Chapter 4 - THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRE
The first independent report on Dante's implant arrived on a Thursday. I wasn't entitled to see his private medical information, and I wouldn't have wanted that responsibility. But he called to tell me what he had decided to share. The surgeons had identified the device as part of an older peripheral nerve stimulation system used in a carefully selected attempt to treat persistent headache pain. The little star Sophie had noticed was a manufacturer's mark on a securing component close to the skin. It had been implanted before the bombing, just as the record said.
"Does that mean the operation was legitimate?" I asked.
"It means an operation happened," he said. "I'm still waiting on the consent and clinical justification."
"And your memory?"
"Dr. Marquez says there isn't evidence the device itself was designed to erase anything. My memory problems are real, but the story I was told about their cause was incomplete."
I heard the exhaustion in his voice. He had once expected an explanation to arrive in a single terrifying sentence. Instead, every honest answer opened another question, and none could be resolved by commanding someone to speak.
An hour later Mira phoned me with a request. She was going to meet a former driver who had worked for Dante before the bombing. He had asked for me by name because he'd heard I was the person who'd refused to let Victor take Sophie's drawing. I didn't understand why my presence mattered. Mira said I was under no obligation to attend.
I declined at first. Then I asked whether I could speak to the driver by phone from the community legal clinic, with my own advocate present. That felt manageable. The clinic referred me to a lawyer named Patrice Green, who reviewed my rights as an injured employee and witness. Patrice was frank about what Dante could offer through a settlement and what an independent process would protect. She also warned me not to become an investigator simply because powerful people had decided I was brave.
"Being useful to a case is not the same as being responsible for it," she told me.
I wrote that sentence on an index card and put it above my mother's kitchen sink.
The driver was Ivan Ortiz, a quiet man whose family ran a small repair shop in Cicero. He had left Moretti employment after the explosion, but he remembered the three months leading up to it with uncomfortable clarity. Dante had been having severe headaches for almost a year. He tried several treatments, changed physicians, and finally agreed to a trial procedure recommended by Dr. Lorenzo Bassi, a physician with longstanding ties to the Romano family.
"He didn't keep it secret at first," Ivan said through the speakerphone. "He told me not to schedule early drives on treatment days. What changed was the way people talked about him afterward. Suddenly Victor said Mr. Moretti couldn't be trusted to make business decisions when he had a headache."
"Did Dante accept that?" I asked.
"He hated it. I heard them argue in the car one night. Dante said his pain wasn't an excuse to hide financial statements. Victor said the audit could wait until he was stable."
Ivan described driving Dante to a meeting at North Lake. Dante came out carrying a folder with a bright green sticker and asked to be taken directly to Mira Chen's office. Before they reached the building, Victor called, saying Dr. Bassi needed Dante for an urgent consultation. Dante changed the destination. The appointment ran late. The meeting with Mira was postponed.
"Was that the day of the procedure?" Mira asked.
"No. The procedure was later. But it was the first time I noticed Victor using medical emergencies to stop a business meeting."
Ivan then described the week before the explosion. A mechanic inspected Dante's car after a routine service light appeared. Nothing unusual was reported to Ivan. Two days later Victor told him to take the afternoon off, claiming the car would be collected by a different driver. The next morning Dante drove himself to meet Mira. The explosion occurred before he reached the expressway.
"I should have asked why the driving schedule changed," Ivan said.
"Maybe," Mira answered. "But that doesn't make you responsible for a bomb. What we need are records: the mechanic's invoice, the garage logs, the calls that changed the arrangements."
He had kept a notebook of mileage and maintenance. He also had a photograph of the green sticker on Dante's folder, taken inadvertently when documenting a damaged car seat. The folder's title was barely visible: NORTH LAKE — FAMILY SUPPORT DISCREPANCIES.
When the call ended, I remained at the clinic a long time. I thought about how a series of mundane inconveniences could be assembled afterward into a pattern. A rescheduled meeting. A medication delivery. A driver sent home. None proved sabotage alone. Together they justified questions someone had worked very hard to discourage.
