Chapter 4 - The Name Luca Left Behind
Emily could hear her heartbeat.
Not metaphorically.
Actually hear it.
A dull pulse in her ears while Roman held the photograph beneath the emergency light.
TRUST E. CARTER.
“My father had nothing to do with people like you.”
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Cross raised an eyebrow.
Roman’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
“People like me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
Emily looked at the photograph.
“My father repaired elevators.”
Cross and Roman exchanged a glance.
Emily noticed.
“What?”
Roman asked, “Where?”
“All over New York.”
“What company?”
“Metro Vertical Systems.”
Roman’s face became unreadable.
Emily’s stomach dropped.
“You know it.”
Roman slowly nodded.
“My family owned forty percent of Metro Vertical Systems.”
She stared at him.
“No.”
“Until twelve years ago.”
The number hit her.
Twelve years.
The year her father died.
Emily shook her head.
“My father worked there. He didn’t own anything.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
Roman handed the photo to Cross.
“Because Metro Vertical maintained the elevator in the building where my father was nearly killed twelve years ago.”
Emily froze.
Roman continued.
“There was a mechanical failure. Officially.”
“What does this have to do with Edward?”
“I don’t know.”
“My father died in a construction accident.”
Roman’s eyes remained on hers.
“Where?”
“A warehouse in Brooklyn.”
“Which warehouse?”
“I was seventeen. I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
His tone sharpened.
Emily recoiled.
Roman immediately softened it.
“Please.”
She closed her eyes.
Her father’s funeral.
Her mother crying.
A man from the company saying it had happened quickly.
There had been a number.
Pier 19?
No.
Warehouse 19.
“Red Hook.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Which building?”
“Building C, maybe.”
Cross muttered something.
Roman turned.
“What?”
Cross was already searching through an old digital archive on his phone.
“Moretti Maritime owned three warehouses in Red Hook then.”
Emily stared.
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Which one had a fatality?”
Cross looked up.
“Warehouse C.”
Silence.
Emily shook her head.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No,” Roman said.
“Not yet.”
He inserted Luca’s memory card into an encrypted reader Cross carried.
The device blinked.
“Password protected.”
Roman tried Luca’s birthday.
Denied.
Their mother’s birthday.
Denied.
A childhood street.
Denied.
Emily looked at the photograph.
“Maybe the password is connected to my father.”
Roman handed her the device.
She hesitated.
“What was his birthday?” he asked.
“May ninth.”
She entered 0509.
Denied.
“What did he call you?”
Emily almost laughed.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Try.”
“Em.”
Denied.
“Millie.”
Roman looked at her.
“Millie?”
“I hated it.”
She entered MILLIE.
The screen unlocked.
Cross stared.
Roman looked at Emily.
She went pale.
“How did Luca know that?”
A folder appeared.
Only one file.
Audio.
Roman pressed play.
Static filled the corridor.
Then Luca Moretti’s voice.
Roman had not heard it in three years.
He closed his eyes.
Luca sounded tired.
“If you’re hearing this, then I either found enough courage to confront Roman myself, or I didn’t make it.”
Roman’s hand tightened around the device.
The recording continued.
“Roman, before you decide everybody betrayed you, understand something. Most people are scared. Fear makes cowards out of decent people and monsters out of ambitious ones.”
Emily glanced at Roman.
He was motionless.
“I found evidence that Victor has been moving money through Moretti construction accounts for years. It goes back further than I thought. Dad knew some of it. Maybe not all.”
Roman whispered, “Victor.”
Luca continued.
“Vanessa knows something. I don’t know how much. Don’t assume she planned it. Her father is involved.”
Conrad Sinclair.
Vanessa’s father.
A billionaire developer who had become Roman’s business partner.
Emily’s stomach turned.
Then Luca said the name that changed everything.
“Edward Carter saved Dad twelve years ago.”
Emily’s knees nearly gave way.
Roman caught her elbow.
She pulled away automatically.
The recording continued.
“Carter discovered someone had sabotaged the freight elevator. He stopped Salvatore Moretti from entering it. Three weeks later Carter died at Warehouse C.”
Emily whispered, “No.”
Luca’s voice crackled.
“The investigation was buried. Victor arranged the settlement. Carter’s widow was told it was employee negligence.”
Emily stared into darkness.
Her mother had spent years believing Edward caused his own death through carelessness.
She had hated that version of him.
Not hated him exactly.
But she had blamed him.
For leaving them.
For taking a shortcut.
For ignoring safety procedures.
That was what the company representative had said.
Emily covered her mouth.
Luca continued.
“I tried to find Edward’s daughter. Emily Carter. I found an address in Queens, but Victor discovered I was asking questions.”
Roman looked at her.
Emily whispered, “He was looking for me.”
“Yes.”
The recording went on.
