Chapter 9 - Someone Had Been Inside My Apartment
Mateo took the phone.
“No.”
Isabella laughed.
“Still making everyone’s choices for them, cousin?”
Mateo’s face hardened.
“Why are you here?”
“To fix what my father broke.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Isabella looked toward the house.
“I expect Harper to.”
I reached for the phone.
Mateo resisted.
I stared at him.
He released it.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To give you something.”
“Leave it outside.”
“No.”
“Then we’re finished.”
“You have your father’s eyes.”
The sentence hit me.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
Mateo turned.
“How?”
Isabella answered through the phone.
“Robert Jenkins saved my life.”
Nobody moved.
“When?” I asked.
“Seven years ago.”
Before my father died.
Isabella explained.
She had discovered Dominic’s network.
Tried to leave Chicago.
Her father’s men found her.
Robert helped her disappear.
“So why are you back?”
“Because he died helping me.”
Her voice became quieter.
“And because Dominic is about to destroy Mateo.”
Mateo took the phone.
“Specifics.”
“Your board meeting tomorrow.”
“What about it?”
“Don’t attend.”
“Why?”
“Because half your company is about to be seized under a federal warrant.”
Mateo froze.
“For what?”
“Money laundering.”
“That evidence is false.”
“I know.”
“Who created it?”
“My father.”
She paused.
“And someone inside your company.”
Luca muttered.
“The same person using the foundation.”
Isabella said, “Exactly.”
She left an envelope beside the road and drove away.
Inside were bank records.
The forged transfers pointed directly to Mateo.
And several were authorized through Luca’s credentials.
Luca stared.
“That isn’t me.”
Mateo didn’t answer immediately.
I watched Luca realize what the silence meant.
“You think I betrayed you?”
“I think somebody used your access.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Mateo looked at him.
“No. I don’t think you betrayed me.”
Luca exhaled.
It was the first time I had seen how deep their bond ran.
We returned to Chicago that evening.
Mateo wanted me at his house.
I insisted on retrieving clothes from my apartment.
He finally agreed.
When we arrived, my front door was locked.
Nothing looked wrong.
Then I entered the kitchen.
A photograph lay on the table.
It was of me sleeping.
Not in Mateo’s hotel bed.
In my own.
Taken months earlier.
My blood turned cold.
Behind me, Mateo swore.
There were more photographs in a manila envelope.
Me going to work.
Me buying groceries.
Me visiting Emily.
Me crying in my car after my father’s memorial anniversary.
Some were years old.
“This wasn’t Grant,” I whispered.
“No.”
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
Robert should have taught you not to open doors that were meant to stay closed.
Mateo looked around.
“Everybody out.”
His men cleared the apartment again.
One returned holding a tiny camera discovered inside a smoke detector.
I started shaking.
Mateo removed his coat and wrapped it around me.
“Look at me.”
“I slept here.”
“I know.”
“Someone watched me.”
“I know.”
“How long?”
“We’ll find out.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You say that about everything.”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I mean it.”
“And if you don’t?”
He looked directly at me.
“Then I spend the rest of my life trying.”
The words landed too deeply.
Neither of us moved.
I noticed his hand near my face.
He noticed too.
For a second, I thought he might kiss me.
Then Luca appeared.
“Boss.”
Mateo stepped back.
“What?”
“We identified the camera manufacturer.”
“And?”
“Valente Transportation purchased a batch of the same model three years ago.”
My stomach dropped.
Someone from Mateo’s company had been monitoring me.
Luca continued.
“There’s something else.”
He held up my father’s old employee badge.
It had been hidden behind the camera.
On the back, someone had written:
ASK MATEO WHAT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 17.
I turned.
Mateo’s face had gone pale.
“What happened October seventeenth?”
He didn’t answer.
“Mateo.”
Finally:
“Your father called me that night.”
My breath stopped.
“The night before he died.”
“And?”
Mateo looked away.
May you like
“I didn’t answer.”
---
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