Chapter 10 - The Truth About the Night Santino Died
Victor Saye had been calling himself Daniel Hart.
The name meant nothing to Serena.
It meant too much to Landon.
Daniel Hart had entered the Moretti family through charity work.
He ran a private foundation supporting families of injured first responders.
He attended fundraisers.
Golf events.
Christmas dinners.
Santino trusted him.
Isabella trusted him.
Leo called him Uncle Daniel.
“He was at the funeral,” Landon said.
Dominic looked sick.
“Yes.”
“He carried Santino’s coffin.”
“Yes.”
Serena whispered, “That’s why Leo went with him.”
Landon understood.
Matteo had not needed to force Leo from the residence.
Daniel Hart could simply say Isabella had sent him.
A familiar face.
A godfather.
Someone the boy associated with family.
Landon felt something darker than anger.
Violation.
“Where does Hart live?”
“Westchester,” Dominic said.
“Search it.”
“Already moving.”
“No police connected to local offices.”
“Cross is handling federal coordination.”
The plane landed at Teterboro.
Landon stepped onto the runway into cold morning wind.
A convoy waited.
Serena approached.
“What’s the plan?”
“You go with Cross.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Leo asked for me.”
“That’s why.”
“You think Vale wants me dead.”
“I know he does.”
“And keeping me away protects Leo?”
“It removes one piece of leverage.”
Serena studied him.
“You’ve changed.”
“Don’t sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.”
She looked toward the SUVs.
“Two days ago you would have ordered everyone around and walked into the building yourself.”
“I’m still ordering everyone around.”
“That part survived.”
Despite everything, Landon smiled briefly.
Then he became serious.
“Stay with Cross.”
“I’ll stay close.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“That’s what I’m agreeing to.”
He accepted it.
Progress.
They divided into teams.
Dominic went with Cross.
Landon went with two trusted security specialists and Elias.
Isabella remained at the secure residence under federal protection.
At 9:38 a.m., agents entered Daniel Hart’s Westchester home.
Empty.
But they found photographs.
Moretti schedules.
Copies of security badges.
And a wall covered with surveillance.
One photograph mattered more than the others.
Santino entering an underground garage the night he died.
Another photograph showed Matteo.
A third showed Daniel.
A fourth showed Santino arguing with someone near his car.
The angle hid the other person’s face.
But a reflection in the vehicle window captured enough.
Adrian Vale.
Landon stared at the photograph.
Officially, Santino died in a late-night car accident on the West Side Highway.
Police concluded his vehicle lost control on wet pavement.
Landon had never questioned it.
Santino drove too fast.
The weather was terrible.
There were no witnesses.
Now they had proof Adrian Vale was with him less than an hour before.
Evelyn Cross arrived.
“We pulled traffic footage from an archived source.”
“After two years?”
“A private toll contractor kept backups.”
She opened a laptop.
A recording showed Santino’s car entering the highway.
A dark sedan followed.
“Daniel?”
“Registered to one of Vale’s shell companies.”
“What happened?”
“Camera coverage disappears for four miles.”
“And when it returns?”
Only the dark sedan appeared.
Santino never did.
Cross looked at Landon.
“The crash may have been staged.”
Landon’s chest tightened.
“Was he alive after?”
“We don’t know.”
Serena approached quietly.
She had heard.
Landon did not look at her.
He remembered identifying Santino’s body.
Burn injuries.
Trauma.
The funeral.
The grave.
Two years spent believing random weather had taken his brother.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
Cross touched his arm.
“We found something else.”
A phone.
Old.
Hidden inside Daniel’s wall safe.
Recovered messages remained.
One thread between Daniel and Matteo.
Landon read.
SANTINO HAS THE LEDGER.
GET IT BACK.
Then:
HE WON’T TALK.
VALE IS COMING PERSONALLY.
And finally, after midnight:
PROBLEM SOLVED. WOMAN NEXT.
Serena closed her eyes.
Landon felt rage rise so quickly his hands shook.
He turned away.
For a moment he wanted exactly what Santino warned against.
Retaliation.
Immediate.
Blind.
He wanted every person involved dragged into the same fear they had created.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown.
He answered.
Adrian Vale.
“I’m sorry you had to learn this way.”
Landon could barely speak.
“You killed my brother.”
Vale sighed.
“Santino killed himself the moment he mistook moral outrage for strategy.”
Landon’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“Where is Leo?”
“Safe.”
“You all keep using that word.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Let me speak to him.”
“In time.”
“If you touch him—”
“Do you honestly think I want to hurt a child?”
“You murdered his father.”
“I prevented your brother from destroying systems he barely understood.”
“Human trafficking is a system now?”
Serena looked toward Landon.
Vale’s voice remained calm.
“You think in simple categories because your generation inherited power without understanding the arrangements beneath it.”
“People aren’t arrangements.”
“Santino said the same.”
Landon closed his eyes.
“Is that what he said before you killed him?”
A pause.
Then Vale answered.
“Your brother had courage.”
The statement somehow made things worse.
“He could have been useful.”
