Chapter 13 - The Green Room
Vincent called at 2:17 p.m.
He did not ask whether they had found Room 814.
He already knew.
Gabriel put the call on speaker.
“Where is Mia?”
Vincent’s breathing was uneven.
“If I knew, do you think I would be calling you?”
“Where are you?”
“Moving.”
“Stop moving.”
“That is easy for you to say.”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
She held Mia’s photograph.
Vincent continued.
“Voss has people at my apartment.”
“Luca has people at my office.”
“I do not know which one has my daughter.”
Chloe leaned toward the phone.
“You said you could prove you erased the cameras because Voss threatened her.”
Silence.
Then Vincent spoke.
“Who is that?”
“Chloe.”
Another pause.
“I am sorry about Il Canto.”
“Save it.”
“I mean it.”
“So did the man who sent my brother into a concrete divider.”
Gabriel looked at her.
Chloe did not stop.
“Proof, Vincent.”
“What do you have?”
Vincent exhaled.
“A voice recording.”
“Of Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I uploaded it to an account Leo Bennett created.”
Chloe froze.
“What?”
Vincent’s voice lowered.
“Your brother contacted me two weeks before he died.”
Gabriel closed his eyes briefly.
Another secret.
Chloe’s hand tightened around the phone.
“You knew Leo.”
“I met him once.”
“You never said that.”
“I have spent two years pretending I did not.”
“Why?”
“Because the night after I met him, Voss showed me a photograph of Mia leaving school.”
Chloe’s anger stalled.
Vincent continued.
“He told me Leo had stolen records.”
“He told me if I helped Leo again, my daughter would pay for it.”
“What did Leo want from you?”
“Access to Harbor backups.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Part of it.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Where is the rest?”
Vincent hesitated.
“The Green Room.”
Chloe looked at Gabriel.
He frowned.
“What Green Room?”
Vincent sounded almost surprised.
“You really do not know.”
Gabriel’s patience snapped.
“Know what?”
“There is a room below Il Canto.”
“Your father used it for private meetings.”
“Luca used it after Salvatore died.”
“Voss installed the security.”
Gabriel stared at nothing.
“My restaurant has a hidden room?”
“It is not your restaurant.”
“The building is owned through a family trust.”
“Your father designed the basement renovation.”
Chloe almost laughed at the absurdity.
Gabriel Costello could intimidate a room full of men with one look and still discover hidden rooms beneath his own dinner table.
Vincent gave them a code for a service elevator.
Then he added one warning.
“If you go there, do not use the main power.”
“Why?” Anthony asked.
Vincent went silent.
Anthony had rejoined them at the hotel despite Gabriel’s earlier dismissal.
No one had officially rehired him.
No one had asked him to leave again either.
Vincent finally answered.
“Because Voss gets an alert if the Green Room lights turn on.”
Gabriel’s eyes darkened.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s voice cracked.
“Find my daughter.”
The call ended.
They waited until Il Canto closed early under the excuse of an electrical inspection.
Marco met them at the back door.
He looked as if he had not slept.
When he saw Chloe, guilt filled his face.
“I’m sorry.”
She held up one hand.
“Later.”
He nodded.
Gabriel looked at him.
“Did you know about a basement room?”
Marco’s expression answered before his mouth did.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“You knew.”
Marco swallowed.
“I knew there was a private storage level.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Marco looked toward Chloe.
Then back at Gabriel.
“Voss brought people down there twice a month.”
“For what?”
“I never knew.”
“You never asked.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“I have a wife and two sons.”
The sentence stopped Gabriel.
Marco continued.
“Every person in this story keeps asking why somebody stayed quiet.”
“That is why.”
He pointed toward the photograph of Mia in Chloe’s hand.
“We all have somebody.”
Chloe felt the truth of it.
Fear had built the walls around this family better than brick ever could.
The service elevator was hidden behind a wine-storage rack.
Vincent’s code opened it.
The car descended one level.
No lights came on.
They used phone flashlights instead.
A narrow concrete corridor led beneath the restaurant.
At the end stood a green-painted steel door.
The Green Room.
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“You stay behind me.”
“No.”
He sighed.
“Can you reject me more quietly?”
“No.”
Anthony almost smiled.
Gabriel entered the code Vincent had given them.
The lock clicked.
Inside, the room smelled like dust and old tobacco.
A long table occupied the center.
Metal cabinets lined the walls.
There were no windows.
A wall-mounted camera faced the door.
Anthony disconnected it.
Gabriel opened the first cabinet.
Contracts.
The second contained old phones.
The third held cassette tapes, hard drives, and envelopes labeled with names.
Chloe recognized none of them.
Anthony did.
“Insurance.”
She looked at him.
“Blackmail.”
He nodded.
“Your father believed loyalty lasted longer when people knew betrayal had a price.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“Apparently my father believed many things I wish I did not know.”
