Chapter 2 - Nine Days to Become Mrs. Ferraro
Casius did not believe Delphine immediately.
That surprised her.
Most people who knew his reputation expected anger first.
Casius preferred evidence.
“Prove it.”
Delphine stood in the hallway.
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Then don't make accusations.”
“I didn't accuse anyone.”
“You said someone tried to kill me.”
“Yes.”
“That is an accusation.”
“No. It's a warning.”
Casius stared at her.
“Who?”
Delphine’s eyes moved toward the staircase.
“Not here.”
“This is my house.”
“That doesn't mean everyone inside it is yours.”
That sentence landed differently.
Casius rolled closer.
“Explain.”
Delphine shook her head.
“Tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Casius—”
“You entered my house knowing something about the accident. You tell me tonight.”
She studied him.
Then nodded.
“Lock your door.”
Twenty minutes later, Delphine entered his study carrying a small notebook.
Casius closed the door.
She placed it before him.
Inside were dates.
Names.
License plates.
Medication codes.
Hospital room numbers.
Casius flipped through several pages.
“What is this?”
“My notes from St. Catherine.”
His hand stopped.
St. Catherine Rehabilitation Center.
The place where he had spent seven months after the crash.
“You worked there?”
“Eight years.”
Casius stared at her.
Then memory arrived.
Not all at once.
Fragments.
A quiet night-shift worker.
Dark hair.
A surgical mask.
Hands adjusting equipment.
A woman who never told him everything would be fine.
One night he had dropped a cup.
He remembered becoming furious because he could not reach it.
The woman had watched him struggle.
She had not picked it up.
Instead, she had placed another cup where he could reach it himself.
At the time, he had hated her.
Later, he understood.
“You.”
Delphine nodded.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“You were in pain. I wasn't important.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Everyone knew.”
Casius opened the notebook again.
“What did you see?”
“Six weeks after you arrived, someone changed your medication.”
His eyes lifted.
“What?”
“The IV bag was wrong.”
“Pharmacy mistake.”
“That’s what the hospital said.”
“You don't believe that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I watched a man deliver it.”
Casius became very still.
“What man?”
“I never learned his name.”
“Describe him.”
“Late forties. About six feet. Gray at the temples. Scar near his left ear.”
Casius knew several men matching the description.
Delphine continued.
“He wasn't hospital staff. But he had access.”
“What happened?”
“I stopped the infusion.”
“You saved my life?”
“I corrected a medication.”
“Don't minimize it.”
She looked away.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“I tried.”
“To whom?”
Delphine hesitated.
“Anthony Vescari.”
Casius's expression hardened.
Anthony was one of his captains.
A man who had served Ferraro interests for fifteen years.
“You spoke to Anthony?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He thanked me.”
“And?”
“Two days later, I was transferred.”
“Where?”
“Another floor.”
“And after that?”
“I continued asking questions.”
A faint smile touched Casius’s mouth.
“I assume that went well.”
“I was fired.”
He almost laughed.
Delphine opened another page.
“I started keeping records because things didn't make sense.”
She showed him dates.
Visitors who had arrived outside normal hours.
Security cameras mysteriously offline.
People asking about Casius's prognosis.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Bowmont Maritime Holdings.
Casius looked at her.
“Your father.”
“Yes.”
“Was Sterling involved in my crash?”
“I don't know.”
“Do you suspect him?”
“Yes.”
That answer cost her something.
Casius could see it.
“Why?”
Delphine touched her scar.
It was the first time he had seen her do it consciously.
“When I was seventeen, I went to one of my father’s warehouses.”
“The fire.”
She nodded.
The story everyone knew.
Except apparently nobody knew the story.
“I was looking for him. I heard voices in an office.”
“Whose?”
“My father. Another man.”
“What were they discussing?”
“I remember three words.”
Casius waited.
“Ferraro. Shipment. Ledger.”
“And then?”
“Someone opened the door. I ran.”
Her fingers tightened.
“Thirty seconds later, the building exploded.”
Casius stared at her scar.
For eleven years, New Orleans had looked at that mark and seen ugliness.
He suddenly saw evidence.
“My father said a gas line ruptured,” Delphine continued. “Afterward, he told everyone I was emotionally unstable.”
“He hid you.”
“Yes.”
“Why allow you to work?”
“My mother helped me at first.”
“And later?”
“My father discovered it. By then, he realized having an invisible daughter could occasionally be useful.”
Casius leaned back.
It was beginning to make sense.
Not enough.
But enough to make him uncomfortable.
“Why marry me?”
Delphine looked directly at him.
“Because Camille gave me an opportunity.”
“To escape?”
“No.”
“To expose Sterling?”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“To keep you alive.”
Casius stared at her.
“Why?”
Delphine looked away.
The answer took too long.
“Because someone should have.”
For some reason, that sentence affected him more than gratitude would have.
The following days changed their marriage.
They still slept separately.
They still barely touched.
But each evening Delphine brought another piece of information into Casius’s study.
He began investigating quietly.
No Ferraro captains.
No Anthony.
Only Gideon.
Casius trusted Gideon because Gideon had pulled him from the wrecked car.
On the fourth evening, Gideon returned with something.
The original accident report.
The brake line had failed.
Investigators had attributed it to damage and corrosion.
But photographs showed something else.
A clean cut.
Casius stared at the image.
Twenty months of pain.
Surgery.
Rehabilitation.
A life divided into before and after.
All because someone had decided his car should not stop.
Delphine stood beside him.
She did not touch his shoulder.
He appreciated that.
“There's more,” Gideon said.
He placed a document down.
A security camera near the Ferraro garage had captured a vehicle entering the night before the crash.
Registered owner:
Bowmont Maritime Holdings.
Delphine went pale.
Casius looked at her.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
He believed her.
That surprised him too.
Two nights later, Delphine entered his study carrying a brass key.
“I know where my father keeps records he doesn't want at the house.”
“Where?”
“Warehouse Four.”
“When can we get inside?”
“Tomorrow.”
Casius raised an eyebrow.
“You've planned this.”
“For years.”
Warehouse Four stood beside the river.
Gideon waited outside.
Casius and Delphine entered through a side door.
She knew exactly where to go.
Behind an office cabinet was a safe.
Inside they found ledgers.
Payments.
Companies.
Dates.
Then Casius found the payment.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Issued the day before his crash.
Recipient:
A.V.
Anthony Vescari.
Casius stared.
His own captain.
His own man.
Delphine whispered, “I'm sorry.”
Casius closed the ledger.
“No.”
“For what?”
“You didn't do it.”
He looked at her.
“Never apologize for another person's betrayal.”
Delphine stared at him as though nobody had ever told her that before.
Then Gideon's voice sounded through the earpiece.
“Someone's coming.”
Headlights swept across the warehouse windows.
Delphine froze.
Casius closed the safe.
“Who?”
Gideon answered.
“Sterling Bowmont.”
Delphine whispered, “He never comes here at night.”
Another vehicle arrived.
Then another.
Casius looked through the narrow window.
Anthony Vescari stepped out of the second car.
Delphine's face drained of color.
But it was the third man who made Casius forget how to breathe.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
A familiar walk.
A familiar face.
Impossible.
His brother Matteo had died six years earlier.
Casius had stood beside the coffin.
He had watched it lowered into the ground.
May you like
Yet Matteo Ferraro was walking toward Warehouse Four.
Alive.