“If Emily ever reaches you, believe her before you believe us.”
Cross frowned.
“How could Luca know she’d reach Roman?”
Emily looked at the envelope.
“He didn’t.”
Roman understood.
“Thomas used Luca’s old evidence.”
Luca’s voice became quieter.
“Thomas has copies. If something happens to me, he’ll wait until Victor thinks everything is gone.”
Then footsteps sounded in the old recording.
Luca stopped speaking.
A door opened.
Another male voice entered.
Distant but audible.
“You asked to see me?”
Roman went still.
He recognized it.
Victor Sarto.
Luca answered.
“Sit down.”
The recording ended.
Cross tried the file again.
Nothing after that.
Roman looked as though someone had reached into his chest and pulled out three years of unanswered grief.
Emily barely noticed.
She was thinking about her father.
Edward Carter had not died because he was careless.
He had died three weeks after saving Roman Moretti’s father from sabotage.
Her mother had never known.
“Why didn’t your family tell us?”
Roman’s eyes met hers.
“I didn’t know.”
“Someone knew.”
“Yes.”
“You had money. Lawyers. Investigators.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother worked two jobs because the company blamed him.”
Roman said nothing.
Emily’s anger erupted.
“She died thinking her husband got himself killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
Her voice cracked.
“You don’t get to be sorry.”
Cross looked away.
Roman absorbed it without defending himself.
Emily pressed both hands against her face.
For a moment, she was seventeen again.
Watching her mother sign forms.
Hearing adults whisper negligence.
Watching the insurance company deny additional payment.
She looked at Roman.
“Who paid Victor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your father?”
“Maybe.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“My father died five years ago.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
Roman continued.
“Nothing makes any of us innocent until we know what happened.”
Cross’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice.
“We found Sarto.”
Roman turned.
“Where?”
“Forty-sixth-floor east stairwell.”
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Bring Victor to the private library.”
“Understood.”
Roman looked at Emily.
“You can leave.”
She stared.
“What?”
“I’ll arrange a hotel. Food. Clothes. Whatever you need.”
She immediately stiffened.
“I don’t want your charity.”
“It isn’t charity.”
“What is it?”
“A debt.”
“My father saved yours?”
Roman nodded.
“And apparently paid for it.”
Emily looked down.
“If I leave, will you tell me what you find?”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to trust that?”
Roman understood.
“No.”
“Then I’m staying.”
Cross said, “Ms. Carter, this could become dangerous.”
“It already became dangerous when my father died.”
Roman looked at her.
Something had changed.
She was no longer merely the woman who delivered a letter.
She was part of the story Luca had been trying to uncover.
And Roman suspected that Thomas Vale had known exactly who she was before handing her the envelope.
That meant her presence outside the subway had not been chance.
Someone had found her.
Someone had waited for her.
Roman’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Moretti.”
A man breathed on the other end.
Then whispered:
“Roman?”
Roman straightened.
“Thomas?”
Emily looked up.
The voice sounded weak.
“I don’t have long.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t trust the ambulance.”
Roman’s blood ran cold.
“What?”
“They weren’t paramedics.”
Emily shot to her feet.
Thomas continued.
“They found me because Vanessa told them where I was.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“Where are you now?”
A struggle.
Then Thomas whispered the sentence none of them expected.
“Ask Emily what her father hid beneath Warehouse C.”
The line died.
Emily stared at Roman.
“I’ve never been to Warehouse C.”
Roman looked at her.
“Maybe your father left something for you.”
A distant alarm sounded again.
Not building-wide this time.
Cross checked his phone.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Someone just accessed the underground garage.”
“Whose card?”
Cross turned the screen.
Vanessa Sinclair.
Roman looked toward the stairwell.
“She’s running.”
Emily looked at Luca’s photograph.
“No.”
Roman turned.
“What?”
“She isn’t running.”
Emily tapped the image.
“Look at Vanessa in this picture.”
Roman did.
“She’s waiting for someone.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
Emily continued.
“If she wanted to escape, she had twenty minutes before the alarms. She stayed.”
“So?”
“So maybe she isn’t the person in charge.”
Cross understood.
“She’s meeting someone.”
Emily nodded.
“In the garage.”
Roman started toward the stairwell.
Cross followed.
Emily came too.
Roman didn’t argue this time.
As the door opened, his phone buzzed with a text from the garage camera system.
A still image loaded.
Vanessa stood beside a black sedan.
Across from her was a man.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
Victor Sarto.
But Victor had supposedly just been captured on forty-six.
Roman enlarged the image.
Cross cursed.
The man upstairs wasn’t Victor.
Someone had used a decoy.
Roman looked again at the live garage image.
Vanessa handed Victor something.
A small black device.
Then Victor looked directly into the camera.
And smiled.
May you like
Seconds later, every camera in Harbor Crest Tower went black.
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