Chapter 2 - BRING HER TO ME
Three hours after Adriano Falcone left Luna Blue Trattoria, Elena Ferrante was counting tips in the employee hallway when two men in black suits stepped through the back door.
Her smile vanished.
Marco froze behind the bar.
The restaurant had been closed for twenty minutes. Chairs were upside down on tables, the musicians were gone, and Veto was already upstairs in his office doing the books.
Elena slowly folded the bills in her hand.
One of the men was Rocco, the broad-shouldered lieutenant who had sat beside the mysterious customer.
“Elena Ferrante?”
Her stomach dropped.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Falcone would like to speak with you.”
Marco immediately stepped around the bar.
“She’s working.”
Rocco looked at the empty restaurant.
“Not anymore.”
Elena swallowed.
“Falcone?”
The name meant nothing for half a second.
Then Marco grabbed her wrist.
“Elena.”
Something in his voice made her turn.
He looked pale.
“Adriano Falcone.”
Recognition struck hard.
Everyone in Palermo knew the name.
Not because it appeared in newspapers.
Because it didn’t.
The Falcone family had controlled ports, construction companies, protection rackets, nightclubs, and half a dozen supposedly legitimate businesses for decades. Six months earlier, old Salvatore Falcone had died unexpectedly, and his thirty-five-year-old son had inherited an empire surrounded by rumors of blood.
Elena stared at Rocco.
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“Why does Adriano Falcone want to see me?”
Rocco’s expression remained unreadable.
“He didn’t say.”
“That’s comforting.”
Marco tightened his grip.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
The second man shifted slightly.
Rocco did not.
“Elena is being invited. She is not being kidnapped.”
“That distinction sounds pretty thin coming from you.”
“Marco,” Elena whispered.
Fear screamed at her to refuse.
But another thought followed.
Men like Adriano Falcone did not send lieutenants across Palermo at midnight because a waitress had accidentally brought limoncello to the wrong table.
If he wanted something, ignoring him might be more dangerous than hearing him out.
Elena removed Marco’s hand gently.
“I’ll go.”
Marco stared at her.
“Elena.”
“If I’m not back in an hour, call the police.”
Rocco almost smiled.
Marco did not.
Twenty minutes later, Elena sat rigidly inside the back seat of a black sedan winding through Palermo’s sleeping streets.
She had imagined they would take her to some hidden warehouse.
Instead they stopped outside a restored eighteenth-century palazzo overlooking the harbor.
Security guards opened iron gates.
Elena’s pulse accelerated.
Inside, the house was almost painfully beautiful.
White stone floors. High ceilings. Old paintings. Modern glass. French doors opening toward a moonlit terrace above the sea.
Adriano stood alone beside the railing.
No gun.
No army.
No dramatic throne.
Just a man in a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking out over Palermo.
Rocco stopped several yards behind Elena.
“Boss.”
Adriano turned.
His gaze landed on Elena.
Up close, he was even more intimidating.
And more tired.
That surprised her.
“Leave us,” he said.
Rocco disappeared.
Elena folded her arms.
“If this is about my dancing, I promise Veto already gave me enough grief.”
Adriano studied her for a moment.
Then something astonishing happened.
He laughed.
Not loudly.
But genuinely.
Elena blinked.
“You dragged me across the city because I danced badly?”
“You didn’t dance badly.”
“So you were watching.”
“Yes.”
“You know that sounds creepy, right?”
His mouth twitched.
Most people probably never spoke to Adriano Falcone that way.
Elena was beginning to suspect fear made her reckless.
He gestured toward a chair.
“Sit.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“As you wish.”
He crossed to a small table.
On it sat a silver-framed photograph.
Elena noticed the woman first.
Dark curls.
Bright eyes.
A dancer’s posture.
The young woman stood on a theater stage wearing a white dress.
Elena looked at Adriano.
“Who is she?”
“My sister.”
His voice changed.
“Lucia.”
Elena glanced at the photograph again.
“She was beautiful.”
“She was murdered nine years ago.”
The words extinguished the warmth from the terrace.
Elena’s breathing slowed.
“I’m sorry.”
Adriano nodded once.
“Tonight you danced a sequence.”
“What sequence?”
“Turn. Two steps left. Heel tap. Half spin. Hand above the shoulder.”
Elena frowned.
“That’s just something my father taught me.”
Adriano’s eyes sharpened.
“Your father?”
“Gianni Ferrante.”
“Where is he?”
“He died when I was twelve.”
“How?”
“A car accident.”
Adriano was silent too long.
Elena felt the first true chill move through her.
“What?”
“Your father did not die in a car accident.”
She stared at him.
“You don’t know anything about my father.”
“I know he worked for mine.”
“No.”
“He was Salvatore Falcone’s accountant.”
“My father repaired fishing boats.”
“After he disappeared from my family.”
Elena took a step backward.
“Stop.”
Adriano reached into his pocket slowly and placed a folded photograph on the table.
Elena did not want to look.
She did anyway.
Her father was unmistakable.
Younger.
Smiling awkwardly.
Standing beside Salvatore Falcone.
And Lucia.
Elena’s knees nearly weakened.
“That can be fake.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the dance you performed tonight was Lucia’s.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. My father taught me that when I was a little girl.”
“Lucia created it.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Adriano said quietly. “It doesn’t.”
The sea crashed against the rocks below.
Elena stared at the photograph until her vision blurred.
