Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER AT THE DOOR
Luca Moretti smiled into the security camera.
It was the easy smile of a man who had never needed permission to enter his brother’s buildings.
“Open up.”
The guard looked at Rico.
Rico looked at Clara.
She had gone rigid.
Leo sensed it immediately.
The boy tightened both arms around her neck.
Rico noticed that too.
“You know him?”
Clara shook her head too quickly.
“No.”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You reacted before anyone said his name.”
Clara’s throat moved.
“I saw his ring on the screen.”
Dante stepped closer.
“That monitor is twelve feet away.”
Clara said nothing.
Luca knocked again.
“Rico.”
His voice came through the intercom.
“I know you’re in there.”
Rico held Clara’s gaze.
“Did Luca come to the hospital?”
“I never saw the man’s face clearly.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Clara looked toward the camera feed.
Luca wore a charcoal overcoat over a tuxedo.
His hair was neatly combed.
There was no visible threat in his posture.
But Clara’s hand had started trembling against Leo’s back.
“I saw his eyes,” she whispered.
Rico’s expression sharpened.
“And?”
“The man at the hospital had the same eyes.”
Dante cursed quietly.
Rico said nothing for a long moment.
Then he stood.
“Put Leo in my office.”
The child immediately clung harder to Clara.
“No.”
Rico crouched in front of him.
“Leo.”
“No.”
“Son.”
Leo buried his face against Clara again.
Rico’s jaw tightened.
Clara spoke softly.
“I’ll go with him.”
Rico looked at her.
“You’ll stay where I can see you.”
“Then let him stay with me.”
Dante gave Rico a warning glance.
Rico ignored it.
He looked at his son for another second.
“Fine.”
Then he pointed toward the kitchen corridor.
“Take them into the private wine room.”
Two guards moved toward Clara.
Rico stopped them.
“Not you.”
He looked at Marco.
“You.”
Marco stared.
“Me?”
“Unless you want to be unemployed.”
Marco immediately led Clara away.
Leo remained in her arms.
As they passed the security monitor, Clara glanced at Luca again.
Luca was no longer smiling.
He was looking directly into the camera.
For one impossible second, Clara felt as though he could see her through the wall.
The wine room door closed behind her.
Rico waited until the latch clicked.
Then he nodded to the guard.
“Open the front door.”
Luca walked in carrying rain on the shoulders of his coat.
He glanced around the empty restaurant.
“What happened?”
“Private event.”
Luca laughed.
“At your own restaurant?”
Rico did not smile.
“What do you want?”
Luca removed his gloves.
“Mother called me.”
“Why?”
“She heard Leo was having one of his episodes.”
Rico’s eyes narrowed.
“That happened twenty minutes ago.”
Luca shrugged.
“News travels.”
“From who?”
Luca looked toward Marco, who had returned from the hallway.
“Probably someone on staff.”
Marco’s face drained.
“I didn’t call anyone.”
Rico watched his brother.
Luca seemed relaxed.
Too relaxed.
He walked toward the table and noticed the broken plate.
“Poor kid.”
He looked around.
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Rico picked up the silver pendant.
Luca stopped moving.
The reaction was tiny.
A pause of less than a second.
But Rico had survived because he noticed less.
“You recognize this?”
Luca’s eyes settled on the pendant.
“Elena’s.”
“How do you know?”
“She wore it every day.”
Rico closed his fist.
“She was wearing it the day she died.”
Luca’s smile faded.
“Okay.”
“So how did it end up around the neck of a waitress in my restaurant?”
Luca stared at him.
“What waitress?”
“Clara Vance.”
Nothing changed in Luca’s face.
But his right thumb began rubbing the edge of his family ring.
Rico had seen him do that since childhood.
Luca did it when he was thinking too quickly.
“I’ve never heard the name.”
Rico stepped closer.
“She says Elena gave it to her at St. Vincent’s after the shooting.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“That’s impossible.”
“That was my response.”
“Elena died in the car.”
“Apparently not.”
Luca glanced toward Dante.
“You believe this waitress?”
“I believe my son.”
“What does Leo have to do with it?”
“She knew how to calm him.”
Luca frowned.
“So?”
“She used Elena’s words.”
That landed.
Luca went quiet.
Rico watched him carefully.
“Count the stars.”
For the first time, Luca’s expression cracked.
His eyes moved toward the hallway.
Rico saw it.
“What?”
Luca looked back.
“Nothing.”
“You know the phrase.”
“I heard Elena say it.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
Rico stepped closer.
“You just looked toward the back room.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You’re seeing ghosts because you miss your wife.”
Rico moved so fast that Dante barely reacted.
He grabbed Luca by the lapels and slammed him against a column.
Marco flinched.
Two guards looked away.
Luca did not fight back.
He stared into his brother’s face.
“You want to hit me?”
Rico’s voice was almost a whisper.
“I want the truth.”
“Then stop looking for it in strangers.”
Rico tightened his grip.
“Were you at St. Vincent’s the night Elena died?”
Luca’s face changed again.
Very slightly.
Rico saw it.
“So you were.”
Luca shoved him away.
“I went to identify her body.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I identified her body.”
Luca froze.
The silence between the brothers became dangerous.
Rico remembered the morgue.
The white sheet.
The burned skin along Elena’s temple.
