Chapter 4 - The Thing Under the Paint
Elena did not sleep in Luca’s penthouse.
Technically.
She slept in Nadine Park’s guest room two floors below it.
That distinction mattered to Elena.
It mattered considerably less to Luca, who stationed Owen outside Nadine’s door.
At seven the next morning, Elena opened it and nearly screamed.
Owen held out coffee.
“Morning.”
“You cannot stand silently outside people’s doors.”
“I’m security.”
“You’re a heart attack with a scar.”
“I brought coffee.”
Elena took it.
“You’re forgiven.”
When she reached the conservation studio forty minutes later, Luca was already there.
Elena stopped in the doorway.
“You slept here?”
“No.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
His shirt sleeves were rolled up. A tablet rested on the worktable beside three cups of black coffee.
Elena looked at them.
“You drink too much caffeine.”
“You threatened me with a broom twelve hours ago.”
“Twenty-eight.”
“What?”
“Hours. If you’re going to preserve our history, be accurate.”
A faint smile appeared.
It changed his face in a way Elena did not appreciate noticing.
She put on her lab coat.
“Where’s everyone?”
“Outside.”
“Really?”
“You asked.”
That surprised her.
Not that Luca had listened.
That he wanted her to notice.
She began the examination.
Under ultraviolet light, old varnish and modern retouching fluoresced differently.
The Saint transformed beneath violet illumination.
Elena photographed each section.
She examined the reverse.
The partial relining glowed with traces of adhesive not used by Bell & Rowe in their documented work.
“That’s wrong,” she murmured.
Luca moved closer.
“Explain.”
“This glue.”
He waited.
She liked that he did not pretend to understand.
“Conservators document everything. Materials. Interventions. Dates. Someone added this linen later but copied Bell & Rowe’s stamp.”
“You can tell?”
“The circle is slightly too narrow.”
Luca stared at a mark smaller than his thumbnail.
“That?”
“Yes.”
“I would have missed it.”
“Most people would.”
There was no flirtation in his answer.
Only respect.
Elena found herself oddly affected by that.
She took a micro-spatula from her kit.
“This edge has already lifted.”
“Can you open it?”
“I can examine it without damaging the original.”
Twenty minutes later she separated a tiny portion of the added backing.
Something pale appeared beneath.
Paper.
Elena stopped.
Luca leaned forward.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
She photographed everything before proceeding.
Then carefully, millimeter by millimeter, she released the adhesive.
An archival envelope emerged.
No one spoke.
Across the front, in faded blue ink, were four words.
FOR LUCA, WHEN NECESSARY.
Luca became motionless.
Elena looked at him.
“Do you recognize the handwriting?”
“My mother’s.”
The room changed.
Luca sat down.
It was the first time Elena had seen him do anything that resembled losing balance.
She placed the envelope on archival paper.
“We shouldn’t open this without documenting it.”
“Do it.”
“Luca—”
“Please.”
That word mattered.
Elena set up a camera.
Nadine entered to witness.
Owen remained at the door.
Inside the envelope were six pages.
Bank transfer records.
A handwritten audit.
A letter.
And a photograph.
Nadine read first.
Then looked at Luca.
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
She handed him the audit.
Seventeen years earlier, money had indeed disappeared from the Harbor Arts Trust.
But not through Marcus Renner’s accounts.
The transfers went through a vendor called Dane Municipal Consulting.
Felix Dane’s father had owned it.
The handwritten audit showed Marcus discovered the discrepancies.
Luca’s mother had ordered a confidential investigation.
Then something had interrupted it.
Elena picked up the letter.
Luca stared at his mother’s handwriting but did not reach for it.
“Read it,” he said.
She did.
Lucia Vescari wrote that Marcus Renner had not stolen from the trust.
He had tried to expose the theft.
She believed someone inside the Vescari organization had altered records after Marcus found the transfers.
She had persuaded Marcus to sign a temporary repayment agreement publicly accepting responsibility because she believed it would keep the real thief from realizing she had preserved proof.
The arrangement was supposed to last weeks.
