Chapter 5 - WHAT MATTEO SIGNED
“Yes.”
The word barely left Matteo’s mouth.
Norah stepped backward.
Arthur remained by the storage-unit door, watching them both.
“You knew.”
“I knew where he was being moved.”
“That says location release.”
“I can read it.”
“Then explain it.”
Matteo looked at the paper.
“Your father had been staying in one of my safe apartments. He came to me frightened because somebody had started asking questions about the records he was collecting.”
“Salvatore.”
“I suspected Salvatore.”
Norah laughed sharply.
“You keep saying suspected.”
“Because I had no proof.”
“You had my father begging you for help.”
“Yes.”
“And you signed this.”
Matteo picked up the authorization.
“Salvatore told me the safe apartment was compromised. He said he had another location. A warehouse apartment near Chelsea.”
“The warehouse that burned.”
Matteo’s throat moved.
“Yes.”
Norah stared at him.
“So you sent my father there.”
“I authorized his transfer.”
“And the next day he died.”
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the storage unit.
Matteo did not move.
Norah’s hand trembled.
“So when you met me six years ago—”
“I recognized your name immediately.”
“When you asked me about my family—”
“I already knew.”
“When I cried in your bed on the anniversary of my father’s death—”
His face tightened.
“I knew.”
“You held me.”
“Yes.”
“You told me whoever killed him would answer for it someday.”
“I meant that.”
“You were part of how they found him!”
Her voice broke.
Matteo flinched.
For years, Norah had imagined the affair would be the worst betrayal she ever discovered.
She had been wrong.
Arthur stepped forward.
“Norah.”
“Did you know too?”
He met her eyes.
“I drove your father that night.”
The world seemed to stop again.
Norah turned toward him.
Arthur continued before she could speak.
“I was twenty-four. Junior security. Matteo ordered me to take Thomas to Chelsea and remain with him.”
“Did you?”
“For forty minutes.”
“What happened?”
“Salvatore arrived.”
Matteo’s head snapped toward him.
Arthur nodded.
“He told me you had reassigned me.”
“I never did.”
“I know that now.”
Norah felt sick.
Arthur’s voice roughened.
“Salvatore had two men with him. Thomas didn’t want me to leave. He actually caught my sleeve.”
Arthur looked down at his own arm as though he could still feel it.
“He said, ‘Tell Matteo I was right.’”
“What did you do?”
“I left.”
Norah closed her eyes.
“I was young. Salvatore was second only to Vittorio before your father-in-law died. When he gave an order, people followed it.”
“My father died because everybody followed orders.”
Arthur did not defend himself.
“Yes.”
Silence filled the concrete room.
Then Matteo said, “I learned Salvatore had been there three days after the fire.”
Norah looked at him.
“And?”
“I confronted him.”
“What did he say?”
“That Thomas had panicked, pulled a gun, started the fire during a fight.”
“You believed him?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
Matteo’s face hardened.
“I killed the man Salvatore claimed started it.”
Norah stared.
“And then?”
“I buried everything.”
There it was.
The pattern.
Not one lie.
An entire life constructed from truths Matteo believed he could manage on everyone else’s behalf.
Norah lowered herself onto a box.
“You didn’t protect me.”
“I know.”
“You protected yourself from having to tell me what kind of man you were.”
Matteo looked as though the words physically struck him.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No anger.
That almost made it worse.
Arthur crouched near the ledger.
“The torn page.”
Norah looked down.
The lower half had been removed.
But the pressure of whatever her father had written remained faintly impressed on the next sheet.
Thomas had always pressed hard with a pencil.
Norah remembered teasing him about it.
She found another pencil in the storage box.
Slowly, gently, she shaded the paper sideways.
Letters emerged.
PIER 9.
Then another word.
SANTINO.
Matteo read it.
“Santino Pier.”
Arthur nodded.
“Salvatore owns warehouses there through Rossi Maritime.”
Norah kept shading.
A final sentence appeared.
If anything happens to me, the proof is where Elena stopped praying.
Matteo went still.
“My mother.”
Norah looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur did.
His eyes lifted.
“The rosary.”
Matteo turned.
Arthur said, “Your mother wore a black rosary around her wrist every day.”
“I know.”
“It was never recovered from the car.”
Matteo stared at him.
Arthur continued.
“After the bombing, your father accused the Bellandis of stealing it as a trophy.”
Norah looked at the ledger again.
The proof is where Elena stopped praying.
Matteo stood.
“Santino Pier.”
Arthur reached for his weapon.
“We should move.”
A vehicle entered the storage facility outside.
Arthur froze.
Norah tensed.
Matteo drew his gun.
But Arthur checked the security camera he had placed near the corridor.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
Arthur opened the door.
Two of his own men stood outside.
Between them walked Harper Lane.
She looked nothing like the woman from Matteo’s Santorini photographs.
Her hair was tied back.
No makeup.
No expensive resort dress.
Her left cheek was bruised.
Around one wrist hung a diamond bracelet Matteo had bought her.
Harper looked first at Matteo.
Then at Norah.
“I know you hate me.”
Norah said nothing.
Harper swallowed.
“I deserve part of that.”
She pulled the bracelet off and placed it carefully on top of Thomas Quinn’s ledger.
“But your husband wasn’t the only reason I went to Greece.”
Matteo’s voice turned dangerous.
“What did Salvatore ask you to do?”
Harper looked at him.
“Keep you there until Sunday.”
Norah’s heartbeat accelerated.
“Why?”
“I thought he wanted time to move money.”
Harper shook her head.
“I didn’t know what he planned for you.”
Her eyes moved toward Norah’s stomach.
“Not until he gave me this.”
She reached into her coat and removed a photograph.
Norah recognized herself leaving Dr. Evans’s office.
The picture had been taken without her knowledge.
Harper turned it over.
On the back was a time written in black ink.
THURSDAY – 3:10 P.M.
Below it:
NO GUARDS FOR 11 MINUTES.
Harper looked at Norah.
May you like
“Salvatore told me that by the time Matteo came home, there wouldn’t be a wife left to forgive him.”
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