Chapter 19 - The Dead Man Who Wasn’t Dead
Massimo threw himself over me.
Another shot struck the marble angel behind us.
“Stay down!”
His body shielded mine while our guard returned fire toward the tree line.
I heard tires.
Shouting.
Then silence.
The shooter escaped before reinforcements arrived.
Our wounded guard survived.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder.
My father’s grave had not been so lucky.
The stone bearing his name was split nearly in half.
I stared at it from inside the armored SUV while paramedics worked nearby.
Massimo sat opposite me.
His hands were shaking.
I reached for them.
“I’m okay.”
“That bullet missed your head by six inches.”
“I know.”
“I should never have brought you here.”
“You didn’t bring me.”
His eyes lifted.
“I came.”
He looked away.
This was the part of Massimo few people understood.
He could face armed men without blinking.
But fear for someone he loved made him furious with himself.
I moved beside him.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“We found what we needed.”
“At your father’s grave.”
“He hid it there because he wanted me to find it someday.”
Massimo touched my face.
“And somebody nearly killed you for it.”
“Which means it matters.”
By evening, Gabriel Moretti was sitting in our library.
Massimo had wanted him searched twice.
I demanded three times.
Gabriel endured it with mild annoyance.
“You were right,” I said. “Your father is alive?”
Gabriel looked toward Donna Caterina.
She had not spoken since he arrived.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Dominic Moretti died publicly eight years ago after a boating accident.”
“I remember.”
“There was no body.”
Massimo leaned against the fireplace.
“And nobody questioned that?”
“My father had judges, doctors, police officers, bankers, and politicians indebted to him.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your blue ledger probably explains how.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
Massimo laughed.
“You expect us to believe that?”
Gabriel’s expression sharpened.
“I’ve spent eight years trying to find him.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“Because he murdered my mother.”
The room went silent.
Gabriel’s polished mask cracked.
Just slightly.
“She discovered what he was doing. She threatened to go to federal investigators. Two weeks later, her car went through a guardrail.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Gabriel nodded once.
“My father disappeared after her death because federal investigators were already circling him. He left me the company and enough legal problems to bury three generations.”
“Yet you filed for forty percent of Romano Logistics,” Massimo said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To force whoever was protecting him to move.”
Massimo pushed away from the fireplace.
“You used my family as bait.”
“I used a contract I knew was vulnerable.”
“My wife’s business burned.”
“I didn’t order it.”
“My man betrayed us.”
Gabriel looked confused.
“Marco?”
“You know him?”
“No.”
I pulled out the photograph of Marco entering the conservatory.
Gabriel studied it.
Then he smiled bitterly.
“That isn’t evidence against Marco.”
“What?”
He pointed to the timestamp.
“Look at the reflection.”
In the glass behind Marco, another figure appeared.
Tall.
Female.
Wearing a maintenance uniform.
“Elena,” I whispered.
Gabriel nodded.
“She wanted you to suspect your own security.”
Massimo’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“Because my father survives by making allies destroy one another.”
Donna Caterina finally spoke.
“Dominic always preferred that.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You knew him better than anyone here.”
She gave him a cold stare.
“I knew enough.”
I placed the blue ledger on the table.
“We have the release clause.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Then my claim fails.”
“You’re giving up?”
“I never wanted Romano Logistics.”
Massimo did not relax.
“What do you want?”
“My father.”
A security officer entered suddenly.
“Sir.”
Massimo turned.
“We received an emergency alert from the downtown archive.”
My pulse jumped.
“The bank?”
“Yes.”
“The one opened by my brass key?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
The officer looked at all of us.
“Someone entered using Mrs. Romano’s access credentials.”
I stood.
“That’s impossible.”
The officer swallowed.
“The security camera identified the visitor.”
He turned a tablet toward us.
A grainy image appeared.
An older man.
Silver hair.
Dark overcoat.
Walking with a cane.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
His face went completely white.
“That’s him.”
May you like
Dominic Moretti was alive.
And he had just entered the only vault in Chicago that could destroy him.
