Chapter 4 - The Dead Woman On The Screen
Nobody moved.
The woman on the screen had stopped mid-sentence because Mateo had instinctively paused the video.
Leo stood in the doorway wearing dinosaur pajamas and staring at a mother he had been told was dead.
Nico's face looked carved from stone.
"Leo."
The boy backed away.
"You said she died."
"Come here."
"You said the car burned."
Nico flinched.
It was barely visible, but I saw it.
"Leo, come to me."
"You lied."
The pain in the child's voice made every adult in the room look smaller.
Nico crossed the distance slowly.
Leo backed into the wall.
"Don't."
Nico stopped.
I had watched wealthy men at Lumina humiliate employees over wine temperature.
I had watched David cry after losing money and then blame me for not comforting him fast enough.
I had seen men weaponize anger when shame made them feel weak.
Nico did none of those things.
He lowered himself to his knees several feet from his son.
"I believed your mother was dead."
Leo's chin trembled.
"But she's there."
"I see her."
"So you were wrong."
"Yes."
The word cost him something.
"I was wrong."
Leo began to cry.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
"I wanted her."
Nico's eyes shut.
"I know."
"I asked you where she was."
"I know."
"I asked on my birthday."
"I know."
"You said heaven."
Nico bowed his head.
For a moment, the most dangerous man in Chicago looked helpless.
I moved before I had time to debate whether I belonged in the moment.
I sat on the floor near Leo.
My back protested violently.
Leo looked at me.
"Did you know?"
"No."
"Nobody told you?"
"Nobody."
"Then you're not lying."
The statement was aimed at his father.
Nico absorbed it without defending himself.
"Leo," I said gently, "your papa saw the same video when you did."
The boy looked at the screen.
"He looks scared."
"He is."
Nico's eyes came to mine.
I did not look away.
"Scared people can get things wrong."
Leo wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"Papa says being scared isn't an excuse."
"Your papa sounds annoyingly wise when it helps him."
A tiny, broken laugh escaped Leo.
Nico's shoulders dropped by a fraction.
"Can we watch it?" Leo asked.
Nico hesitated.
Mateo spoke softly.
"We do not know what is on the rest of the recording."
"I want to see Mama."
Nico looked at his son.
Then at me.
"Not alone," I said.
His gaze lingered.
"No."
He stood.
"Not alone."
Leo climbed into Nico's lap on the sofa.
I sat beside them with a pillow protecting my back.
Mateo restarted the video.
The woman took a shaky breath.
"Nico, if you are watching this, they finally made their move."
She glanced over her shoulder.
"I do not know how much time I have."
Her voice had an accent similar to Nico's but lighter.
"You were right about Vittorio."
Nico's arm tightened around Leo.
"I should have believed you sooner."
The woman swallowed.
"But you were wrong about Marco."
Mateo whispered, "Jesus."
Nico's face changed.
I leaned toward him.
"Who is Marco?"
"My brother."
"Another dead person?"
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
"Yes."
The woman continued.
"Marco survived Naples."
"He did not betray you."
"He was taken."
The image shook as if someone had bumped the camera.
She rushed her next words.
"Vittorio needed both brothers to hate ghosts because ghosts cannot compare stories."
A door slammed somewhere off camera.
The woman looked terrified.
"Clara has the rest."
"Trust her."
"Do not trust anyone who was in your house the night I disappeared."
Nico went completely still.
The woman leaned closer to the camera.
"And Nico, if Leo is with you, turn this off now."
Nico reached for the laptop.
Leo grabbed his wrist.
"No."
"Leo."
"It's Mama."
"She asked me to stop it."
"She doesn't know I'm six now."
Pain flickered through Nico's face.
The woman on the video looked directly at the camera.
"Our son was asleep upstairs when Vittorio came to me."
Nico's breath stopped.
"He said if I did not leave, Leo would disappear before morning."
Leo became perfectly still.
Nico slammed the laptop closed.
"Enough."
"Papa."
"Enough."
His voice cracked like a whip.
Leo recoiled.
Nico immediately regretted it.
"I am sorry."
Leo slid out of his lap and came to me.
I hated the reflexive satisfaction that flashed through me when Nico looked wounded by it.
Then I hated myself for feeling it.
"Mateo, take the laptop downstairs," Nico said.
Mateo obeyed.
"No network connection."
"Of course."
"Full forensic copy."
"Already started."
David had been moved to another room.
The guards closed the dining room doors.
Nico stared at the dark laptop screen after Mateo disappeared.
"Her name was Bianca."
Leo rested his head against my arm.
"She was Leo's mother."
"I guessed."
"Four years ago, her car went off a bridge outside Lake Geneva."
He spoke without emotion because emotion would have broken him.
"They recovered part of the vehicle."
"Not her body?"
"There was a body."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"Burned beyond visual identification."
