Chapter 10 - What Lily Asked Me Not to Do
By the time we reached the estate, Victor was gone.
He had entered through the same old tunnel his people used before.
This time he took nothing from Claire's apartment.
Nothing from my office.
Nothing from the security room.
He went directly to my father's private library.
The room had remained largely untouched since Alessandro Moretti died.
One painting was missing.
A portrait of my grandfather overlooking South River Terminal.
Behind it, we found a wall safe.
Empty.
I had never known it existed.
Samuel did.
“What was inside?”
“My father’s original ledger.”
Claire looked at him.
“The third piece.”
“Yes.”
Victor now possessed exactly what Daniel had never found.
The document capable of completing the chain of evidence.
“Why would Alessandro have Victor's ledger?” Gabriel asked.
“Because they were partners once,” Samuel said.
That answer changed everything.
Twenty years earlier, my father had invested with Victor Kane in South River Terminal.
Victor was younger then.
Hungry.
Brilliant.
My father discovered Victor was paying officials and hiding money through false companies.
He ended the partnership.
Victor believed Alessandro had betrayed him.
Alessandro kept the ledger as protection.
“Why not expose him?” Claire asked.
Samuel looked at me.
“Because exposing Victor would've exposed things Alessandro didn't want public either.”
There it was.
My father had not been innocent.
I already knew that.
But knowing something in theory differs from seeing proof.
“What things?”
“Payments. Political favors. Union pressure.”
“Crimes?”
Samuel met my eyes.
“Yes.”
Claire watched me carefully.
I expected judgment.
She only said, “You aren't your father.”
“Some people would disagree.”
“I'm not some people.”
Lily slept upstairs with Michael.
For the first time since midnight, she was safe enough to sleep deeply.
I stood outside her room.
Claire joined me.
“You should rest.”
“So should you.”
“I don't sleep much.”
“I've noticed.”
Inside the room, Lily shifted.
Clover rested beneath her chin.
Claire leaned against the wall.
“She likes you.”
“That seems irresponsible.”
“She doesn't know your reputation.”
“Children should research more carefully.”
Claire smiled.
Then silence settled.
“I blamed you.”
“I know.”
“When she was gone.”
“I know.”
“I meant it.”
“So did I.”
She looked at me.
“What?”
“I blamed myself too.”
“You didn't take her.”
“I promised no one could.”
“You aren't God, Adrian.”
“I've been accused of confusing the distinction.”
“That I believe.”
She looked through the doorway.
“Daniel used to make impossible promises.”
“What kind?”
“That he'd always come home.”
Her voice softened.
“The night he died, I was angry because he was late.”
I said nothing.
“I called him six times.”
She wiped her cheek.
“My last message to my husband was me complaining that dinner was getting cold.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Daniel knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you loved him.”
“You don't know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because the last thing he recorded wasn't about Victor.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“In the locker. After you stopped listening, there were eleven seconds left.”
She stared at me.
“What did he say?”
I had listened while Gabriel copied the file.
“He said, ‘Tell Claire I knew every time she worried, even when she pretended she was angry.’”
Claire covered her mouth.
I stepped back, giving her space.
Instead she moved forward.
Her forehead rested briefly against my chest.
I froze.
Then placed one hand lightly against her back.
No romance.
Not then.
Only two exhausted people standing beside a sleeping child, sharing grief neither knew how to carry.
After a minute, Claire pulled away.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling me.”
At breakfast, Lily inspected everyone.
Michael.
Gabriel.
Samuel.
Me.
She ate pancakes.
Then pointed her fork at Samuel.
“You were dead.”
Gabriel choked on his coffee.
Samuel looked at me.
“Who told her?”
“People talk around children as though children don't have ears.”
Lily nodded seriously.
“I have two.”
Samuel smiled.
“I wasn't really dead.”
“That's lying.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Adrian says—”
“I know what Mr. Adrian says.”
Lily looked at me.
I suddenly regretted ever discussing honesty.
After breakfast, she followed me into the hallway.
“Mr. Adrian?”
“What?”
“Are you going to find the bad man?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be mad?”
“I already am.”
“Really mad?”
“Yes.”
She thought.
“Don't disappear.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Daddy disappeared.”
My chest tightened.
“Mommy says he didn't want to.”
“No.”
“If you go to the bad man, don't disappear too.”
I crouched.
I had learned that talking to Lily required lowering myself.
“I'll try.”
“That isn't a promise.”
“No.”
She stared.
“What can you promise?”
I considered lying.
It would have been kinder.
Instead I said, “I can promise I will do everything I can to come back.”
She accepted that.
“Okay.”
Then she hugged me.
Three-year-olds do not understand how carefully adults build walls.
They simply walk through doors nobody told them were locked.
That afternoon, we received worse news.
Victor had released documents online.
Selected pages from my father's ledger.
Payments.
Bribes.
Names.
Enough authentic material to make the false additions believable.
One addition showed my signature authorizing an illegal payment five years earlier.
Forged.
News trucks arrived outside the estate within an hour.
Stock prices dropped.
Partners called.
The board demanded an emergency meeting.
And Chicago police arrived with a warrant.
Detective Lena Ortiz stood at the gate.
I'd met her twice.
Smart.
Incorruptible, according to Gabriel.
Which made her either useful or exceptionally dangerous.
I allowed her inside.
She entered my office holding a folder.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Detective.”
“You've had an eventful twenty-four hours.”
“You have no idea.”
“I'd like to ask about Victor Kane.”
“Get comfortable.”
She didn't smile.
“Actually, I'd like to ask about Daniel Bennett.”
Claire, standing near the window, went pale.
Ortiz opened the folder.
“We reopened his crash this morning.”
“Why?”
“Anonymous evidence.”
“From Victor?”
“Possibly.”
She removed a photograph.
Daniel's destroyed vehicle.
Then another.
A second car nearby.
Moretti fleet vehicle M-17.
Elias.
Ortiz looked at me.
“We also received an audio recording.”
My stomach tightened.
She pressed play.
My voice filled the room.
Except I had never said the words.
Make sure Bennett never reaches Chicago.
Claire stared at me.
The recording continued.
If the car has to leave the road, so be it.
Victor had built his lie carefully.
Ortiz stopped playback.
“Mr. Moretti, I'm placing you under arrest in connection with the death of Daniel Bennett.”
Claire whispered my name.
I looked toward Lily's room upstairs.
Don't disappear.
I had promised to try.
Now half a dozen officers were waiting to take me away.
May you like
And Victor Kane had found a way to make a three-year-old watch another man leave her life in handcuffs.
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