Chapter 3 - THE MAN HE CALLED BROTHER
Sophia grabbed the nearest thing she could find.
A cast-iron skillet.
It was ridiculous.
Three armed men could have been charging up the stairs and she was standing in her wrecked apartment holding cookware.
But fear rarely gave people elegant choices.
She pushed Emma behind the kitchen wall.
“Stay down.”
The footsteps reached the landing.
A man appeared in the doorway.
Sophia raised the skillet.
“Sophia.”
Alessandro.
She lowered it by three inches.
Then raised it again.
“You could announce yourself.”
His eyes dropped to the skillet.
“I’ll remember that.”
Marco entered behind him with two security men.
Alessandro saw the apartment.
Whatever humor had touched his face vanished.
Then he saw the knife.
The bill.
The note.
He read it once.
Sophia watched anger enter his body without changing his expression.
That was worse than shouting.
“Emma,” he said.
“She’s here.”
The little girl emerged carefully.
Alessandro crouched.
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone?”
She shook her head.
He looked at Sophia.
“You’re not staying here.”
“I wasn’t planning a relaxing evening.”
“You and Emma are coming with me.”
“To where?”
“A secure house.”
“No.”
His brow moved.
“Sophia—”
“I said no because I know how this works. You put us somewhere you control. Men with guns stand outside. Nobody explains anything. Then one morning I wake up surrounded by police tape because somebody in your world decided we knew too much.”
“I can protect you.”
“You didn’t protect Daniel Keane.”
The words were cruel.
She regretted them immediately.
Alessandro’s face did not change.
“That is exactly why I am not leaving you here.”
Sophia looked at Emma.
Her daughter was staring at the threat on the table.
That decided it.
“Fine.”
Alessandro took them to a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights rather than some isolated mansion.
The building looked almost ordinary from the street.
Inside, it was not.
Reinforced windows.
Private elevator.
Cameras on every floor.
A panic room hidden behind a library wall.
Emma immediately asked whether the secret room had snacks.
It did.
“Best kidnapping house ever,” she announced.
Sophia nearly choked.
“Emma.”
“What?”
Alessandro turned away, but she saw his shoulders move.
An hour later, while Emma slept upstairs beneath three blankets and the watch of a female security officer, Sophia found Alessandro in the downstairs study.
He was standing beside the fireplace.
A photograph rested on the desk.
Two boys, maybe twelve years old, sat on the hood of an old car.
One was Alessandro.
The other had light brown hair and a wide grin.
Luca Santoro.
“You really grew up together.”
Alessandro followed her gaze.
“His father worked for mine.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It was a shipping company.”
“Your shipping company has armed guards.”
“So does the jewelry store three blocks from here.”
“Do their guards call the owner boss?”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he picked up the photograph.
“My mother died when I was eleven. Luca’s family practically raised me afterward.”
Sophia said nothing.
“We went to school together. Started working on the docks together. When my father had his first heart attack, Luca handled half the company while I handled the other half.”
“So if someone told you he betrayed you…”
“I would ask for proof.”
“You have proof he lied about the envelope.”
“I have proof the envelope passed through our treasury office.”
“Who controls treasury?”
“Luca.”
Sophia exhaled.
“That seems fairly proof-shaped.”
“It could have passed through ten other hands.”
“You want him to be innocent.”
“Yes.”
At least he admitted it.
A security guard entered.
“Mr. Santoro is downstairs.”
Sophia stared.
“You invited him?”
“No.”
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed.
“How did he know I was here?”
Nobody answered.
Luca Santoro entered the study three minutes later wearing a navy suit beneath a camel-colored coat.
He looked exactly like his photographs.
Warm eyes.
Easy smile.
The kind of face parents trusted at school fundraisers.
He hugged Alessandro before Alessandro could stop him.
“What the hell happened?”
His gaze shifted toward Sophia.
Then softened.
“Mrs. Carter.”
“Miss.”
“Sorry. Sophia.”
He extended a hand.
She did not take it.
Luca seemed amused rather than offended.
“I heard about your apartment.”
“How?”
“Marco called the office.”
Marco, standing near the door, stiffened.
“I called no one.”
Silence.
Luca’s smile weakened.
“Then one of your men did.”
Alessandro watched him carefully.
“Why are you here?”
“Because half your security detail vanished from Manhattan and Daniel’s attorney called asking for archived treasury records. I’m not stupid.”