Patrice asked whether I had eaten. I realized I hadn't. She pointed me toward a sandwich shop next door. I bought lunch and sat on a bench in the thin sunlight, watching people carry groceries and push strollers. I wondered how many of them would be surprised to learn that a fearsome Mafia boss could be outmaneuvered by a calendar and a prescription pad.
That afternoon I visited a family resource center recommended by the hospital social worker. The caseworker helped me compare temporary assistance, health coverage options, and available work programs. I felt embarrassed as she went through the forms. At the mansion, I'd been required to smile while carrying other people's groceries. Here I struggled to admit I needed help myself.
"These programs aren't tests of whether you deserve support," the caseworker said. "They're services with eligibility rules. Let's see which ones fit."
Sophie was at preschool. My mother was resting. For twenty peaceful minutes I was simply Anna Miller, a woman filling out forms because she wanted enough money to take care of her family without being threatened. I didn't have to tell the caseworker what a famous man's fiancée had done to be treated respectfully.
When I returned home, I found a registered letter on the table. It came from the Moretti family office but had been mailed through Mira's law firm. Dante had authorized payment of outstanding wages, documented injury-related expenses, and a separate offer addressing the workplace assault. The letter explicitly said I could seek independent advice, negotiate, decline, or pursue a claim through the appropriate channels. Patrice examined it with me the next day. She found several points worth revising. That pleased me more than receiving the letter in the first place. I had someone whose job was to protect my interests, not his reputation.
Three days later Mira called with news of the disputed North Lake charter. Dante's handwriting expert had reviewed the signature on a preliminary authorization. It appeared to be genuine. For a terrible moment I thought the entire accusation against the Romanos might collapse.
"Does that mean he approved the transfer?" I asked.
"Not necessarily," Mira said. "A genuine signature proves he signed that page. It doesn't automatically establish which attachments he saw, what he authorized, or whether later versions were altered. We need the complete records."
I remembered being asked to initial inventory sheets at the mansion and later finding items listed that had never been on my cart. The difference between a real signature and a truthful document suddenly seemed very small and very important.
Dante took the news hard. When he spoke to me that night, his voice was rough.
"I may have given them the authority they abused," he said.
"Then you need to know that too."
"I wanted to help children. I wanted the foundation to be something good."
"Wanting good things doesn't make the paperwork correct," I answered. "You can take responsibility for what you signed without pretending you're responsible for everything other people did afterward."
He was silent a long time. Then he said, "Clara and Jonah's family deserve to hear that from me, not from a public relations statement."
"Maybe, when they're ready to listen. And maybe they won't want to."
"I understand."
At the end of the week I took Sophie to a public library where the children's room smelled of paper, glue, and newly washed floors. She chose a book about planets and another about a girl who built a bridge from cardboard. We sat by the window until closing time. She drew a bridge across two pages of her notebook, connecting a house on one side to a garden on the other.
"Who's allowed to cross?" I asked.
"People who ask nicely," she said. "And people who need help."
"What about someone who doesn't ask?"
She thought seriously. "They have to stop and talk first."
Her rules were better than some of the household policies I'd lived under.
That night, after she slept, a message from Mira arrived. The police had located maintenance records for Dante's vehicle. The original invoice had been altered after the bombing, but a shop employee had kept a separate copy. Investigators were reviewing it alongside the archived garage entries. The evidence was not yet proof of who planted the explosive device. It was proof that the history Dante had been given was incomplete.
I locked my phone and stared out across the street. Somewhere, Corrado Romano was still giving interviews about his family's charitable work. Isabella was probably planning a wedding she had no intention of canceling. Victor was speaking with attorneys about the ways he'd controlled Dante's treatment. And Dante himself was learning that he could face uncomfortable facts without handing his judgment back to the people who had once promised to keep him safe.
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I looked at the index card above the sink. Being useful to a case was not the same as being responsible for it.
For the first time since Sophie spotted the metal star, I believed I might be able to help without surrendering the ordinary life I was trying to protect.
