Chapter 10 - The Man Moretti Trusted Most
They had ten hours until nightfall.
Adrien spent the first thirty minutes saying almost nothing.
Natalya understood.
She had spent twenty-two years believing her father had been murdered because of ordinary criminal violence.
Now she was learning his death sat at the center of a network spanning two continents and decades.
Adrien had spent nine years grieving a father who might still be alive.
Truth did not arrive gently.
At six-thirty, Irina made tea.
It was the most normal act anyone had performed all night.
She placed a cup beside Adrien.
He looked at it.
“Thank you.”
“You look like you need something stronger.”
He almost smiled.
“I probably do.”
“No alcohol.”
Irina pointed at him like a mother.
“You need your head.”
Adrien glanced toward Natalya.
“Is she always like this?”
“Worse.”
Irina walked away.
For a moment, the townhouse felt less like a refuge and more like a kitchen from Natalya's childhood.
Then Carlo entered.
“Vincent's secured downstairs.”
Adrien's expression hardened.
“He talking?”
“No.”
“He will.”
Natalya looked up.
“Don't.”
Adrien stared at her.
“What?”
“Whatever you're thinking.”
“You don't know what I'm thinking.”
“I've served you dinner for eight months. You have a face.”
Carlo coughed to hide a laugh.
Adrien shot him a look.
Natalya continued.
“If you hurt Vincent, you lose information.”
“He betrayed me.”
“And therefore knows things.”
“He deserves—”
“Maybe.”
Her voice softened.
“But if you want to survive tonight, deserve doesn't matter.”
Adrien stared at her.
Then looked toward Carlo.
“Bring him up.”
Vincent entered five minutes later.
No restraints.
But two men remained near the door.
He sat across from Adrien.
“Coffee?”
Adrien asked.
Vincent blinked.
“What?”
“Twenty-six years and I don't remember if you take sugar.”
Vincent's face shifted.
“One.”
Adrien poured coffee.
Added one sugar.
Placed it before him.
Vincent stared at the cup.
“You trying to make me feel guilty?”
“No.”
Adrien sat.
“I think you already do.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Don't flatter yourself.”
Natalya remained several feet away.
She opened the poems.
Adrien spoke.
“Tell me about Elena Markova.”
Vincent's reaction was immediate.
He knew the name.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Answer.”
Vincent looked at Natalya.
“She decoded it.”
“Some.”
Vincent's expression darkened.
“You don't understand who you're dealing with.”
Natalya answered.
“Then help me.”
He laughed.
“Why?”
“Because she plans to discard you.”
“You don't know that.”
“I know your betrayals are recorded.”
Vincent looked at Adrien.
“You told her?”
“She read them.”
Natalya continued.
“I also know Elena can imitate Giancarlo's authentication.”
Vincent froze.
That was the first genuine shock she'd seen.
“She can?”
“You didn't know.”
“No.”
He looked away.
Interesting.
“How did she recruit you?” Natalya asked.
Vincent remained silent.
Adrien pushed the coffee closer.
“Vince.”
Something in his voice changed.
Not boss to subordinate.
Friend to friend.
Vincent's shoulders dropped.
“Two years ago.”
He stared into the cup.
“I got a message about my brother.”
Adrien frowned.
“Daniel?”
Vincent nodded.
“His gambling debt?”
Adrien knew.
“Worse.”
Vincent rubbed his face.
“He owed people connected to a Balkan group. Nearly two million.”
“Why didn't you come to me?”
“Because I'd spent my whole life coming to your family.”
Adrien's jaw tightened.
“You idiot.”
“Yeah.”
Vincent smiled painfully.
“Elena's people cleared the debt.”
“In exchange?”
“Information at first.”
“What information?”
“Schedules. Meetings. Nothing that would hurt anyone.”
Adrien laughed quietly.
“That's how it starts.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“They wanted account structures. Suppliers. Security rotations.”
“And you gave them?”
“Some.”