Lucia died unexpectedly before she could finish the investigation.
The temporary lie became permanent.
Elena lowered the paper.
“My father has been paying for something he didn’t do.”
Luca’s face had gone pale.
“Yes.”
“For seventeen years.”
“Yes.”
“Your family let him.”
“My father believed the altered audit.”
“You believed it too?”
Luca did not answer.
Elena’s eyes burned.
“You knew?”
“I knew Marcus had signed the agreement.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I thought he had stolen the money.”
She stepped backward.
“So while my father worked weekends and sold everything he owned, you thought he deserved it.”
“I was twenty-three when this happened.”
“And since then?”
“I had no reason to question the file.”
“My father called you three weeks ago.”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do?”
“I started questioning it.”
“Because he asked?”
“Because he said Felix Dane knew the Saint had resurfaced.”
Elena looked at the evidence.
“Where is Felix now?”
Luca glanced at his phone.
“He’s supposed to be in Toronto.”
“Supposed to be.”
“Yes.”
Nadine picked up another page.
“This letter mentions a second set of transfer authorizations.”
“Where?” Luca asked.
“Lucia says she separated them from this packet.”
Elena read over her shoulder.
Without those originals, the documents they had proved serious irregularities but might not conclusively establish who authorized the transfers.
Luca called his legal team.
Then stopped.
He stared at his phone.
“What?”
Elena asked.
He looked at Owen.
“Who knew we were coming here?”
Owen answered immediately.
“Nadine. Me. Mason. Security command.”
“Felix?”
“No.”
Elena felt cold.
Luca turned the phone around.
An email had just arrived from Felix Dane.
Beautiful painting.
Nobody moved.
Elena whispered, “He knows.”
Owen’s expression hardened.
“Someone told him.”
Luca dialed a number.
No answer.
He dialed another.
Then another.
Finally he said, “Find Mason.”
Owen left instantly.
Elena stared at Luca.
“The man with the earpiece.”
“Yes.”
“You think he’s the leak?”
“I think he had access.”
“That isn’t proof.”
Luca looked at her.
“Correct.”
The fact that he admitted it almost made things worse.
Elena paced.
“This is what you do, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You decide everyone is dangerous and then move them around like pieces.”
“Right now that keeps you breathing.”
“And there it is.”
“What?”
She faced him.
“You keep saying you’re protecting me, but nobody asks what I want.”
“What you want becomes irrelevant if someone is targeting you.”
“No. It becomes inconvenient.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Those are different things.”
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
“My father lied to me because he thought knowing the truth would endanger me. You moved into my building without telling me because you thought ignorance would protect me. Now you’re trying to decide where I sleep, where I work, who stands outside my door—”
“Because somebody cut your tires.”
“And I know that!”
“Then act like it.”
The words cracked across the room.
Silence followed.
Elena’s voice lowered.
“Do not speak to me like I’m one of your employees.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You’re trying to control variables.”
Luca stepped toward her.
“You are a variable.”
“No. I’m a person.”
That stopped him.
Elena pointed toward Lucia’s letter.
“Your mother understood something both you and my father seem to have forgotten. Protecting somebody doesn’t give you ownership of their choices.”
Something dark moved through Luca’s expression.
“You think I don’t know what happens when you give people choices?”
“I think you’re afraid of what happens when you can’t control them.”
He went completely still.
Nadine quietly left the room.
Elena almost regretted the words.
Almost.
Luca walked toward the window.
“My sister was twenty-one.”
Elena said nothing.
“Her name was Sofia.”
His voice remained controlled.
That made the pain underneath it worse.
“Someone threatened our family. I thought it was pressure. Business. Noise. My father wanted security increased. Sofia wanted her normal life.”
“What happened?”
“I let her have it.”
Luca looked down at the street.
“She left without protection. Someone used her to force my father into a negotiation.”
Elena’s chest tightened.
“She died?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“She survived. Barely. She left the country afterward. She hasn’t spoken to me in eleven years.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“I made the decision.”
“She did.”
“I agreed.”
“You’re proving my point.”
Luca turned.
