Chapter 6 - MY MOTHER’S SCARF
I almost dropped the coat.
“My scarf?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Something belonging to you. I don’t know what.”
Anger rose through me.
“Then why point at the scarf?”
“Because Patricia told Thomas she would hide the list inside something no criminal would think valuable.”
He looked at me.
“Something Olivia would never throw away.”
My apartment suddenly felt crowded with ghosts.
Mom had saved birthday cards, school programs, cheap ornaments, my childhood drawings.
Anything could contain it.
Or nothing.
Maybe Anthony was lying.
Luca seemed to have the same thought.
“Why should we believe you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Anthony’s answer surprised him.
“Thomas trusted people too easily. That helped get him killed.”
Elena stiffened.
“You know how my father died?”
Anthony looked away.
“I know he didn’t have a heart attack.”
The room changed.
Elena stepped forward.
“Tell me.”
“Marco confronted him. Thomas refused to give up the list. They fought.”
“And Vanessa?”
“Was there.”
Elena’s voice shook.
“Did she help Marco?”
“No.”
Anthony looked at Luca.
“She tried to stop him.”
That aligned with my mother’s recording.
“What happened?”
“Thomas collapsed after Marco shoved him into the kitchen counter.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“He was alive when Marco left. Vanessa wanted to call an ambulance.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Marco threatened her father.”
Vanessa’s father.
The brother who had publicly mourned Marco while secretly knowing he lived.
Anthony continued.
“By the time Vanessa called for help anonymously, Thomas was gone.”
Elena turned away.
Years of believing her father died naturally.
Then years suspecting murder.
Now learning the truth was uglier and smaller.
A shove.
A frightened girl.
A powerful man more concerned about evidence than a dying person.
“Marco killed him,” Luca said.
Anthony shook his head.
“He caused the injury.”
“That’s killing him.”
“Yes.”
Anthony didn’t argue.
“But Vanessa has blamed herself ever since.”
For the first time, I understood why Vanessa had been so desperate.
Marco had built a prison around her guilt.
He hadn’t needed chains.
He only needed to remind her that she had been there.
That she had waited.
That she had been afraid.
It didn’t absolve her of what she did to me.
But I could finally see the path that led there.
Daniel entered from the hallway.
“We found something in Patricia’s files.”
My mother had kept digital photographs of our old apartment.
One showed my bedroom before I moved out.
On the wall hung a framed child’s drawing.
I laughed when I saw it.
“That?”
I had drawn it when I was eight.
Our family standing beside Lake Michigan.
Mom had kept it for twenty years.
After she died, I took it with me.
It was still in my bedroom.
I removed the frame from the wall.
Behind the cardboard backing was nothing.
My disappointment must have shown.
Luca took the frame.
“Wait.”
The wood was thicker along one edge.
Daniel opened it carefully.
A narrow strip of folded paper slid out.
Not digital.
Not encrypted.
Names.
Dozens.
Police officers.
Accountants.
Contractors.
A city inspector.
Two judges.
Three men connected to Luca’s businesses.
And at the bottom:
S. MORETTI.
Luca stopped breathing.
I looked at him.
“Who is S. Moretti?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Elena did.
“Salvatore.”
Luca’s uncle.
The man who had raised him after his father died.
The man Luca had trusted with half his businesses for twenty years.
Daniel swore.
“That explains the authorization logs.”
Marco didn’t merely have someone inside Luca’s security team.
He had someone inside Luca’s family.
Luca folded the list.
His face became unreadable.
Then Anthony said, “There’s one problem.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Salvatore died last year.”
I stared.
Another dead man.
But unlike Marco, Salvatore’s death had been witnessed.
Cancer.
Hospital.
Funeral.
This wasn’t another fake death.
“So why is his name important?” I asked.
Luca understood.
“Because whoever inherited his access inherited Marco’s leverage.”
Salvatore’s son.
Luca’s cousin Dominic.
Dominic had been at the engagement dinner.
He had raised a glass to Vanessa.
He had even joked about Luca finally becoming respectable.
Daniel reached for his phone.
“Dominic left the mansion thirty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“He said he was going home.”
Luca looked at the list.
“No.”
He knew.
“He’s going to Marco.”
Daniel tracked Dominic’s vehicle.
It stopped at an abandoned printing warehouse near the river.
Police were not an easy option.
Several names on the list belonged to law enforcement.
Luca gathered only men Daniel trusted personally.
I expected him to order me home.
Instead he turned to me.
“You’re staying with Elena.”
I shook my head.
“This started with my mother too.”
“It started before either of us understood it.”
“And she left that list for me.”
Luca looked at my bruised face.
“This isn’t about whether you’re brave.”
“No. It’s about whether you get to decide for me because you’re scared.”
That stopped him.
Elena looked almost amused.
Luca wasn’t.
But after a moment, he nodded.
“You stay in the car unless Daniel says otherwise.”
“Fine.”
It was a compromise neither of us liked.
The warehouse looked empty.
Dominic’s car sat outside.
Then another vehicle arrived.
William Mercer stepped out.
Alive.
Alone.
Daniel moved toward him.
Mercer raised both hands.
“If Marco sees your men, Vanessa dies.”
Luca froze.
“She’s inside?”
“Yes.”
“Dominic?”
“Inside.”
“Marco?”
Mercer looked toward the dark windows.
“Yes.”
Eleven years after his funeral, Marco Bellini was finally within reach.
Luca started forward.
Mercer grabbed his arm.
“There’s something you need to know first.”
Luca looked down at his hand until Mercer released him.
“What?”
“Vanessa didn’t go there because Marco captured her.”
“Then why?”
“She offered him the list.”
My stomach dropped.
Luca’s face went cold.
Mercer continued quickly.
“She told him Olivia found it.”
I stared at him.
“She gave him my name?”
“Yes.”
Anger burned through me.
After everything, Vanessa had still used me.
Then Mercer said:
“But the list she offered him is fake.”
He reached inside his coat.
“She made it herself.”
“Why?”
Mercer looked at Luca.
“To get Marco, Dominic, and every man still loyal to them into one room.”
Luca stared at the warehouse.
“She’s setting a trap.”
Mercer nodded.
“For herself too.”
Then the warehouse lights came on.
Every window illuminated at once.
A figure appeared behind the glass.
Vanessa.
Her hands were raised.
May you like
Marco stood behind her.
And pressed against her throat was a knife.