“No one said you were.”
Luca looked at the envelope resting inside its evidence sleeve on the desk.
There.
It was only a glance.
Half a second.
But Sophia saw it.
Fear.
Not surprise.
Fear.
She remembered something Emma had said on the night they met Alessandro.
It fell out a little.
Emma had seen the money.
Maybe she had seen something else.
Luca moved toward the desk.
“That the envelope the kid returned?”
Alessandro blocked his path without appearing to.
“Yes.”
Luca shrugged.
“I told you. The courier gave it to me outside Pier Eleven.”
“The envelope entered corporate treasury before that.”
Luca’s expression remained smooth.
“Then the courier picked it up there.”
“You said he came from the bank.”
“Maybe I remembered wrong.”
“You remembered a quarter-million-dollar cash delivery wrong?”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You’re accusing me?”
“I’m asking.”
“Based on what? A stamp?”
“Daniel Keane is dead.”
For the first time, Luca’s composure cracked.
“Don’t put that on me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Sophia watched the two men.
There was history in the silence between them.
Twenty-seven years of loyalty suddenly standing trial because of one tiny blue mark.
Luca ran a hand over his mouth.
“Who else knows?”
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed.
“Knows what?”
“About the stamp.”
There it was.
The wrong question.
Sophia felt it instantly.
So did Alessandro.
Luca realized it a moment too late.
He corrected himself.
“I mean the bank issue.”
Alessandro spoke quietly.
“I never told you there was a stamp.”
Nobody moved.
Luca looked toward Sophia.
Then toward Marco.
His voice became colder.
“You’ve been talking about bank authentication all week.”
“Not that stamp.”
The room tightened.
Then footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Emma appeared in pajamas, carrying a glass of water.
Sophia immediately moved toward her.
“What are you doing awake?”
“I was thirsty.”
Luca looked at Emma.
For one terrible moment, Sophia saw calculation behind his pleasant face.
Then it disappeared.
“So this is the famous honest girl.”
Emma looked at him.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
She stared harder.
Luca smiled.
“What?”
Emma tilted her head.
“You were at the diner.”
The room went silent.
Luca’s face emptied.
Alessandro turned slowly.
“What did you say?”
Emma pointed at Luca.
“He was outside.”
Sophia’s pulse jumped.
“Emma, are you sure?”
“He had a blue umbrella.”
Luca laughed too quickly.
“Kid, I wasn’t there.”
“Yes, you were.”
Emma looked annoyed now.
“You were across the street when I ran outside. You talked to another man by the newspaper box.”
Alessandro’s gaze never left Luca.
“The night you told me you received the envelope from a courier at Pier Eleven.”
Luca’s pleasant mask disappeared.
“I was in Manhattan.”
“Apparently not.”
“This is insane. You’re trusting a six-year-old’s memory over mine?”
Alessandro answered quietly.
“Tonight? Yes.”
A sharp electronic chirp came from Marco’s radio.
Then another.
The lights went out.
The entire building dropped into darkness.
Emma screamed.
Sophia grabbed her.
Gunfire exploded downstairs.
Three shots.
Then two more.
Marco shouted.
“SECURITY BREACH!”
Alessandro shoved Sophia and Emma behind the desk.
“Stay down!”
Glass broke somewhere below.
Men shouted.
Sophia heard running feet inside the building.
Not outside.
Inside.
Someone had known exactly how to disable the security system.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Luca was gone.
“Where is he?” Sophia shouted.
Alessandro looked toward the open study door.
Empty.
“Marco!”
“I lost visual!”
Another burst of gunfire sounded downstairs.
Then a scream.
Alessandro drew a handgun from beneath his jacket and moved toward the door.
Sophia caught his sleeve.
“Emma first.”
He looked down at her.
“Get her into the panic room.”
“What about you?”
“Move.”
Sophia pulled Emma toward the hidden library panel.
Marco covered them.
As the steel door began closing, Sophia looked through the narrowing opening.
Alessandro was standing in the red emergency light, weapon raised toward the hallway.
Then his phone vibrated on the desk.
The screen illuminated.
A security alert.
One recovered camera had come back online.
Sophia could see the frozen image.
A man exiting through the rear stairwell.
Camel coat.
Light brown hair.
Luca Santoro.
May you like
And in his right hand was the evidence sleeve containing the ten-thousand-dollar envelope.
The steel door slammed shut.
