Chapter 4 - THE TRAITOR AT HIS TABLE
Lorenzo watched the dead screen for exactly four seconds.
Then he became the man New York feared again.
“Nico. Trace it.”
“Working.”
“Sophia, take Emma home.”
Sophia stared at him.
“Home?”
“My safe house in Westchester.”
“No.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“If Emma identified that ring, whoever is doing this knows she saw something.”
“I’m not leaving you to—”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
Sophia pulled her daughter closer.
Sister Margaret whispered a prayer.
Nico raised his phone.
“The call bounced through six servers. Last physical tower was Red Hook.”
“Send men.”
“It could be deliberate.”
“It is deliberate.”
Lorenzo picked up the recorder.
“But deliberate doesn’t mean useless.”
Twenty minutes later, eight vehicles converged on an abandoned shipping property near the Brooklyn waterfront.
They found nothing.
No Isabella.
No baby.
Only a wooden chair in the center of an empty warehouse.
A camera faced it.
Lorenzo stepped toward the chair.
Warm.
Isabella had been there.
Nearby, Nico found a length of brown hair caught around a metal bolt.
Lorenzo took it between his fingers.
Isabella.
He knew it without a test.
On the wall behind the chair someone had written:
YOU CAN’T PROTECT THEM BOTH.
Lorenzo stared at the sentence.
Then his phone rang.
Matteo.
Nico looked at him.
Lorenzo answered.
“Where are you?” Matteo demanded.
“Why?”
“Because you left me locked in your house like a suspect.”
“You are a suspect.”
Silence.
Then Matteo sighed.
“Lorenzo, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Anthony admitted he used my car. He was meeting a woman near St. Catherine’s.”
“What woman?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Convenient.”
“Do you really believe I could do this to Isabella?”
Lorenzo looked at the empty chair.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“That should tell you something.”
“It tells me I trusted you too much.”
Matteo’s voice hardened.
“Then come home and look me in the eyes.”
“I will.”
Lorenzo disconnected.
Nico frowned.
“You’re going back?”
“Yes.”
“To confront him?”
“No.”
“To lie to him.”
That earned the smallest expression of approval from Nico.
They returned to the mansion shortly before midnight.
Most guests had been sent home with a vague explanation about a security concern.
Matteo waited in Lorenzo’s office.
His jacket was off.
His tie loosened.
A bottle of whiskey sat untouched on the desk.
Lorenzo entered alone.
Matteo stood.
“You found something.”
Lorenzo deliberately let grief show.
“A body.”
Matteo froze.
“Isabella?”
Lorenzo said nothing.
It was a test.
A man innocent of everything should have asked where.
What happened.
How.
Matteo’s first question was different.
“Was she wearing the necklace?”
Lorenzo’s heart sank.
The necklace.
No one had mentioned it that night.
Matteo realized his mistake half a second too late.
Lorenzo poured himself a drink he did not want.
“Why would you ask that?”
Matteo shrugged.
“It was how they identified her before.”
“No.”
Lorenzo looked directly at him.
“It was how Benedetti identified her.”
Matteo’s fingers tightened.
Lorenzo saw it.
A tiny movement.
Enough.
“You talked to Benedetti recently?”
“He’s the family doctor.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“Where is Anthony?”
“I told you. Overseas.”
“Where overseas?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“Be careful.”
Lorenzo almost smiled.
“Is that advice?”
“It’s friendship.”
“We may have different definitions.”
For twenty seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Lorenzo walked away.
He deliberately turned his back.
If Matteo wanted him dead, now was the easiest opportunity he would ever get.
Nothing happened.
Lorenzo left the office.
Nico was waiting outside.
“Well?”
“He knows.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
That was the problem.
Matteo had made one mistake.
But a thirty-year friendship deserved more than suspicion.
Even now.
Especially now.
Lorenzo ordered Nico to leak false information.
At 12:30 a.m., three trusted lieutenants received different locations for where Lorenzo supposedly intended to move $20 million in emergency reserves.
One location went to Matteo.
Pier 19.
One to Vincent Caruso.
A storage facility in Newark.
One to Dominic Falcone.
A warehouse in Yonkers.
Only Lorenzo and Nico knew all three.
Then they waited.
At 2:06 a.m., Nico received a call.
Six armed men had appeared at Pier 19.
Matteo’s location.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
There was no satisfaction.
Only a door closing on thirty years of his life.
“Bring Matteo downstairs.”
Nico did not move.
“What?”
“The Westchester safe house stopped responding.”
Lorenzo’s eyes opened.
“What do you mean?”
“Cameras offline.”
“Sophia?”
“No answer.”
“Emma?”
“No answer.”
Lorenzo was already moving.
Three SUVs tore through the mansion gates.
They reached Westchester in twenty-eight minutes.
The front gate was open.
One guard lay unconscious near the security booth.
Another had disappeared.
The house door hung crooked from its frame.
“Sophia!”
Lorenzo entered with his gun raised.
The living room was empty.
Kitchen empty.
Upstairs.
One bedroom door stood open.
A gray stuffed rabbit lay in the hallway.
Lorenzo picked it up.
Emma’s.
Nico found blood near the staircase.
Not much.
But enough.
Then a weak sound came from the pantry.
They found Sophia inside.
Her wrists bound.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
Lorenzo cut the ropes.
“Emma?”
Sophia looked at him, wild-eyed.
“They took her.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see.”
“Sophia.”
“They wore masks.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
She grabbed his jacket.
“But Emma fought them.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“She scratched one man. His mask moved.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“But she did.”
Sophia began crying.
“Before they carried her outside, Emma screamed something.”
“What?”
Sophia looked at him.
“She screamed, ‘Uncle Matt, stop!’”
Lorenzo went still.
Then Nico’s phone rang.
It was Matteo.
Lorenzo answered.
His old friend’s voice sounded breathless.
“Lorenzo, do not go after the girl.”
The words nearly broke whatever restraint remained.
“Where is she?”
“Listen to me.”
“WHERE IS SHE?”
A pause.
Then a sound came through the phone.
A child crying.
Emma.
Matteo whispered:
“If you want her alive, come alone.”
Then another sound came through the line.
A gunshot.
Emma screamed.
May you like
The call ended.
And Lorenzo DeLuca walked out of the house carrying the child’s gray rabbit in one hand and a gun in the other.
