Chapter 6 - The Man Beside the Black Sedan
Daniel Vieri had spent most of the day believing Aleandro would eventually decide he was lying.
He was therefore surprised when Aleandro entered the library and asked him a different question.
“Do you know Sofia Bellini?”
Daniel’s face answered before his mouth did.
“Yes.”
Marco closed the door.
“You told us you didn’t know who picked Elena up.”
“I didn’t see the driver.”
“We have footage.”
Daniel looked down.
Aleandro approached.
“No games.”
Daniel exhaled.
“Sofia works with a network that helps people disappear.”
“People?”
“Witnesses. Employees who find things powerful people don’t want found. People trapped by organizations they can’t simply resign from.”
Marco folded his arms.
“And you know this how?”
“Because she helped me once.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“That’s when she supposedly died,” Aleandro said.
Daniel nodded.
“She had to disappear too.”
“From whom?”
Daniel looked directly at him.
“Your family.”
Aleandro remained still.
“Be precise.”
“Not you.”
“That distinction matters.”
“Vittorio.”
The name hung there again.
Daniel continued.
“Sofia discovered companies being established in the Moretti name without your knowledge. She told her brother.”
“Tomas?”
“Yes.”
Aleandro exchanged a glance with Marco.
“So Tomas knows Vittorio is corrupt.”
“Knew something. Not everything.”
“Then why is he helping Vittorio?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Because Vittorio has Sofia.”
Marco frowned.
“She escaped.”
“She came back.”
“Why?”
“To protect Tomas.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“That’s what people do. They run away, then discover the people they love can still be used against them.”
Aleandro thought of Elena.
“Where did Sofia take her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re becoming repetitive.”
“There are several safe locations.”
“List them.”
Daniel did.
An abandoned clinic.
An apartment above a bakery.
A farmhouse seventy miles north.
A storage facility.
A church shelter.
Aleandro sent separate teams he trusted personally.
None found Elena.
At sunset, Mia refused dinner.
Aleandro discovered her sitting on the stairs.
Bunny rested in her lap.
“You should eat.”
“No.”
“Rosa made pasta.”
“No.”
“You like pasta.”
“No.”
Aleandro sat one step below her.
He could command men who carried weapons.
He had no idea how to negotiate with a child who rejected pasta.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
“Mommy says dinner together.”
Aleandro understood.
“You’re waiting.”
Mia nodded.
His chest tightened.
“She might not come tonight.”
“You promised.”
“I promised to find her.”
“Today?”
Aleandro looked away.
Mia’s eyes filled.
He hated that sight more than he expected.
“I’m trying.”
“My mommy cries when she thinks I sleep.”
Aleandro turned.
“What?”
“She thinks I don’t hear.”
“When does she cry?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
Mia shrugged.
“She looks at Daddy’s picture.”
Elena’s husband.
The factory accident.
Something Daniel had said returned to Aleandro.
Organizations people cannot simply resign from.
“Your father worked at a factory?”
Mia nodded without understanding.
Aleandro stood.
“Rosa.”
The cook appeared.
“Get Elena’s employment application.”
Ten minutes later, Aleandro read it.
Husband: Matthew Rossi.
Deceased.
Employer: Bellmont Industrial Fabrication.
Aleandro froze.
Bellmont was owned by a Moretti subsidiary.
Marco entered.
“What?”
“Matthew Rossi worked for us.”
Marco read the page.
“Factory accident?”
“Find the report.”
It took thirty minutes.
Matthew Rossi had died when an industrial press malfunctioned.
Compensation had been paid.
The case closed.
But the maintenance contractor listed on the incident report was Northstar Mechanical.
Same shell-company family.
Aleandro looked at the date.
Four years ago.
The year Elena came to the mansion.
“Coincidence?” Marco asked.
“No.”
Another document emerged.
Matthew had been a maintenance supervisor.
Two days before his death, he submitted a safety complaint.
Attached to it was a note.
UNAUTHORIZED NIGHT SHIPMENTS THROUGH BAY 6.
Aleandro felt cold.
Matthew Rossi had noticed the same hidden logistics network Elena discovered years later.
“Vittorio killed him?” Marco asked.
“We don’t know.”
But both men were thinking it.
Daniel was brought upstairs.
Aleandro placed Matthew’s report in front of him.
Daniel stared.
“Where did you get this?”
“My company records.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Then this started earlier than I thought.”
“How much earlier?”
Daniel looked at Aleandro.
“Northstar existed before I joined. I was told it began after Adrian died.”
Marco said, “Adrian didn’t die.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“You know.”
“You knew?”
“I knew someone called Adrian was involved. I didn’t know who he was.”
Aleandro walked toward the window.
Outside, the black sedan Daniel had arrived in remained impounded on the driveway.
Mia had pointed at it that morning.
A thought occurred.
“Search the car again.”
“We did,” Marco said.
“Search it as if the person hiding something knows how we search.”
They dismantled parts of the interior.
Behind the rear-seat lining, Marco found a tracking transmitter.
Not belonging to Daniel.
Someone had been monitoring his vehicle.
Underneath it was something else.
A folded receipt.
Gas station.
2:07 a.m.
Forty-eight miles north.
Daniel stared.
“I never stopped there.”
“Then who drove your car after South Station?”
Daniel’s face changed.
“I left it in a garage and changed vehicles.”
“Who knew?”
“Sofia.”
Aleandro looked at Marco.
The farmhouse Daniel mentioned was fifty-five miles north.
Close.
They left within minutes.
Aleandro took only Marco and two men whose files beneath the chapel had marked them LOYAL.
No radio.
No convoy.
At 9:43 p.m., they reached the farmhouse.
The lights were off.
The front door stood open.
Inside, chairs had been overturned.
A coffee cup lay broken.
A child’s red hair ribbon rested near the stairs.
Mia did not wear ribbons.
Elena sometimes did.
Aleandro picked it up.
Marco found a note pinned to the kitchen table.
Four words.
STOP LOOKING FOR HER.
Beneath the message was a photograph.
Elena sitting in an unfamiliar room.
Alive.
Frightened.
Holding that day’s newspaper.
On the back, someone had written:
FRIDAY. MIDNIGHT. YOUR EMPIRE FOR HER LIFE.
Aleandro read it twice.
Marco’s voice became quiet.
“They want you to surrender.”
“No.”
Aleandro looked at Elena’s photograph.
“They want me to believe surrendering will save her.”
He turned the picture toward the light.
In the corner behind Elena was a small stained-glass window.
A saint holding a sword.
Aleandro recognized it.
So did Marco.
The image existed in only one place they knew.
The abandoned Moretti chapel beside the old river warehouse.
The warehouse officially closed nine years ago.
The same week Adrian Moretti supposedly died.
May you like
And suddenly Aleandro knew where the conspiracy had truly begun.
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