"DNA?"
"Matched."
My skin prickled.
"Then how is she alive?"
"That is what I intend to learn."
Leo whispered, "Mama told me she was going shopping."
Nico looked at him.
"That morning?"
Leo nodded.
"She kissed me in the kitchen."
"You were two."
"I remember her perfume."
Nico looked away.
"Vanilla," Leo said.
The room seemed to shrink around the word.
I touched his hair.
"Children remember strange things."
Nico's gaze came to me.
"Do you?"
"What?"
"Remember strange things."
I thought of my grandmother making cinnamon toast on Sunday mornings.
I thought of my mother's blue raincoat the last day I saw her before cancer took her.
I thought of David promising me from the passenger seat of my car that the gambling was over while a collection notice sat folded in his pocket.
"Yes."
Nico nodded once.
A phone rang in the hall.
Mateo answered.
His voice grew sharp.
Then the dining room door opened.
"Boss."
Nico stood.
"What?"
"The men at Emma's apartment found something else."
My pulse accelerated.
"What now?"
Mateo looked at me.
"Someone was waiting in the basement."
"Who?"
"One of Russo's collectors."
Nico's eyes darkened.
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Good."
I did not like how he said good.
"He was carrying photographs."
Mateo hesitated.
"Of Emma."
I felt cold.
"What kind of photographs?"
Mateo handed Nico an envelope.
Nico opened it.
His expression turned murderous.
I reached for the photographs.
He tried to keep them from me.
"Give them to me."
"Emma."
"They are photographs of me."
He handed them over.
The first showed me entering Lumina two weeks earlier.
The second showed me carrying groceries toward my apartment.
The third showed me sitting alone at a laundromat reading a paperback.
The fourth was taken through my apartment window.
I was asleep on my couch.
My stomach turned.
There were dozens more.
Weeks of my life.
Maybe months.
Somebody had been watching me long before the tray fell.
"Why?"
My voice sounded small.
Nico took the photographs back.
"We will find out."
"Do not tell me not to be afraid."
"I was not going to."
"Good."
"You should be afraid."
That surprised me.
He stepped closer.
"Fear keeps careless people alive when confidence would kill them."
His eyes held mine.
"What you should not be is alone."
My instinct was to reject the sentence.
Then I looked at Leo.
His eyes were red.
His world had just been rearranged by a dead mother's face on a screen.
"Fine," I whispered.
Nico's expression did not soften, but something in him released.
"For tonight."
"For tonight," he agreed.
We moved upstairs.
The safehouse had four bedrooms.
Leo refused his own.
"I want Emma."
Nico looked at me.
"He can sleep in the chair beside me."
"The bed is large enough."
"I don't kick."
Leo raised his hand.
"I do."
"Chair it is."
Nico almost smiled again.
He tucked Leo into a small daybed near the window.
Then he stood beside my door.
"There will be a guard outside."
"I noticed the army downstairs."
"If you need anything, call."
"Do you sleep?"
"Occasionally."
"You should try it."
His gaze moved over my face.
"So should you."
He turned to leave.
"Nico."
He stopped.
"Why did Bianca say not to trust anyone who was in your house that night?"
His back went rigid.
"Because eleven people were there."
"Family?"
"Some."
"Staff?"
"Some."
"Mateo?"
Silence.
That was answer enough.
I looked toward the hallway where Mateo had stood beside us through every attack.
"He was there?"
Nico turned back.
"Yes."
"Do you trust him?"
"With my life."
"Bianca specifically told you not to."
"She told me not to trust anyone."
"That includes him."
His jaw tightened.
"Sleep, Emma."
He left before I could argue.
I did not sleep.
An hour later, Leo began whimpering from the daybed.
I sat up carefully.
"Leo?"
He was still asleep.
"Mama, don't go."
My chest hurt.
I crossed the room and sat beside him.
His hand found mine without waking.
Then I heard footsteps in the hall.
Nico appeared in the doorway.
He saw our joined hands.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then a sharp crack shattered the window behind me.
Nico lunged.
He hit me hard enough to knock both of us to the floor.
A second crack followed.
Plaster burst from the wall above Leo's bed.
Guards shouted in the hallway.
Nico covered my body with his own.
"Stay down."
Another shot punched through the room.
Then silence.
Mateo rushed in with a weapon drawn.
"Shooter from the east roof."
Nico lifted his head.
A small metal object had struck the opposite wall and fallen onto the carpet.
Mateo picked it up.
It was not a bullet.
It was a steel capsule.
Inside was a strip of paper.
Mateo read it once.
His face changed.
Nico took it from him.
I could see the words from the floor.
ONE DEBT.
ONE BOY.
ONE WOMAN.
Then, below that, one final line.
May you like
ASK MATEO WHAT HE DID THE NIGHT BIANCA DIED.
