Chapter 8 - The Secret Hidden Inside the Sketch
Vincent did not find the sketchbook.
Someone else did.
When Nomi and Octavio reached her apartment, the door was open.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
That was worse.
Octavio entered first.
Nomi followed despite his objection.
The bedroom window was unlocked.
The sketchbook was gone.
Nomi stood beside the bed.
“No.”
Octavio checked the closet.
“Anything else missing?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m an artist with mild organizational chaos, not amnesia.”
His gaze moved around the room.
“No forced entry.”
“Someone had a key?”
“Or picked the lock.”
Nomi crouched.
Something white rested beneath the radiator.
A receipt.
Not hers.
She reached for it.
Octavio stopped her.
“Gloves.”
“You’re becoming unbearable.”
“Becoming?”
She took a glove.
The receipt came from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy six blocks away.
Time stamp: twenty-eight minutes earlier.
One item.
Disposable lighter.
Nomi frowned.
“They took my book and bought a lighter?”
Octavio called Daniel.
Within minutes, security checked exterior cameras.
A man had entered Nomi’s building twelve minutes before Vincent arrived.
Cap.
Mask.
Average build.
He left carrying something beneath his coat.
Vincent appeared seven minutes later.
Then left empty-handed.
“Someone beat him here,” Nomi said.
“Yes.”
“Someone working with him?”
“Possibly.”
“Or against him.”
Octavio looked at her.
Nomi pointed toward the receipt.
“If Vincent sent the thief, why come himself?”
He considered.
“He wouldn’t.”
“So there’s another player.”
Daniel called again.
A trash fire had been reported behind the pharmacy.
Nomi’s heart sank.
They reached the alley at 11:23 p.m.
Firefighters were already leaving.
The flames had been minor.
Paper.
Cardboard.
And the black cover of Nomi’s sketchbook.
She stared at the ruined pages.
Years of drawings turned to ash.
Octavio stood beside her.
“I’m sorry.”
Nomi crouched.
She wanted to cry.
Not because of evidence.
Because pieces of her life were inside that book.
Valentina sleeping at dinner.
Rosa carrying flowers.
Octavio by windows.
Her own hand growing steadier over three years.
Gone.
Nomi touched the edge of a half-burned page.
Then stopped.
Something survived.
A drawing.
Only the bottom half.
Two men standing beside a car.
She remembered it suddenly.
One of her earliest dinners with Valentina.
Three years ago.
Nomi had stepped outside for air and seen Vincent talking with someone near the driveway.
She sketched them from memory later.
At the time, she did not know either man well.
Now she recognized Vincent.
The second man was partially hidden.
But the car license plate remained.
Octavio stared.
“That car belonged to my father.”
Nomi looked up.
“But your father was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Who inherited it?”
Octavio’s face became stone.
“Vincent.”
“No.”
“Not officially.”
“What does that mean?”
“The car disappeared after my father died.”
Daniel photographed the page.
Octavio looked at the surviving license plate.
“My father suspected someone before he died.”
“And Vincent had his car.”
“Yes.”
Nomi slowly stood.
“What if your father’s death wasn’t connected only to your mother?”
Octavio’s gaze snapped toward her.
She regretted the wording.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
His voice was distant.
“Say it.”
“What if Vincent’s betrayal started before your father died?”
Octavio stared at the burned sketch.
Something terrible and quiet moved through him.
For years, he had believed his father died from a heart attack eleven months after his mother’s death.
Natural.
Sudden.
Devastating.
But natural.
Now everything looked different.
Daniel returned from the alley entrance.
“We found camera footage.”
He held up his phone.
The man who burned the sketchbook had removed his mask briefly.
Nomi did not recognize him.
Octavio did.
“Malcolm.”
The accountant.
The man from dinner.
Daniel nodded.
“Looks like he stole the book before Vincent arrived.”
“So Malcolm works against Vincent?” Nomi asked.