“He was useful.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, not to me.”
“Where is Leo?”
“Noon.”
“The original deal.”
“Bring Serena Bellandi and Santino’s files.”
“Why Serena?”
“Because her father created the first ledger.”
Serena stared.
Landon put the call on speaker.
“What ledger?” she asked.
Vale went silent.
Then laughed softly.
“Serena.”
Her face hardened.
“You knew my father.”
“Very well.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
She breathed.
Then Vale continued.
“I ordered someone else to.”
Serena’s composure shattered.
She turned away.
Landon’s expression became deadly still.
Vale continued as though discussing accounting.
“Your father was a good man. Good men can be unexpectedly inconvenient.”
“You’re going to prison,” Serena whispered.
“No, my dear. I’m going to lunch.”
Cross motioned for technicians to continue tracing.
Vale knew they were trying.
“You won’t find me through this call.”
“Maybe not,” Cross said.
Vale paused.
“Evelyn Cross. I wondered when you’d join us.”
Cross froze.
He knew she was there.
“How?”
Vale laughed.
“You still think this is a small organization.”
Landon looked around.
Someone nearby could be feeding information.
“Everyone turn off phones,” he ordered.
Vale continued.
“Noon, Landon. You know the place.”
“Which place?”
“Where Santino made his last choice.”
The line disconnected.
Landon looked at Cross.
“Where did my brother die?”
“Official crash site?”
“No.”
The underground garage photograph.
They traced the building.
An old Moretti commercial property near the Hudson.
Sold six months after Santino died.
To a Vale company.
Cross looked at the address.
“That’s where they met.”
Landon understood.
That was the exchange location.
At eleven fifteen they moved.
No large convoy.
No obvious federal presence.
Cross positioned teams blocks away.
Serena wore a concealed tracker.
Landon refused to let her enter first.
She refused to stay behind.
They compromised by entering together.
The old garage was nearly empty.
Concrete pillars.
Fluorescent lights.
Their footsteps echoed.
A chair sat in the center.
Empty.
No Leo.
No Matteo.
No Vale.
Then a screen mounted to a column turned on.
Leo appeared on video.
Alive.
Sitting on a couch.
Watching cartoons.
Serena exhaled.
Landon approached the screen.
Vale’s voice came through speakers.
“Put the case on the floor.”
Landon did.
“Serena too.”
“No.”
“She is part of the exchange.”
“She walks out with me.”
“No.”
Serena whispered, “Landon.”
He shook his head.
The screen changed.
A live feed showed Matteo standing behind Leo.
Not touching him.
Simply waiting.
Vale said, “You have thirty seconds.”
Landon looked at Serena.
She stepped forward.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Serena.”
She spoke quietly.
“You said people like this don’t honor deals.”
“They don’t.”
“Then we need them to believe we do.”
Landon saw the thought forming.
A stall.
Cross needed time.
Serena walked toward the marked point.
Ten seconds.
Nine.
Eight.
Then Leo on the screen stood suddenly.
“Papa said the red door!”
Matteo grabbed him.
The feed cut.
Landon stared.
Red door.
Another clue.
Another memory Santino had planted.
Landon spun around.
The garage had three exits.
Gray.
Black.
And at the far end—
red.
He ran.
Serena followed.
They crashed through the red door into a maintenance corridor.
At the end was an old elevator.
The indicator moved upward.
“They’re here,” Landon shouted into his radio.
Cross’s teams moved.
Dominic came from another entrance.
The elevator reached level three.
They took the stairs.
On the third floor, a door slammed.
Landon followed the sound.
He entered an abandoned office.
Matteo stood near the window.
Leo was beside him.
And behind them stood Adrian Vale.
Gray hair.
Tailored coat.
Calm expression.
Exactly the man from the old photograph.
Leo saw Landon.
“Uncle!”
Vale placed a hand on Matteo’s shoulder.
“Don’t be foolish.”
Matteo looked frightened.
More frightened than Leo.
Landon stopped.
“Let him go.”
Vale smiled.
“Your brother said the same thing about everyone.”
Then Landon noticed something.
Vale was standing near an open stairwell door.
Ready to escape.
Matteo was not.
Matteo had been left as sacrifice.
And from the way Matteo looked at Vale, he had just realized it too.
Landon spoke quietly.
“He’s going to leave you.”
Vale’s smile vanished.
Matteo glanced at him.
“Don’t listen.”
Landon continued.
“You think you’re his partner. You’re evidence.”
“Shut up.”
“When Cross comes through that door, Vale disappears and you take everything.”
Matteo’s breathing changed.
Vale stepped toward him.
“Matteo.”
That one word made the decision.
Matteo moved Leo behind himself.
Not toward Vale.
Toward Landon.
Vale’s face hardened.
For the first time, the great Adrian Vale looked afraid.
And in the hallway outside, federal agents shouted:
“Hands where we can see them!”
The empire Santino had died trying to expose was finally beginning to collapse.
But Adrian Vale still had one last secret—
May you like
a secret about Santino’s final hour that would change everything Landon believed about his brother’s death.
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