Chapter 6 - The Man Who Knew Her Brother
Chloe did not lower the phone.
"You have nine seconds."
Rocco glanced toward the aisle where Gabriel's voice had echoed.
"Your brother came to me after he spoke to Beatrice."
"Eight."
"He thought Vincent was stealing from Gabriel."
"Seven."
"He was wrong about one thing."
"Six."
"Vincent wasn't working alone."
Chloe took one step toward him.
"Five."
Rocco's jaw tightened.
"The second V is not a person."
Chloe stopped.
"What?"
Footsteps thundered closer.
Rocco reached inside his coat.
Chloe raised the phone like it could somehow protect her.
He pulled out a folded photograph.
"Valenti Logistics."
He shoved it into her hand.
"That's the second V."
Gabriel rounded the end of the aisle with two men behind him.
His expression changed the instant he saw Rocco.
"Move away from her."
Rocco lifted both hands again.
"I'm not your problem."
Gabriel kept walking.
"You put her brother's clothes in my restaurant."
"To make her follow the trail."
"You cut the power."
"Yes."
"You disappeared."
"Also yes."
Gabriel stopped six feet away.
"You have a strange method of proving you're loyal."
Rocco looked at Chloe.
"Show him the photograph."
Chloe unfolded it.
It showed a black tractor-trailer parked behind a warehouse.
The words VALENTI LOGISTICS were printed across the side.
Beneath the company name was a small blue crest.
Chloe recognized the symbol.
She had seen it engraved on the brass key from Leo's pendant.
Gabriel saw the connection too.
"Where did this come from?"
Rocco nodded toward the phone in Chloe's hand.
"The rest of Leo's video."
Chloe's heart lurched.
"There is more?"
"A lot more."
"Where?"
Rocco looked at Gabriel.
"Not here."
Gabriel laughed once.
"Everyone keeps saying that tonight."
A voice came from behind them.
"Because everywhere you own has ears."
Matteo Russo emerged from the next aisle with one of Gabriel's men supporting him.
Blood darkened the sleeve of his jacket, but he was walking.
Chloe looked at the wound and then away.
Matteo noticed.
"Looks worse than it is."
"People usually say that right before fainting," Chloe said.
"Then I promise to fall away from you."
Gabriel stared at him.
"Who shot at you?"
Matteo's tired smile disappeared.
"Someone who knew the truck would be here early."
"Name."
"Luca DeSantis."
The warehouse seemed to become colder.
Gabriel did not react immediately.
Chloe remembered the six men at dinner.
One had sat directly to Gabriel's right.
Silver tie.
Perfect posture.
Almost no expression.
Luca.
"Your adviser?" Chloe asked.
Gabriel's eyes stayed on Matteo.
"My father's adviser before he was mine."
Rocco gave a humorless laugh.
"That's why Leo wrote family."
Gabriel turned on him.
"You've known this for two years?"
"I've suspected it."
"That isn't what I asked."
"I knew Luca was connected to Valenti."
"And you said nothing?"
Rocco's face hardened.
"I said plenty."
"You said Vincent was reckless."
"Because every time I said Luca, your father shut me down."
Gabriel froze.
Rocco stepped closer.
"Your father protected him."
"My father is dead."
"Which is why you should ask what he was protecting."
Beatrice appeared at the end of the aisle.
Two security men trailed behind her helplessly.
Gabriel's anger shifted instantly.
"Ma, I told you to stay in the car."
Beatrice signed something violent enough that Chloe did not need to know every word.
She translated the polite version.
"She disagrees with your instructions."
Rocco's mouth twitched.
Beatrice saw him.
Her expression changed.
She walked directly toward him.
Rocco did not move.
Beatrice raised one hand.
Then she slapped him.
Hard.
Rocco accepted it without flinching.
Gabriel looked almost impressed.
Beatrice began signing.
Chloe moved beside her.
You frightened her.
You used Leo's things.
You made me think you were the enemy.
Rocco nodded.
"I know."
Beatrice's hands stopped.
She stared at him.
Rocco looked at Chloe.
"Tell her I am sorry."
Chloe signed it.
Beatrice answered immediately.
Sorry is a word people use when they want forgiveness before they earn it.
Chloe translated.
Rocco lowered his eyes.
"Then I haven't earned it."
Beatrice studied him.
Then she pointed to the phone.
All of it.
Now.
Rocco looked at Gabriel.
"There's a locker at Union Station."
Chloe's pulse quickened.
"The key?"
"The brass one."
Gabriel looked at Chloe's pocket.
"What's in the locker?"
"Leo's backup drive."
Chloe took one step toward Rocco.