“Or he’s protecting him from himself,” Daniel said.
Octavio stared at the image.
“Find him.”
Daniel hesitated.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Malcolm used a company vehicle.”
“So?”
“The company isn’t one of ours.”
Daniel turned the phone.
Sarno Logistics.
Nomi exhaled.
“Malcolm works for Emilio.”
“Apparently.”
Octavio’s voice became quiet.
“Which means Vincent may not be the one running this.”
Nomi understood.
Vincent might be corrupt.
But someone else could be controlling him.
The hierarchy they assumed was wrong.
On the drive back, Octavio said almost nothing.
Nomi watched the city pass.
Finally:
“You don’t have to be okay.”
He looked at her.
“I am.”
“That’s not true.”
“I don’t have time not to be.”
Nomi hated that answer.
“So schedule it.”
“What?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“For what?”
“To be angry. Sad. Confused. Human. Whatever.”
“This is not a tattoo appointment.”
“No, but you clearly require scheduling.”
He looked out the window.
Then, astonishingly:
“Fifteen minutes.”
Nomi checked her phone.
“Starting now.”
He laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was probably worse.
For the next fifteen minutes, Octavio talked.
Not like a mafia boss.
Like a son.
He told Nomi about his father teaching him to drive at fourteen on private roads.
His mother sneaking pastries into his room after his father imposed absurd training schedules.
Valentina hiding beneath Octavio’s bed after nightmares.
His father becoming colder after his wife died.
The heart attack.
The funeral.
Octavio becoming head of the family at nineteen because there was nobody else he trusted.
“I thought if I controlled everything,” he said, “nobody could disappear again.”
Nomi listened.
“That’s why Valentina couldn’t breathe.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you couldn’t either.”
He looked at her.
“I never considered breathing necessary.”
“Very dramatic.”
“I’m being vulnerable.”
“Sorry.”
A faint smile appeared.
Nomi checked the time.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“That’s all?”
“You can book another session.”
His smile became real.
There.
Nomi finally saw it.
It changed his entire face.
She forgot how to breathe.
Octavio noticed.
The smile faded into something quieter.
“Nomi.”
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because we are in the middle of a conspiracy and your face is being inconvenient.”
“My face?”
“Yes.”
“That may be the strangest compliment I’ve received.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Of course.”
The vehicle stopped outside the tattoo shop.
Nomi reached for the door.
Octavio touched her wrist.
“Wait.”
His expression had changed again.
“What?”
He pointed through the windshield.
The shop lights were on.
Nomi knew she had turned them off.
Someone moved inside.
Octavio called Daniel.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then Nomi’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A video.
She opened it.
Daniel Cho sat tied to a chair inside Iron & Iris.
A bruise marked his temple.
Behind him stood Malcolm.
Malcolm looked directly into the camera.
“Bring the surviving drawing.”
Nomi’s blood ran cold.
“Midnight.”
The camera shifted.
Daniel lifted his head.
“Don’t.”
Malcolm struck the chair, not him, silencing him.
Then smiled.
“And bring the artist.”
The video ended.
Octavio looked at Nomi.
“No.”
She stared through the windshield at her shop.
“Don’t even start.”
“You are not going inside.”
“That’s Daniel.”
“I know.”
“He helped us.”
“I know.”
“They want me.”
“That is exactly why—”
“Octavio.”
She turned toward him.
“You said you wanted to stop repeating your father’s mistakes.”
His expression hardened.
“This is different.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“They are using you as leverage.”
“Only if you treat me like leverage.”
His eyes flashed.
“What do you suggest?”
Nomi looked at the surviving burned sketch in the evidence sleeve.
Then at Iron & Iris.
“We give Malcolm exactly what he asked for.”
Octavio stared at her.
She smiled without humor.
“Just not what he thinks.”
May you like
And for the first time, Octavio Ki realized the most dangerous person in his car might not be him.
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