Chapter 10 - The Enemy Wearing a Familiar Face
Nomi watched the airport footage eleven times.
On the twelfth, Octavio took the phone away.
“You’re going to memorize the pixels.”
“I already have.”
The man walked like her father.
That was the worst part.
Memory was unreliable after fifteen years, but some things stayed.
The slight lean in his left shoulder.
The way he touched his watch while walking.
Nomi had inherited both habits.
“He’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“He was in Chicago tonight.”
“Yes.”
“With Sarno.”
“Yes.”
She looked at Octavio.
“Stop agreeing.”
“All right.”
“He abandoned us.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I said stop being reasonable too.”
Octavio nodded.
“Understood.”
Valentina returned the next afternoon.
Nobody managed to stop her.
She arrived at Iron & Iris wearing a white faux-fur coat over jeans, carrying three suitcases and dragging Axel behind her.
Axel had removed the mohawk.
Octavio seemed almost disappointed.
Valentina walked directly toward Nomi.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
Then hugged her.
Nomi held on.
For a long time.
When Valentina finally released her, she turned toward Octavio.
“What did you do?”
Octavio stared.
“Why would this automatically be my fault?”
“Experience.”
Axel raised one hand.
“I’m going to stand quietly over here.”
“Good,” Octavio said.
“Absolutely.”
Nomi almost laughed.
They told Valentina everything.
The drawings.
Vincent.
Malcolm.
Sarno.
Nomi’s father.
By the end, Valentina had gone pale.
“My uncle?”
“Yes,” Octavio said.
“He betrayed us?”
“Probably.”
“And Daniel?”
“Not betrayed.”
Daniel, standing near the door, nodded appreciatively.
Valentina looked at Nomi.
“Your dad is alive?”
“Apparently.”
Valentina took her hand.
No words.
She knew better.
Octavio noticed.
So did Nomi.
Maybe that was why Valentina understood both of them better than either expected.
She knew when to fight.
And when silence mattered more.
Daniel tracked Marco Dalen to a hotel near the river.
Nomi wanted to go immediately.
Octavio wanted six hours of surveillance first.
They compromised at two.
Progress.
At 8:15 p.m., Nomi entered the hotel restaurant.
Octavio waited across the street.
Her condition.
She needed to face her father without a mafia boss standing over her shoulder.
Octavio hated it.
He allowed it anyway.
Progress again.
Marco Dalen sat alone beside the window.
He looked older than the man Nomi remembered.
Of course he did.
She was no longer eight.
He was no longer the father who lifted her onto his shoulders at street fairs.
Nomi stopped beside the table.
Marco looked up.
His face collapsed.
“Nomi.”
Hearing her name in his voice hurt worse than she expected.
“Hello, Dad.”
He stood.
She stepped back.
He stopped.
“Right.”
His voice broke.
“Of course.”
Nomi sat.
Marco did the same.
Neither spoke.
Then Nomi placed one of the photographs from Sarno Logistics on the table.
“Start.”
Marco stared.
“You know.”
“I know you’re alive.”
His eyes closed.
“That alone is going to take considerable explanation.”
“I wanted to come back.”
Nomi’s laugh was cold.
“Fifteen years gives a person several opportunities.”
“I know.”
“Mom died.”
Marco looked as though she had struck him.
“When?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Nomi stared.
“She died seven years ago.”
His face crumpled.
For several seconds, he could not speak.
Nomi wanted to hate him.
That reaction made it harder.
“Why?”
Marco looked toward the window.
“Sarno.”
“Obviously.”
“I worked for him when I was young. Accounting. Nothing violent. At least I told myself that.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“Then I found evidence connecting him to people inside the Ki organization.”
“Vincent.”
“Yes.”
Nomi’s pulse increased.
“I tried to leave.”
“He threatened us.”
Marco nodded.
“He showed me photographs of you walking to school.”
Nomi went cold.
“He said if I disappeared, you would disappear too.”
“So you stayed?”
“I made him think I chose him.”
“And Mom?”
“I sent money.”
“She never knew from whom.”
“I couldn’t contact her.”
“You could have found a way.”
“Yes.”
The word stopped her.
Marco did not defend himself.
“I was afraid.”
Nomi’s anger sharpened.
“Mom was afraid too.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.”
Again.
No defense.
It was infuriating.
Marco slid something across the table.
A small notebook.
“Your mother knew more than you think.”
Nomi stared.
“What is that?”
“Her handwriting.”
Nomi opened it.
Her mother’s writing.
Dates.
Numbers.
Names.
One repeated.
Vincent Ki.
Another.
Emilio Sarno.
Another entry:
If Marco cannot come home, make sure Nomi never knows enough to follow him.
Nomi’s vision blurred.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“She told me you left us.”
“To protect you.”
Nomi closed the notebook.
Her entire childhood shifted beneath her feet.
Marco leaned forward.
“I came to Chicago because Sarno is frightened.”
“Of Octavio?”
“Of you.”
Nomi laughed.
“That’s absurd.”
“No.”
Marco’s eyes were serious.
“You have something he has searched for fifteen years.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Your mother hid it.”
“Where?”
Marco swallowed.
“She said Nomi would carry it without knowing.”
Nomi stared.
“Carry what?”
“I never understood.”
Then she remembered.
Her mother’s tattoo.
The last design she had ever drawn for Nomi.
Not on Nomi’s skin.
A little symbol she had taught Nomi to draw.
An open eye.
The same symbol Nomi still drew on her wrist when she needed to remember to see beyond appearances.
Nomi’s breath stopped.
“My eye.”
Marco’s face changed.
“What?”
“The symbol.”
She pulled out a pen and drew it.
Marco turned white.
“That’s it.”
“What is it?”
“A cipher.”
Nomi stared.
Octavio had said her mother’s handwriting tattoo meant remember who you were before others told you who to become.
Now her own mother had left her something too.
Not a message.
A key.
Before Marco could explain, the restaurant lights flickered.
His face changed.
“Go.”
“What?”
“Nomi, go.”
A man entered through the kitchen door.
Marco stood.
Across the street, Octavio moved instantly.
Nomi saw him through the window.
Running.
Marco grabbed her hand.
“Sarno knows I talked to you.”
“Then come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“He has Malcolm’s son.”
Nomi froze.
“And others.”
Marco pushed the notebook into her hand.
“Your mother discovered where Sarno kept everything.”
“What everything?”
“Records. Payments. Names.”
The man near the kitchen started toward them.
Marco whispered:
“The eye leads to the ledger.”
Octavio entered the restaurant.
The stranger stopped.
Marco looked at Octavio.
For the first time, Nomi’s father and the mafia boss faced each other.
Marco said only one thing.
“Keep her free.”
Octavio’s answer came without hesitation.
“That choice belongs to her.”
Marco stared.
Then smiled faintly.
“Good.”
He turned and walked toward the kitchen.
Nomi grabbed his sleeve.
“Dad.”
He stopped.
Her voice cracked.
“Don’t disappear again.”
Marco looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“I’ll try.”
He left.
Octavio stood beside Nomi.
He did not ask what happened.
He waited.
Nomi handed him the notebook.
“My mother left a cipher.”
Octavio examined the eye.
“What does it unlock?”
Nomi looked toward the door where her father had vanished.
“The thing Sarno has been afraid I would find my entire life.”
And suddenly the war was no longer only about the Ki family.
May you like
It was about hers.
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