"You had a backup drive from my brother for two years and never contacted me?"
Rocco's face tightened.
"I tried once."
"When?"
"Three days after the funeral."
Chloe searched her memory.
A man in a black sedan outside her apartment.
She had noticed him once.
Maybe twice.
She had been too numb to care.
"That was you?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you come upstairs?"
"Because another car was watching your building."
Chloe's stomach turned.
"Whose?"
"I never proved it."
"Guess."
Rocco looked at Gabriel.
"Luca's."
Gabriel's expression went flat.
"Where is Luca now?"
No one answered.
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
He called once.
No answer.
He called again.
Still nothing.
Then a message arrived.
Gabriel read it.
His face changed.
"What?" Chloe asked.
He showed them the screen.
The message was from Luca.
AUNT BEATRICE IS SAFER AT HOME.
STOP DRAGGING HER INTO THINGS SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND.
Beatrice read Gabriel's face rather than the screen.
She signed to Chloe.
What did he say?
Chloe showed her the message.
Beatrice read it slowly.
Then she laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was familiar.
Her hands rose.
There.
That sentence.
He used it before.
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
"What sentence?"
"Things she doesn't understand."
Beatrice nodded.
The night Leo came to me, Luca found us in the restaurant hallway.
He asked what the boy wanted.
I told him Leo was afraid.
Luca smiled.
He patted my shoulder.
He said, 'Don't involve yourself in things you don't understand.'
Gabriel went completely still.
Rocco looked away.
Chloe felt the entire story shift beneath her feet.
"Did Leo see Luca that night?"
Beatrice nodded.
Yes.
He became terrified.
He left through the kitchen.
Matteo spoke from behind them.
"I drove him home."
Chloe turned so fast she almost dropped the phone.
"You what?"
Matteo looked at her with exhausted eyes.
"Your brother."
"I drove him home that night."
The warehouse blurred at the edges.
Chloe moved closer.
"You were the driver?"
"Beatrice asked me to take him."
"And two nights later he was dead."
Matteo's face tightened.
"I know."
"Did you see who followed him?"
"Not that night."
"Then what did you see?"
Matteo reached into his coat and removed an old flip phone.
It looked ridiculous among all the sleek modern devices around them.
"Leo gave me this before he got out of the car."
Chloe stared at it.
"Why?"
"He said if anything happened, I should give it to the woman who could understand his hands."
Chloe's eyes burned.
"Beatrice."
Matteo nodded.
"I tried."
Beatrice frowned.
Matteo looked ashamed.
"Luca intercepted me the next morning."
Gabriel's voice dropped.
"How?"
"He said your father wanted the phone."
Rocco swore under his breath.
Matteo continued.
"I gave him a decoy."
He held up the old phone.
"I kept the real one."
Chloe almost hit him.
"For two years?"
"For two years, people around Gabriel were dying, disappearing, or changing sides."
Matteo looked at her.
"I didn't know who was safe."
"You could have found me."
"And bring them to your door?"
"They were already watching my door."
He had no answer.
Chloe reached for the phone.
Matteo gave it to her.
The battery was dead.
Gabriel looked at one of his men.
"Find a charger."
The man ran.
Chloe turned the phone over.
A strip of white tape covered the back.
Leo had written one word on it.
CHLOE.
Her name in his handwriting.
She pressed her thumb against the letters.
Her anger cracked.
For one dangerous second, grief rushed in underneath it.
Beatrice saw.
She put both arms around Chloe.
Chloe stiffened.
Then she let herself be held.
Gabriel watched them.
His face looked strangely exposed.
The security man returned with a cable.
Matteo plugged in the phone.
The screen flickered.
A lock screen appeared.
Four digits.
Chloe knew them immediately.
"His birthday."
She typed 0318.
Wrong code.
She tried her birthday.
Wrong.
Gabriel said nothing.
Chloe stared at the keypad.
Then she remembered the way Leo used to tease her.
He hated predictable passwords.
He always used dates that mattered to someone else.
She looked at Beatrice.
"When did you lose your hearing?"
Beatrice signed the date.
September fourteenth.
Chloe entered 0914.
The phone unlocked.
There was only one video file.
The timestamp was from the night before Leo died.
Chloe pressed play.
Leo appeared on the screen.
He was sitting in his bedroom.
He was signing directly to the camera.
Chloe felt her heart stop.
He began with her name.
Chloe.
If this reaches you, don't trust the accident story.
Someone followed me home.
I saw Luca at Il Canto.
I saw Vincent's name in the ledger.
But there is one thing Beatrice doesn't know.
Leo leaned closer to the camera.
May you like
The ledger belongs to Gabriel's father.
