closer until he was blocking the cold wind blowing through the open service doors. “And involving the police in Moretti or Vance affairs has historically resulted in high body counts.”
Gia stared at him, her dark eyebrows rising. “Is that supposed to make me feel safe?”
“You are entirely safe with me, Gia.”
It was the first time he had used her first name. The word sounded low, heavy, and strangely intimate coming from his mouth.
“My driver will take you and your boxes back to your workshop,” Dante said, gesturing toward the black sedan waiting at the curb.
“I have a van,” Gia said, pointing toward a battered white Ford Transit parked across the street with Parker Event Design stenciled on the side.
Dante glanced at the van, his sharp eyes taking in the rusted wheel wells and the cracked side mirror. “Your van has a flat rear tire.”
Gia blinked. She pushed past him, marching out onto the cold sidewalk, and looked across the street. Sure enough, the rear passenger tire of her Ford Transit was resting completely flat against the asphalt, sliced cleanly along the sidewall by a razor blade.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “An absolute, complete disaster of an evening.”
“It was slashed,” Dante said, standing beside her on the curb. “Likely by whoever broke into your crate. They wanted to delay anyone who might have seen them leave the alley.”
Gia looked at her slashed tire, then looked down at her bare left thumb—the clean linen handkerchief still wrapped tightly around her skin, dark with her own blood—and let out a long, ragged breath. Her independence was her proudest achievement, built over fifteen years of relentless grit, but right now, standing on a freezing street at midnight with a crime scene behind her and a broken van in front of her, she was out of options.
She turned to face Dante Moretti. “If I get into your car, am I going to end up on an FBI wiretap?”
Dante opened the rear door of the armored sedan himself, stepping aside with a low, elegant bow. “My vehicles are swept for electronic devices twice a day, Miss Parker. I assure you, it is the safest place in Manhattan tonight.”
Gia looked into his dark eyes for three seconds, searching for any sign of deception, but found only the same unyielding, dangerous stillness she had seen on the sidewalk four hours ago.
She picked up her box of tools. “Fine. But if your driver plays classical music, I'm getting out at the next light.”
A genuine, warm laugh escaped Dante’s lips—a sound so rich and unexpected that both of his bodyguards turned their heads in shock.
“No classical music,” Dante promised, taking the heavy tool box from her hands with effortless strength and handing it to his driver. “I promise.”
Gia climbed into the plush, black leather interior of the sedan. The air inside was warm, smelling of refined leather, expensive wood, and Dante’s distinct scent of cedar and tobacco.
Dante climbed in beside her, closing the heavy, soundproof door. The quiet that dropped over the cabin was absolute, instantly cutting off the noise of police sirens and Madison Avenue traffic.
As the sedan pulled smoothly away from the curb, Dante reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the folded cream parchment he had taken from the loading bay.
“You read Italian, Miss Parker?” he asked, holding the paper in the dim amber light of the car’s interior console.
Gia leaned closer, her shoulder brushing against his cashmere sleeve. “My grandmother was from Florence. I read enough.”
She looked down at the four lines of elegant, dark fountain-pen script:
“ what was taken in darkness cannot be sold in light. The shadow remains where the blood was spilled. Tell the widow the debt is reopened.”
“What does it mean?” Gia asked softly, looking up from the paper to meet his dark gaze. “Who is 'the widow'?”
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Dante looked out the tinted window at the passing lights of the Upper East Side, his sharp jawline tightening until a tiny muscle twitched near his ear.
“The widow is Eleanor Vance,” Dante said quietly. “And the blood spilled was my father’s.”
