Chapter 5 - The Night Matteo Couldn’t Protect Her
The shooting lasted eleven seconds.
To Tessa, it felt like eleven minutes.
Matteo kept her on the floor until his security chief shouted that the street was clear.
When he finally moved, Tessa saw blood on his sleeve.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not mine.”
That answer should not have comforted her.
It did.
Two attackers had fired from a moving vehicle.
Neither had been captured.
One of Matteo’s security men had been hit in the shoulder but remained conscious.
Police sirens approached.
Matteo stood.
“We leave.”
“The police are coming.”
“That’s why we leave.”
Tessa stared at him.
“I’m not running from the police.”
“You’re not. You’re avoiding reporters, questions, and whoever just learned exactly where you are.”
“That sounds suspiciously like running.”
“Tessa.”
She looked toward Mrs. Delaney.
“I’m staying until she’s safe.”
Matteo did not argue.
He personally arranged a hotel suite for the older woman and had two female security officers escort her.
Only then did Tessa agree to leave.
Not for Matteo’s estate.
Not for one of his private apartments.
She insisted on the hotel.
“Public building,” she said.
“Owned by me.”
“Still public.”
Matteo gave up.
At midnight, Tessa sat in a private conference room wearing a borrowed sweater while Matteo, Gabriel, and the security chief faced one another across a long table.
Gabriel had arrived twenty minutes earlier.
Tessa watched him carefully.
He resembled Matteo.
Same dark eyes.
Same controlled posture.
But there was less steel in him.
More nervous energy.
Matteo placed his phone on the table and played Elena’s video.
Gabriel went pale.
“She said not to trust you.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming very popular tonight,” Tessa muttered.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You’re Margaret’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You look like her.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
Gabriel sat.
“I was sixteen when Margaret disappeared.”
“You knew her too?”
“She helped me with algebra.”
Tessa almost laughed at the absurdity.
A mafia family.
A missing accountant.
And algebra.
“Was my mother involved with either of you romantically?”
Matteo nearly choked on his water.
Gabriel stared.
“What?”
“I’m tired of surprises.”
“No,” Matteo said.
Gabriel shook his head.
“She was like family.”
“Then why did she run?”
The brothers looked at one another.
Gabriel answered.
“Because our father discovered she had copied financial records.”
“Where are those records?”
“We never found them.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“Tell me everything you know about Luca Bernetti.”
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
“He worked for Father.”
“We know that.”
“He also worked with Bellandi.”
Matteo froze.
“You knew?”
“I discovered it six months ago.”
“And said nothing.”
“I was gathering proof.”
“You had six months.”
“I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Matteo slammed his palm on the table.
Tessa flinched.
Matteo saw it and immediately pulled back.
The brief remorse in his eyes surprised her.
Gabriel continued.
“Luca has spent twenty years rebuilding the network Father lost when Margaret disappeared with the records.”
“Why now?”
“Because Bellandi is preparing a massive port contract. If they get it, they can move almost anything through legitimate channels.”
Tessa unfolded the photocopied contract.
“My mother wrote to follow the charity money.”
Gabriel looked at the page.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He pointed to a code beside one shipping authorization.
“MH-2719.”
“So?”
“That code appears on dozens of old transactions.”
Matteo leaned closer.
“Meaning?”
“I thought MH stood for medical humanitarian.”
Tessa felt cold.
“My mother’s initials.”
Margaret Hart.
Gabriel stared at her.
“Your mother may have created the code.”
“Why?”
“To mark suspicious shipments.”
Tessa remembered a phrase her mother had repeated throughout childhood.
Always leave yourself a trail back home.
She had assumed it was advice about traveling.
Maybe it had meant something else.
“My mother kept journals,” Tessa said.
Matteo looked up.
“In the stolen box?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I have them.”
Everyone stared at her.
“You said the box contained her papers,” Matteo said.
“It contained financial records and photographs. The journals are somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Tessa hesitated.
Then smiled faintly.
“My mother didn’t trust banks.”
Three hours later, Matteo’s vehicle stopped outside a twenty-four-hour bus station.
Gabriel stared at the building.
“You’re joking.”
“My mother rented a locker here for fifteen years.”
“You kept paying for it?”
“She prepaid it.”
Matteo looked at her.
“For fifteen years?”
Tessa shrugged.
“She had commitment issues except with bus-station storage.”
The locker was behind an old row of vending machines.
Tessa entered the combination.
Her birthday.
Inside sat three notebooks, a flash drive, and an envelope.
The envelope was addressed:
For Tessa, when the Morettis find you.
Nobody spoke.
Tessa opened it.
Her mother’s handwriting filled four pages.
She read silently.
Then stopped.
“What does it say?” Matteo asked.
Tessa looked at him.
“She knew you would find me.”
“When?”
“She wrote this seventeen years ago.”
Matteo’s face tightened.
Tessa continued reading.
Her mother explained that Luca Bernetti had discovered she copied evidence proving Don Vittorio Moretti’s charity was laundering money.
But Vittorio was not operating alone.
Someone had been using the same network to traffic stolen medicine.
Margaret feared the records would eventually become valuable again.
So she hid everything.
The final paragraph made Tessa’s hands shake.
Tessa, there is something I never told you because I wanted you to have a life untouched by these people. Elena Moretti’s mother, Sofia, was my closest friend. When Sofia believed someone inside the family wanted her dead, she gave me something to protect. If Elena is ever in danger, the truth belongs to her.
Tessa turned the page.
A small key was taped to the back.
Underneath, her mother had written an address.
Matteo recognized it.
“That’s St. Michael’s Cemetery.”
Tessa’s stomach dropped.
Her mother’s grave.
They arrived shortly before dawn.
The cemetery was silent.
Frozen grass glittered beneath the security lights.
Tessa led them toward Margaret Hart’s headstone.
Matteo followed.
Gabriel stayed several yards behind with security.
At the base of the stone was a small brass compartment Tessa had never noticed.
The key fit.
Inside was another flash drive.
And a sealed photograph.
Tessa opened it.
The image showed Sofia Moretti holding a newborn baby.
Beside her stood Margaret.
On the back was written:
Elena is not Vittorio’s granddaughter. Never let Luca learn who her father is.
Matteo stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Tessa turned over a second photograph.
A man stood holding baby Elena.
His face was unmistakable.
Gabriel.
Matteo looked toward his brother.
Gabriel had followed them closer.
The photograph slipped from Tessa’s fingers.
Matteo whispered:
“Elena is your daughter?”
Gabriel’s face collapsed.
And before he could answer, a shot cracked across the cemetery.
Tessa felt Matteo slam into her.
They fell behind the headstone.
Another bullet shattered stone above them.
Gabriel shouted.
Security returned fire.
Then Tessa looked down.
Blood spread across Matteo’s shirt.
May you like
This time, it was his.
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