Chapter 6 - The Manager Who Had Been Watching Her for Four Years
Tessa stared at Richard.
The man who scheduled her shifts.
Criticized her shoes.
Made her redo wine inventories.
Sent her home twice for being three minutes late.
He had known who she was before she knew his father was alive.
“You found me?”
Richard's face tightened.
“In 2022.”
“Why were you looking?”
“I wasn't looking for you.”
Paul laughed softly.
Richard ignored him.
“I was auditing old property records for my father.”
“You were working for him.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt less because Richard no longer tried to hide it.
“I found a lease connected to the name Cosenza. I knew that alias from childhood. My mother had once warned me never to ask questions about it.”
“And you followed him.”
“Yes.”
“You saw me.”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell Paul?”
Richard's jaw clenched.
“Nothing.”
Paul smiled.
“My son has always enjoyed rewriting himself as a hero.”
Richard turned toward him.
“You didn't learn about her from me.”
“No?”
“You learned from the restaurant.”
Tessa's blood ran cold.
Paul's eyes shifted almost imperceptibly.
Richard had hit something.
“What restaurant?”
Richard looked at Tessa.
“Il Vento.”
She stared.
“You hired me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To watch you.”
There was no gentle way to absorb that.
“My entire job was a setup?”
“No. You applied normally.”
“But you saw my name.”
“Yes.”
“And recognized me.”
“Yes.”
Tessa laughed once.
It wasn't humor.
“Wonderful.”
Richard lowered his eyes.
“I kept you employed because Angelo asked me to.”
That stopped her.
“What?”
“He confronted me two days after I found you.”
Richard looked toward the floor.
“He knew exactly who I was.”
Tessa could almost hear Angelo's irritated voice.
“What did he say?”
Richard looked at her.
“He said, ‘If you're going to watch my daughter, at least make sure she gets decent shifts.’”
Despite everything, Maria made a broken little sound that was almost laughter.
Tessa's eyes filled.
That sounded exactly like him.
Paul looked annoyed.
Richard continued.
“Angelo told me the truth about St. Agnes. Not all of it. Enough.”
“And you believed him?”
“I checked.”
“So you've been protecting me?”
Richard looked ashamed.
“Sometimes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means sometimes I protected you. Sometimes I protected myself. And sometimes I did what my father wanted because I was afraid of him.”
That was the first answer Tessa trusted completely.
Not heroic.
Not clean.
Human.
Paul clapped slowly.
“Beautiful.”
Gabriel turned his gun toward him.
“Stop talking.”
Paul smiled.
“You still believe you control this room.”
Gabriel's voice stayed calm.
“I control where the bullet goes.”
Marco shifted.
Gabriel moved the barrel half an inch.
“Try it.”
Marco stopped.
Maria suddenly coughed hard.
Tessa moved toward her.
Paul raised a hand.
“No.”
Tessa froze.
“My mother needs medical care.”
“So cooperate.”
“What do you actually want from the transfer record?”
Paul looked at her.
“The original destroys the legitimacy of several ownership transfers.”
“Money.”
“Control.”
“Same thing to you.”
“Not remotely.”
Gabriel looked at Richard.
“You said your mother knew where I came from.”
Richard nodded.
“Claire kept a diary.”
“Where?”
“Paul took it.”
Paul smiled.
“Burned it.”
Richard shook his head.
“No.”
Paul's smile disappeared.
“My mother never kept the original at home.”
Richard looked toward Gabriel.
“She stored a copy with Angelo.”
Tessa remembered the boxes beneath Santa Lucia.
“We didn't find a diary.”
Richard looked surprised.
“Then he moved it.”
Paul's patience broke.
“Enough.”
He drew a pistol.
Everything happened instantly.
Gabriel fired.
Marco shoved Maria's chair over.
Richard threw himself sideways.
Tessa dropped.
Paul's bullet shattered a glass cabinet.
Gabriel's bullet struck Marco's shoulder.
Salvatore fired from the doorway.
Paul disappeared behind the bar.
“Mom!”
Tessa crawled toward Maria.
Richard kicked the chair leg until it broke, freeing one of his bound hands.
Gabriel moved after Paul.
Then Salvatore shouted:
“Gabriel!”
Paul had emerged through a service door behind him.
Gun raised.
Tessa saw the shot.
Salvatore moved first.
He stepped between them.
The bullet hit him high in the chest.
The sound Maria made was terrible.
Gabriel fired twice.
Paul vanished through the door.
Salvatore collapsed.
“Dad!”
Gabriel reached him before he hit the ground completely.
For the first time since Tessa had met him, Gabriel Rossi lost control.
He pressed both hands against Salvatore's chest.
“Stay with me.”
Salvatore's eyes fluttered.
“Bad habit.”
“Don't.”
Blood spread beneath Gabriel's fingers.
Tessa called 911.
Richard had freed himself and was helping Maria upright.
Marco lay against the wall, alive but bleeding from his shoulder.
Gabriel bent closer to Salvatore.
“You don't get to leave now.”
The old man's mouth moved.
“What?”
Gabriel lowered his head.
Salvatore whispered something.
Gabriel's expression changed completely.
“No.”
Salvatore grabbed his sleeve.
“Listen.”
“Save your strength.”
“Your mother.”
Gabriel froze.
Salvatore coughed.
“Not Sofia.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Tessa moved closer without meaning to.
Salvatore whispered:
“Isabella.”
Gabriel's face went blank.
“Who is Isabella?”
But Salvatore lost consciousness.
Ambulances arrived six minutes later.
Police arrived three minutes after that.
Paul Mercer was gone.
Marco was taken into custody.
Salvatore was rushed into emergency surgery.
Maria returned to Mount Sinai under guard.
Richard sat in an interrogation room.
At sunrise, Tessa and Gabriel stood outside the hospital operating suite.
Neither had slept.
Gabriel's shirt was covered in his father's blood.
Tessa held two coffees neither of them drank.
“Isabella,” Gabriel said.
Tessa looked at him.
“You know the name?”
“No.”
“Maybe Eleanor does.”
“She disappeared after the fire.”
Tessa frowned.
“What?”
“My people can't find her.”
A nurse walked past.
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“If Paul has her—”
“He may have the one person who remembers where you came from.”
Gabriel nodded.
His phone rang.
Richard.
Gabriel stared at the screen before answering.
“What?”
Richard spoke from police custody.
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“My mother said Isabella's last name once.”
Gabriel stood.
“What was it?”
“Conti.”
Tessa's eyes widened.
Gabriel said nothing.
Richard continued.
“Does it mean something?”
Tessa answered.
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked at her.
She felt suddenly cold.
Angelo had mentioned a woman named Isabella Conti dozens of times during his stories.
Not as a nurse.
Not as a stranger.
As a singer in Palermo whom Salvatore had loved before marrying Sofia.
Gabriel saw recognition in her face.
“What?”
Tessa swallowed.
“Angelo told me about her.”
Gabriel stared.
“What did he say?”
“That your father almost left Sicily for her.”
Gabriel's phone buzzed.
An incoming email.
No sender name.
One attachment.
A scanned birth certificate.
INFANT MALE.
April 12, 1998.
Mother: Isabella Conti.
Father:
Salvatore Rossi.
Gabriel stared at it.
Tessa did too.
At the bottom was a message.
PAUL LIED ABOUT WHOSE SON YOU WERE.
May you like
GABRIEL WAS A REPLACEMENT.
BUT HE WAS NEVER A MERCER.
