Chapter 11 - What Happened on Mott Street
The theft changed the timetable.
Vittorio either knew about the archive or was close enough to the truth that delay became dangerous.
Alessandro wanted to fly to Paris immediately.
Camille refused to take Sophie back into uncertainty.
Marco argued that Vittorio expected them to chase the painting.
Matteo suggested the painting itself might be bait.
For once, Alessandro did not make the decision alone.
They sat around Camille’s hotel dining table like the strangest family council imaginable.
“What happens if Vittorio gets all three pieces?” Camille asked.
“He can access the archive,” Marco said.
“He doesn’t have Alessandro’s biometric.”
“He may have stored samples.”
Alessandro frowned.
“What kind?”
“Fingerprints. Medical data. Maybe voice records.”
“Biometric systems don’t work that simply.”
“This one is eleven years old.”
Matteo added, “And Vittorio has had access to Alessandro’s medical records.”
Camille looked increasingly horrified.
“Why does everyone in this family have everyone else’s medical records?”
“No healthy boundaries,” Marco said.
Alessandro gave him a look.
Marco shrugged.
“I’ve been dead for eleven years. I’m allowed jokes.”
They decided Marco and Matteo would handle Paris through trusted legal investigators while Alessandro remained in New York with Camille and Sophie.
That decision surprised everyone.
Including Alessandro.
“You should go,” Camille said later.
“No.”
“The archive matters.”
“So does staying.”
“With Sophie?”
“Yes.”
Camille looked away.
The DNA test had been scheduled for the following morning.
Results would take several days.
Neither needed it emotionally anymore.
But legally and psychologically, the certainty mattered.
That evening Sophie asked Alessandro to read to her.
He sat beside the hotel bed holding a children’s book about a bear searching for home.
Halfway through, Sophie interrupted.
“You read too fast.”
“I do most things quickly.”
“Stories don’t like that.”
Alessandro slowed down.
Camille watched from the doorway.
Her chest hurt.
This was exactly the image she had forbidden herself to imagine.
Alessandro beside Sophie.
Sophie correcting him.
An ordinary bedtime.
After Sophie fell asleep, Camille stepped into the hallway.
“You’re good with her.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Most parents don’t.”
He looked back at the door.
“I missed everything.”
Camille knew what he meant.
First steps.
First words.
Fevers.
Birthday candles.
Preschool.
Questions about why other children had fathers waiting outside school.
“You didn’t choose to,” she said.
Alessandro looked at her.
It was the closest she had come to forgiving him.
The following morning the DNA samples were collected.
Alessandro then met with a retired detective named Harold Brennan, who had worked the Mott Street investigation.
Officially the case had been labeled organized crime violence.
Unofficially, Brennan had always believed someone inside Alessandro’s security team arranged it.
“What changed?” Alessandro asked.
Brennan slid a folder across the table.
“I retired.”
“That usually makes people less interested.”
“Makes us less scared.”
Inside were photographs from the garage.
Vehicles.
Entry points.
A damaged security camera.
One image showed a maintenance van leaving seventeen minutes before Alessandro arrived.
“Van was registered to a company called East River Systems,” Brennan said.
Alessandro knew the name.
“One of Vittorio’s shell companies.”
“Now it is.”
“What do you mean now?”
“At the time, it belonged to somebody else.”
Brennan showed him registration history.
Original owner:
M. Vitali Consulting AG.
Marco.
Alessandro felt the old anger return.
“My brother arranged the equipment.”
“Looks that way.”
“He says he only intended to collect documents.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I believe paper more than people.”
Brennan handed over another photograph.
A man stood near the maintenance van.
Face partially turned.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Alessandro recognized him.
Paolo Ricci.
Vittorio’s assistant.
Later Giancarlo’s secret investigator.
Paolo had been involved from the beginning.
He had served everyone.
Which meant he might also have manipulated everyone.
Alessandro called Marco immediately.
“Did Paolo know about your plan?”
Silence.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He helped me get the shipping records into the garage office.”
“And he knew exactly when I would arrive.”
“Yes.”
Alessandro’s voice hardened.
“Then Vittorio didn’t necessarily learn the plan from surveillance.”
“No.”
“He could have learned it from Paolo.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Paolo later helped Dad investigate.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
“I know.”
Alessandro hung up.
Another layer.
Another betrayal.
That afternoon Matteo recovered an encrypted audio file from Paolo’s flash drive.
The recording had been made secretly.
Giancarlo’s voice spoke first.
You went too far.
Vittorio replied.
I saved the family from your sentimental mistake.
You almost killed my son.
That wasn’t the instruction.
A chair scraped.
Then Giancarlo again.
And Camille?
Safe in France.
The child?
Safe.
Alessandro believes she left him?
Yes.
Long silence.
Then Giancarlo said the sentence that destroyed Alessandro’s final illusion about his father.
Good. Keep it that way until I know whether he can lead again.
The audio ended.
Alessandro sat without moving.
Camille stood near the door.
She had heard everything.
His father had not created Vittorio’s deception.
But once he discovered it, he allowed it to continue.
Not forever, perhaps.
Not after later regret.
But long enough.
Because leadership mattered more than fatherhood.
Because the family mattered more than truth.
Camille approached.
“You didn’t know.”
“I defended him.”
“You wanted to believe your father was better than his worst decision.”
“He let you raise Sophie alone.”
“He was wrong.”
“He stole years.”
“Yes.”
Alessandro looked toward the window.
“I spent my life trying to become him.”
Camille touched his shoulder.
“You don’t have to spend the rest of it doing that.”
The next file on Paolo’s drive contained a video.
Recorded four years after the ambush.
Giancarlo sat behind his desk looking thin and ill.
He stared directly into the camera.
Alessandro, if you ever see this, then I failed to tell you myself. There is something you must know about Camille Laurent and the child.
Alessandro leaned forward.
But the video corrupted.
The screen froze.
Matteo tried recovering the remainder.
Only seven additional seconds survived.
Giancarlo’s image returned.
Do not trust Vittorio. But more importantly, do not trust—
The file ended.
The final name was missing.
Someone Giancarlo considered even more dangerous than Vittorio.
And somewhere in Paris, the missing Blue House painting had just been delivered to a man whose name none of them had yet considered.
Daniel Mercer.
May you like
Camille’s gallery owner.
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