Chloe found a box marked HARBOR.
Inside were backup drives and paper manifests.
One folder contained Leo’s name.
Her hands stopped.
Gabriel saw it.
“Do you want me to open it?”
“No.”
Chloe sat at the table.
She opened the folder herself.
The first page was a surveillance report.
Leo’s address.
His volunteer schedule.
His grocery store.
His favorite coffee shop.
Chloe felt physically ill.
The second page listed Chloe.
Il Canto.
Her apartment.
Her subway route.
Her bank.
The third page was a photograph of Chloe and Leo eating pizza on the steps of their building.
She remembered that night.
They had been laughing because Leo dropped hot cheese onto his jeans.
Someone had watched them from across the street.
Gabriel’s face became murderous.
“Who signed the report?”
Chloe turned the page.
D. VOSS.
Anthony cursed.
Beneath the surveillance reports was a typed order.
SUBJECT: BENNETT.
OBJECTIVE: RECOVER COPIES.
METHOD: PRESSURE ONLY.
NO FATAL ACTION WITHOUT DIRECT AUTHORIZATION.
The order was signed S. COSTELLO.
Salvatore.
Chloe stared at the words.
Gabriel read them twice.
“My father authorized the pressure campaign.”
Anthony’s voice was low.
“But not murder.”
Chloe looked at him.
“My brother is still dead.”
“I know.”
Gabriel turned the page.
A handwritten note had been clipped behind the order.
Voss - Luca wants this handled faster.
Do not embarrass the family.
S.C.
Chloe felt tears burn behind her eyes.
Leo had been reduced to a problem in a folder.
A matter to be handled.
A source of embarrassment.
She hated all of them in that moment.
Salvatore.
Luca.
Voss.
Anthony.
Even Gabriel, though reason told her he had not known.
She hated the whole machine that had made Leo’s life smaller than a business inconvenience.
Gabriel seemed to understand.
He stepped away from her.
“I am sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
Chloe opened another envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Salvatore sitting at the Green Room table.
Voss stood behind him.
Beatrice stood across from him.
The date stamp was six days before Salvatore died.
The same date Luca had written OLD MAN WEAK in the ledger.
Chloe’s breath caught.
Gabriel took the photograph.
“My mother said she never came down here.”
Anthony looked at the image.
“She was here.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“What was she doing with Voss?”
Chloe noticed something on the table in the photograph.
A blue ceramic bowl.
The same bowl Beatrice had used to hide the silver key.
Under the photograph was a transcript.
Only one line had been highlighted.
BEATRICE COSTELLO: IF YOU TOUCH THE BOY, I WILL TELL GABRIEL EVERYTHING.
Chloe stared at the sentence.
Gabriel looked at her.
“The boy.”
“Leo.”
A floorboard creaked in the corridor.
Anthony turned off his flashlight.
They all froze.
Footsteps approached the green door.
Gabriel pulled Chloe behind a cabinet.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
Vincent stumbled inside.
Blood darkened the shoulder of his shirt.
He gripped the doorway to stay upright.
Gabriel caught him before he fell.
“Where is Mia?”
Vincent’s face was gray.
“I found her.”
Chloe rushed closer.
“Where?”
“Safe.”
He forced the word out.
“Voss does not know she got away.”
Gabriel lowered him into a chair.
Vincent grabbed Gabriel’s sleeve.
“Listen to me.”
“Luca did not poison Beatrice.”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
Vincent continued.
“Voss did it without permission.”
“Luca is losing control of him.”
Anthony crouched beside him.
“How do you know?”
“Because Luca called me an hour ago.”
Vincent winced.
“He is scared.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Of Voss?”
Vincent nodded.
“Of what Voss has.”
“What does he have?”
Vincent looked toward the photograph in Gabriel’s hand.
“Everything.”
“Salvatore.”
“Leo.”
“The accident.”
“The payoffs.”
“Your mother.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“What about my mother?”
Chloe watched Vincent’s eyes move from Gabriel to the locked door and back again.
He was calculating exits.
Not because he intended to run.
Because frightened men always wanted to know where escape lived.
“Your sister is still alive,” Chloe said.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“That is what Voss keeps telling me.”
“Then stop helping him make her less safe.”
He flinched.
Gabriel said nothing.
Chloe understood why.
Threats were the language Vincent expected from a Costello.
Questions were harder for him to defend against.
“Why did Beatrice meet Voss?” Chloe asked.
Vincent looked toward the security mirror.
“She thought she was buying time.”
“For who?”
“For all of you.”
That answer frightened Chloe more than another denial would have.
Vincent swallowed.
“She met Voss the night before your father died.”
“She paid him fifty thousand dollars.”
Chloe felt the room go cold.
May you like
Vincent closed his eyes.
“And Voss has spent two years telling Luca that money was payment for Salvatore’s death.”