“How?”
“You’ve spent eleven years pretending responsibility means controlling everybody before something bad happens.”
His voice became cold.
“And you’ve spent two days assuming independence makes you bulletproof.”
“Never said that.”
“Then stop acting like help is humiliation.”
Elena opened her mouth.
Closed it.
There it was.
The reason they made each other furious.
He treated accepting help as survival.
She treated being controlled as danger.
Neither distinction was simple anymore.
Owen returned.
“Mason’s gone.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“How long?”
“Forty minutes.”
“Phone?”
“Apartment.”
“Car?”
“Still here.”
Elena looked toward the door.
“He left the building without his phone.”
“Exactly like Marcus,” Owen said.
Luca’s eyes moved toward him.
Owen seemed to realize what he had revealed.
Elena caught it.
“You know more about Dad than you told me.”
Owen glanced at Luca.
“Tell her,” Luca said.
Owen exhaled.
“I sent the texts.”
Elena stared.
“What?”
“Not all of them.”
“Nice slippers?”
“Yes.”
Her jaw dropped.
Owen looked uncomfortable.
“I was trying to get your attention.”
“You could have knocked!”
“I suspected Mason was feeding information to Felix.”
“So you terrified me anonymously?”
“I couldn’t tell Luca until I had proof.”
Luca’s voice became very quiet.
“You could have.”
“No,” Owen said. “Because Mason wasn’t the only person Felix had been calling.”
Nadine reentered.
“Who?”
Owen looked directly at Luca.
“Your building manager.”
Elena frowned.
“My building manager?”
“Your management company,” Owen corrected. “Felix Dane quietly purchased twenty-eight percent of its debt six months ago.”
Luca understood first.
“He has access.”
“To cameras,” Owen said. “Maintenance keys. Staff schedules. Parking records.”
Elena thought about the sliced tires.
Her apartment.
Her studio address.
Every ignored noise complaint.
Someone had been watching not only Luca.
Her.
Luca took out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Elena asked.
“Fixing the problem.”
“How?”
“Buying the building.”
She laughed.
Then saw his face.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
“You cannot buy an entire apartment building because someone cut my tires.”
“I can.”
“That wasn’t a challenge!”
Luca was already speaking to Nadine.
“Find the ownership structure.”
Elena stepped between them.
“No.”
Luca looked down at her.
“No?”
“You do not get to buy my home.”
“I’m not buying your apartment.”
“You’re buying the building containing it!”
“Yes.”
“That is the most insane sentence anyone has ever said to me.”
His phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his expression changed.
“What?” Elena asked.
Luca put the phone on speaker.
A security technician spoke.
“We found how Mason got out. Maintenance corridor. Camera was disabled.”
“When?”
“Seven eighteen.”
“Anything else?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Somebody used a master key on Four-B at seven twenty-six.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Her apartment.
Luca looked at her.
“Were you home?”
“No.”
“Where’s the painting?”
“Here.”
“What else would someone want?”
Elena thought of her father.
His habits.
The way he had hidden the envelope somewhere everybody could look.
Her eyes widened.
“My apartment.”
“What?”
“My father left something there.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
Luca was already moving toward the door.
Elena followed.
When they reached Apartment 4B, nothing looked disturbed.
No broken lock.
No overturned furniture.
No open drawers.
Elena walked through slowly.
Then she saw it.
The broom.
She had left it beside the front door.
Now it was leaning against the opposite wall.
Someone had moved it.
Luca noticed her expression.
“What?”
Elena pointed.
“That.”
“The broom?”
“Yes.”
“Someone moved your broom?”
She grabbed it.
A small envelope had been taped beneath the handle.
Her name was written across it.
Elena opened it.
Inside was a key.
And a note in Marcus’s handwriting.
Ellie—
If you found this, I ran out of time.
Locker 317.
Do not trust the person Luca trusts most.
Elena lifted her eyes.
Luca had read it too.
Neither spoke.
Because downstairs, in the lobby, Felix Dane had just walked through the front doors.
May you like
And every security camera in the building had gone dark.
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