She remembered her father in their tiny apartment, moving furniture aside while her mother laughed.
One, two, three, bella.
Again.
Turn.
Smile.
Don’t watch your feet.
She had never questioned where the steps came from.
Adriano moved closer.
“Did your father ever give you anything belonging to Lucia?”
“No.”
“A necklace?”
“No.”
“A letter?”
“No.”
“A key?”
“No!”
Her voice cracked.
“I was twelve when he died. I didn’t know anything about criminals or your family or dead dancers.”
Adriano stopped.
“I believe you.”
“Then why bring me here?”
“Because someone else saw you tonight.”
Elena’s chest tightened.
“Who?”
“Vincenzo Barone.”
The rival’s name was even more infamous than Falcone’s.
“He wasn’t at the restaurant.”
“One of his men was.”
Elena looked toward the doors.
“Then I’m leaving.”
“Elena.”
“I have nothing to do with this.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Good.”
“But if Barone recognizes what I recognized, he will assume you know what your father knew.”
“What did he know?”
Adriano’s jaw tightened.
“That is the question men have been killing each other over for nine years.”
Elena’s mouth went dry.
Her father’s accident.
The strange photograph.
Lucia’s dance.
Her memories suddenly felt unstable.
She turned toward Adriano.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
The immediate answer startled her.
Adriano walked to the terrace rail.
“My father built an empire through fear. Barone built his through cruelty. I have spent six months trying to find out which people around me still serve the old war and which ones want a different future.”
He looked back at her.
“You should trust what you can verify. Nothing more.”
Elena hugged herself.
“And until I verify it?”
“You do not go home alone.”
She laughed without humor.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“No.”
His eyes shifted past her.
“But the man outside your apartment might.”
Elena went still.
“What man?”
Adriano lifted his phone.
A photograph appeared.
Her apartment building.
A black car parked across the street.
A man she had never seen standing beneath the awning.
Time stamp: eleven minutes ago.
Elena’s fear became real.
“Who is he?”
“Barone’s.”
She whispered something under her breath.
Adriano heard it.
He almost smiled again.
Then the smile died when his phone vibrated.
Rocco appeared in the doorway simultaneously.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We have movement.”
Adriano glanced at the screen.
His entire face changed.
Cold.
Controlled.
Deadly.
Elena hated how quickly she understood that this was the man Palermo feared.
“What happened?” she asked.
Adriano looked at her.
“Someone just broke into your apartment.”
Her blood turned to ice.
“My mother.”
“Does she live with you?”
“No, but she has a key.”
“Call her.”
Elena grabbed her phone.
Her mother answered on the second ring.
“Elena?”
“Mama, where are you?”
“At home. Why?”
Elena closed her eyes in relief.
“Stay there. Lock everything.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Adriano took his jacket.
Rocco stepped closer.
“We should move her downstairs.”
Elena glared.
“I’m going to my apartment.”
“No,” Adriano said.
“That is my home.”
“And right now it is a crime scene.”
“I need to see what they took.”
“That is exactly why you are not going.”
Elena marched toward him.
“You dragged me here, told me my dead father lied about his entire life, and now some criminal is tearing apart my apartment because of a dance. You do not get to keep me in a room while everyone else decides what happens to me.”
Adriano stared at her.
For one second, Rocco looked almost entertained.
Then Adriano reached for a set of car keys.
“Fine.”
Elena blinked.
“Fine?”
“You want to see it?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay beside me.”
His voice lowered.
“And if I tell you to run, you run.”
Something in his tone erased her next argument.
Thirty minutes later, they stepped into her apartment.
Elena stopped breathing.
Everything had been destroyed.
Drawers dumped.
Mattress sliced.
Kitchen cabinets ripped from hinges.
Photographs scattered.
The blue ceramic bowl her father had made with her was shattered across the floor.
Elena crouched beside it.
“No.”
Her fingertips trembled over the pieces.
Adriano’s men searched quietly.
“They knew what they wanted,” Rocco said.
Elena looked around.
“What?”
Adriano’s attention had shifted toward the living room wall.
A narrow wooden cabinet stood open.
Inside were her old dance things.
Shoes.
Costumes.
Childhood ribbons.
One empty space.
Elena rose slowly.
“My music box.”
Adriano looked at her.
“What music box?”
“My father gave it to me before he died.”
“What did it look like?”
“Dark wood. Blue velvet inside. A little ballerina.”
Adriano’s expression hardened.
“What song?”
Elena stared at him.
“I don’t know the name.”
“Hum it.”
“What?”
“Hum the melody.”
Confused and frightened, Elena quietly hummed the first notes she remembered.
Adriano went absolutely still.
Rocco whispered a curse.
Elena stopped.
“What?”
Adriano looked toward the ruined cabinet.
“That song was written by my sister.”
Elena’s heart slammed.
“She never recorded it,” he continued. “Never performed it publicly.”
“Then how did my father have it?”
Adriano’s gaze met hers.
“He was with Lucia the night she died.”
Before Elena could speak, glass exploded behind them.
Adriano tackled her to the floor.
A gunshot cracked through the apartment.
Rocco shouted.
More gunfire erupted outside.
Elena screamed as Adriano shielded her with his body.
His hand closed around hers.
“Stay down!”
Another bullet shattered the wall where she had been standing.
And in that instant, Elena understood something terrifying.
Adriano Falcone had not brought her into his world.
May you like
She had been born inside it.
She simply had never known.
