Chapter 9 - A Dead Man’s Name in Aleandro’s Records
At 5:58 a.m., mist covered the old bridge.
Aleandro parked in the center.
Marco sat beside him.
“You know this is an exceptionally bad place for a meeting.”
“Yes.”
“No cover.”
“Yes.”
“River on both sides.”
“Yes.”
“Single road.”
“Yes.”
Marco looked at him.
“Just confirming you haven’t suddenly lost pattern recognition.”
A dark SUV appeared.
It stopped fifty yards away.
One man stepped out.
Adrian Moretti.
Alive.
For several seconds, Aleandro could not move.
Memory did something cruel.
It took the thirty-eight-year-old man standing in the fog and placed the twenty-nine-year-old cousin Aleandro remembered over him.
The same walk.
Same shoulders.
Same habit of tilting his head before smiling.
Only Adrian did not smile.
Aleandro got out.
Marco followed.
Adrian approached.
Nobody spoke until ten feet separated them.
Aleandro’s first words were simple.
“I buried you.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“I stood beside your coffin.”
“I know.”
“Your mother almost died from grief.”
“I know.”
Anger finally broke through Aleandro’s control.
“You knew?”
Adrian looked away.
“At first, no.”
Aleandro stepped forward.
“Explain that sentence before I forget we share blood.”
Marco moved slightly between them.
Adrian raised his hands.
“The crash was real.”
Aleandro stopped.
“I was in the car. Vittorio told me your father had ordered men to kill me. He said I had proof about Lorenzo.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“My father loved your father.”
“That isn’t what Vittorio showed me.”
“What did he show you?”
“Documents. Payments. A witness statement.”
“Forgeries.”
“I know that now.”
“When?”
Adrian’s voice broke slightly.
“Four years ago.”
Matthew Rossi.
Aleandro understood.
“Matthew contacted you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He found one of the Northstar manifests. My name was hidden in the corporate structure.”
“Why was your name there?”
“Vittorio needed me to sign.”
Adrian looked ashamed.
“For years I believed everything he told me. I thought you stole the family from my father. I thought your father had killed him.”
“You could have come to me.”
“I thought you were the enemy.”
“So you helped steal from me?”
“At first.”
Marco cursed.
Adrian did not defend himself.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Aleandro’s jaw tightened.
“Where?”
“Hidden accounts controlled by Vittorio.”
“And then?”
“Matthew Rossi contacted me.”
Adrian looked at the notebook in Aleandro’s hand.
“He had figured out the transfers. But he also found something else.”
“What?”
“My father’s medical records.”
Aleandro frowned.
“Lorenzo died from a heart attack.”
“Yes.”
“No murder?”
“No.”
Adrian swallowed.
“He had a congenital heart condition. Your father paid for specialists. Quietly. Because Lorenzo didn’t want anyone knowing.”
Aleandro remembered.
His father disappearing to hospitals.
Arguments with Lorenzo about taking medication.
Vittorio had turned family grief into a weapon.
“When Matthew showed you?”
“I confronted Vittorio.”
“And Matthew died.”
“Two days later.”
Adrian’s eyes filled with fury.
“That’s when I knew what he was.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“Vittorio reminded me that legally, I had been dead five years. Everything I had done under false names could put me in prison for the rest of my life. Then he threatened my mother.”
Aleandro looked toward the river.
“She died believing you were dead.”
Adrian’s face collapsed for one brief second.
“That is the thing I will never forgive myself for.”
Nobody spoke.
Finally Aleandro asked, “Elena.”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
Adrian took out his phone.
A live video appeared.
Elena sat in a room drinking coffee.
Tomas Bellini stood nearby.
No restraints.
No visible injuries.
Elena saw the camera.
“Aleandro?”
He took the phone.
“Elena.”
“Mia?”
“Safe.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Tears appeared.
“Oh, thank God.”
“Mia wants you home.”
“I want to be home.”
“Why are you with Adrian?”
“He found us after Tomas took me.”
Adrian explained.
“Tomas brought Elena to Warehouse Seven because Vittorio ordered it. I intercepted them.”
“Tomas works for you?”
“No. He works for whoever can keep his son alive.”
“Where is the boy?”
“Vittorio moved him.”
“So Elena is bait.”
Adrian nodded.
“But not for you.”
“For whom?”
“For me.”
Aleandro finally saw it.
“Vittorio knows you turned.”
“Yes.”
“He wants us to destroy each other.”
“Yes.”
Marco muttered, “Efficient.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“He needs the notebook destroyed. It ties him to Matthew’s death, the Northstar operation, and the forged companies.”
Aleandro held it tighter.
“Why ask me to bring it?”
“Because I needed proof you had found it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if I tell you the notebook contains one more thing.”
Adrian opened to the back cover.
There was a hidden pocket.
Aleandro had missed it.
Inside was a photograph.
Matthew Rossi standing beside Vittorio.
Behind them was a second man.
Aleandro knew him.
Federal financial investigator James Carver.
Marco looked stunned.
“Carver disappeared three years ago.”
Adrian nodded.
“He was building a case.”
“Against Vittorio?”
“And Northstar.”
Aleandro turned the photograph over.
A handwritten phone number.
Adrian said, “Carver is alive.”
“Where?”
“In protective custody.”
“Then why hasn’t he ended this?”
“He has evidence, but not enough to separate Vittorio’s operation from yours.”
Aleandro understood.
Vittorio had deliberately blended illegal transactions with Aleandro’s legitimate and questionable businesses.
If exposed badly, everything collapsed.
Including hundreds of employees who knew nothing.
“What does Carver need?”
“Internal server records.”
“The servers beneath the chapel.”
“Yes.”
Marco said, “We saw them.”
Adrian looked surprised.
“You found the room?”
“Yes.”
“Then we can end it.”
Aleandro’s gaze hardened.
“Not while Elena and Tomas’s son are hostages.”
Adrian looked toward his SUV.
“Elena isn’t.”
“No. But Vittorio thinks she is.”
A new strategy formed.
Aleandro looked at Adrian.
“For nine years, Vittorio has controlled what each of us believes.”
“Yes.”
“So we stop reacting.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you proposing?”
“We give him exactly what he wants.”
Marco groaned.
“That sentence never leads anywhere pleasant.”
Aleandro continued.
“You return to Vittorio.”
Adrian stared.
“He knows I turned.”
“Does he?”
Adrian hesitated.
“He suspects.”
“Good.”
Aleandro handed him a copy of Matthew’s notebook.
Not the original.
“You tell him you took it from me.”
“And then?”
“You tell him I’m terrified.”
Adrian almost laughed.
“He won’t believe that.”
“Tell him Marco betrayed me.”
Marco looked offended.
“Why am I always volunteered?”
“Because it will make him believe everything else.”
Adrian studied Aleandro.
“What are you actually planning?”
Aleandro looked toward the rising sun.
“For the first time in nine years?”
He slipped the original notebook inside his coat.
“We make Vittorio afraid of the truth.”
At that exact moment, miles away at the mansion, Mia was drawing another picture.
A house.
A black car.
Her mother.
And a man standing behind Vittorio Greco.
When Rosa asked who the man was, Mia answered with a name no adult had heard before.
“Mr. Blue.”
May you like
That childish drawing would soon reveal the conspirator nobody had been searching for.
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