Chapter 4 - The Uncle Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Matteo Moretti had been dead for twenty-one years.
At least that was what my father told everyone.
I remembered the funeral.
Closed casket.
Rain.
My mother crying.
My father standing beside the grave with one hand on my shoulder.
I had been fourteen.
Elena had been three.
Now Matteo’s voice came through my phone as clearly as if he were standing beside me.
“You sound disappointed,” he said.
“I’m deciding whether you’re real.”
“Oh, I’m real.”
“Then prove it.”
He paused.
“When you were nine, you broke the stained-glass window in your grandmother’s dining room. Your father blamed Nico’s brother. I told him the truth because you tried to pay me twenty dollars to stay quiet.”
My blood chilled.
No one outside the family knew that.
“What do you want?”
“What your father took from me.”
“Chicago?”
“Not the city.”
His voice darkened.
“My name.”
I looked toward the catwalk.
Nico had reached Charles.
Alive, but bleeding badly from his shoulder.
Matteo continued.
“Your father erased me, Dante. He convinced everyone I betrayed the family.”
“Did you?”
“I opposed him.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He laughed.
“You sound like him.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.”
The line went dead.
Charles survived.
Barely.
Before Salerno sedated him, he managed to give us one more piece of information.
“Matteo uses Vale companies.”
“Where is Maya?”
Charles shook his head.
“Julian moved her.”
“Where?”
“I heard something about Lake Geneva.”
Nico and I exchanged looks.
Wisconsin.
Outside Chicago.
Far enough to move people quietly.
Close enough to control.
Elena wanted to come.
“No,” I said.
“She’s alive because of me.”
“She may be alive because of herself.”
“I’m coming.”
“Elena.”
She stood inches from me.
“You have spent my whole life protecting me from things you refuse to explain. Tonight I was tied to a chair because someone wanted to use me against you.”
Her voice trembled.
“I am done being protected through ignorance.”
I had no answer.
Nico looked away to hide a smile.
“You find this funny?” I asked.
“No.”
“You’re smiling.”
“She sounds like you.”
That was not a compliment either.
We went to Wisconsin with six people.
The property Charles identified sat near the lake behind stone walls and pine trees.
A luxury estate.
Registered to a charity controlled by Victoria Crane.
We entered before dawn.
No guards.
That frightened me more than guards would have.
Inside, dinner plates still sat on a long table.
Coffee was warm.
Someone had left minutes earlier.
Elena moved room to room.
“Maya!”
Nothing.
Then she found blood on a bathroom towel.
Not much.
Beside it sat a necklace.
Maya’s.
Elena clutched it.
“She was here.”
Upstairs we found photographs covering an entire wall.
Me.
Elena.
Nico.
Charles.
Politicians.
Judges.
Police commanders.
And my father.
Several photographs showed my father standing beside Matteo.
In one, they were laughing.
In another, they were arguing.
Then I saw the photograph that changed everything.
My mother.
Standing between them.
Matteo’s hand around her waist.
On the back someone had written:
SUMMER 1992 — BEFORE ANTONIO STOLE EVERYTHING.
My father’s name was Antonio.
I stared at it.
Elena approached.
“What is it?”
I handed her the photograph.
Her face changed.
“Mom?”
A door creaked downstairs.
Nico drew his weapon.
We moved.
A woman stood in the kitchen.
Mid-fifties.
Blonde hair.
Elegant coat.
Victoria Crane.
She raised her hands.
“I’m not armed.”
“You’re either very brave or very stupid,” I said.
“Today?”
She smiled weakly.
“Probably both.”
Elena stepped forward.
“Where is Maya?”
Victoria looked at her.
“She’s alive.”
Elena’s knees nearly gave out.
I caught her.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Julian moved her last night.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo found out Maya had been sending evidence to federal agents.”
I stepped closer.
“You work for Matteo.”
Victoria’s expression hardened.
“I did.”
“Past tense?”
“I was twenty-eight when he found me. Ambitious. Broke. Angry. He financed my first campaign.”
“And in return?”
“I signed permits. Made calls. Protected businesses.”
“You enabled trafficking.”
Her eyes filled with shame.
“I told myself it was smuggling. Money. Documents. I didn’t know about the women until three years ago.”
“And when you learned?”
“I tried to leave.”
I laughed without humor.
“And Matteo let you?”
“No.”
She pulled a key from her pocket and placed it on the counter.
“This opens a vault in the basement.”
“What’s inside?”
“Everything Maya couldn’t copy.”
Nico looked at me.
“It could be a trap.”
Victoria nodded.
“It probably is.”
That surprised him.
She continued.
“Matteo expected you to find this house.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my son disappeared yesterday.”
Another hostage.
Another leash.
Victoria stared directly at me.
“Matteo has spent twenty years building a city where everyone important owes him something.”
“And now?”
“Now he wants you to destroy yourself.”
“Why?”
Her eyes moved to the photograph of my mother still in Elena’s hand.
“Because he believes your father stole the woman he loved.”
Elena whispered, “Our mother?”
Victoria nodded.
Then she said the sentence that made the entire room go silent.
May you like
“And Matteo believes one of you is actually his child.”
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