The wedding ring on her hand.
The doctor who had barely met his eyes.
He remembered refusing an autopsy because his mother had begged him not to let strangers cut Elena open.
He remembered Luca standing in the hallway afterward.
Too calm.
Too helpful.
Rico’s chest tightened.
“What did you identify?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“You’re grieving again.”
“You said you identified her body.”
“I misspoke.”
Rico smiled without humor.
“You don’t misspeak.”
From the wine room came the faint sound of Leo laughing.
Every man in the restaurant went still.
It was barely a laugh.
A soft burst of sound.
But Rico had not heard it in six months.
He turned his head toward the hallway.
Luca did too.
Then Luca whispered something Rico was not meant to hear.
“She really came back.”
Rico turned slowly.
“What did you say?”
Luca stared at him.
“Nothing.”
Rico crossed the distance between them.
“You said she came back.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Dante stepped between them.
“Boss.”
Rico shoved past him.
“What does Clara have to do with Elena?”
Luca shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Rico looked toward Dante.
“Search him.”
Luca’s face darkened.
“You’re serious?”
“Very.”
Dante approached.
Luca lifted both arms.
“This is insane.”
Dante removed a phone, a wallet, a folding knife, and a set of keys.
Then his hand paused inside Luca’s inner coat pocket.
He pulled out a small paper envelope.
Luca’s face went flat.
Rico took it.
“What’s this?”
“Business.”
Rico opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
The image showed Clara leaving a brick apartment building.
The date printed in the corner was three days earlier.
Rico stared at it.
Then he looked at Luca.
“You’ve never heard her name?”
Luca said nothing.
Rico flipped the photograph over.
On the back, in blue ink, were five handwritten words.
SHE STILL HAS THE KEY.
The wine room door opened.
Clara stood in the hallway with Leo in her arms.
She saw the photograph in Rico’s hand.
Then she saw Luca.
For several seconds after Clara disappeared into the wine room, Rico stood with his back to Luca and listened to the building breathe.
The refrigerators hummed behind the kitchen wall.
Rain ticked against the front windows.
Somewhere upstairs, a pipe knocked twice.
Those ordinary sounds irritated him because nothing about the night felt ordinary anymore.
He had spent six months turning Elena's death into a problem he could survive.
He had found people to blame.
He had tightened security.
He had punished rivals who might have benefited from the attack.
He had told himself that action was grief with a purpose.
Now a waitress had walked into his restaurant wearing Elena's pendant and spoken Elena's private words to his son.
Action no longer felt useful.
He needed truth.
Luca watched him from across the room.
“You're doing that thing,” Luca said.
Rico did not look over.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you get quiet and decide somebody has to bleed before you know whether they deserve it.”
Rico turned then.
“You have advice?”
“I have history.”
Luca leaned against a chair.
“When Dad got suspicious, he stopped listening.”
Rico's expression hardened.
“Don't compare me to him.”
“I didn't.”
Luca's gaze shifted toward the wine-room door.
“I said you learned something from him.”
That angered Rico because it was true.
Dante returned from checking the front entrance.
“No unusual vehicles on the block.”
Rico glanced at him.
“Unusual according to who?”
Dante understood the accusation underneath the question.
“According to me.”
“And should that reassure me?”
Dante held his gaze.
“I've kept you alive for seventeen years.”
Rico gave a humorless smile.
“Maybe that just means you've had seventeen years of access.”
Marco visibly wished he were somewhere else.
Luca straightened.
“Enough.”
Rico looked at him.
“If Clara is telling the truth, somebody with a family ring walked into a hospital looking for Elena.”
Luca nodded.
“That means all of us get questioned.”
“Including you.”
“Especially me.”
For once, Luca did not make a joke.
Rico studied his younger brother and remembered the night Elena died.
Luca had arrived at Rico's apartment at four in the morning.
His shirt had been changed.
His hair had been wet as if he had showered.
Rico had assumed grief made details meaningless.
Now every forgotten detail was returning sharpened.
“Where were you between eleven and one that night?” Rico asked.
Luca's jaw shifted.
“At home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“No witnesses?”
“No.”
Rico stepped closer.
“You told me you were at a club.”
Luca's face changed.
“That was earlier.”
“Which club?”
Luca exhaled.
“You're interrogating me in a restaurant.”
“Answer.”
“Vesper.”
“Who saw you?”
“Half of SoHo.”
“And after?”
Luca looked away for a fraction of a second.
Rico noticed.
“After?”
“I drove around.”
“Where?”
Luca laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You really want to do this now?”
“Yes.”
Luca opened his mouth.
A faint laugh came from the wine room.
Leo.
Both brothers stopped.
The sound was small and imperfect, but it cut through the interrogation like light through a crack.
Rico's anger shifted direction.
Whatever Clara knew, whatever Luca was hiding, whatever Elena had left behind, his son had just laughed.
And Rico realized with a force that frightened him that he would walk into almost any trap if it promised one more sound like that.
Her face collapsed.
“That’s him.”
Luca turned toward her.
Clara took one step backward.
“That’s the man from the hospital.”
Rico slowly looked at his brother.
Luca did not deny it.
Instead, he smiled.
And said the last thing anyone expected.
May you like
“You should have stayed hidden, Clara.”