Adrien stared at him.
Vincent looked ashamed now.
Truly.
“Then I tried to stop.”
“What happened?”
“They had recordings.”
“Of?”
“Everything.”
He looked at Natalya.
“Insurance.”
Her own word returned.
Information is insurance.
“What is tonight?” she asked.
Vincent swallowed.
“A takeover.”
“By whom?”
“Elena.”
“Of Moretti's organization?”
“Not exactly.”
Adrien leaned forward.
“Explain.”
“She doesn't care about your restaurants or construction.”
“What does she want?”
“The network.”
“What network?”
“Ports. Shipping contracts. Customs relationships. Warehouses.”
The weapons shipment had never been the central deal.
It was access.
Global logistics.
Elena Markova's world.
“Why me?” Adrien asked.
“Because your father built half the relationships.”
“Giancarlo?”
“Yes.”
“Is he alive?”
Vincent hesitated.
“I don't know.”
Adrien's fist tightened.
“Vince.”
“I swear.”
Vincent met his eyes.
“I don't know.”
Natalya believed him.
“Have you seen the Geneva photo?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did Elena ever mention Giancarlo?”
“Only once.”
“What did she say?”
Vincent thought.
“She said Adrien inherited a throne whose king wasn't finished using it.”
Adrien's face darkened.
“What does that mean?”
“I assumed metaphor.”
“So did we,” Natalya murmured.
She looked at the poems.
The widow keeps two kings alive.
Elena might be manipulating everyone using the possibility that Giancarlo survived.
But why?
“Who is the seventh traitor?” Natalya asked.
Vincent's expression changed.
“I thought I was sixth.”
“Volkov said he recruited six. A seventh recruited him.”
Vincent shook his head.
“No.”
“You know?”
“No, I mean Volkov didn't recruit us.”
“Who did?”
“A man called Gray.”
“Real name?”
“Never heard it.”
“Voice?”
“American.”
“Age?”
“Maybe sixty.”
Adrien looked toward Carlo.
“Anyone use that name?”
Carlo shook his head.
Natalya searched the poems.
Gray.
Silver.
Ash.
Poetic symbolism.
An Akhmatova passage contained repeated references to winter hair.
Silver.
Old age.
Then an odd word: cenere.
Italian.
Ash.
Not Russian.
She circled it.
Adrien leaned over.
“That's Italian.”
“I know.”
“Cenere.”
“Ash.”
“Yes.”
“What surname means gray?”
Adrien frowned.
“Grigio.”
Carlo shook his head.
“Too obvious.”
“Greco?”
“No.”
Natalya searched another page.
An embedded letter sequence.
G.
M.
She stopped.
Giancarlo Moretti.
Gray.
A man around sixty.
American accent.
It could be someone impersonating him.
Or—
Vincent looked at Adrien.
“What?”
Natalya asked him, “Did Gray ever meet you in person?”
“Once.”
Adrien went still.
“What did he look like?”
Vincent shook his head.
“Dark room. Hat. I barely saw him.”
“Height?”
“About Adrien's.”
“Voice?”
“Rough.”
“Anything memorable?”
Vincent thought.
Then his eyes moved toward Adrien's wrist.
“The watch.”
Adrien looked down.
“What about it?”
“Gray saw your watch and laughed.”
A long silence.
“What did he say?”
Vincent swallowed.
“He said, ‘The boy always preferred the second one.’”
Adrien's face emptied.
Natalya looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He touched his watch.
“My father owned two Pateks.”
“One went missing?”
“No.”
Adrien stared into the distance.
“He offered me one for my eighteenth birthday.”
“Which?”
“The platinum.”
“And this?”
“Steel.”
“You chose the cheaper one.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew?”
Adrien answered quietly.
“My father.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
Vincent stared.
“Oh, God.”
The room went silent.
If Gray was Giancarlo Moretti, then Adrien's father had personally recruited Vincent into a conspiracy against his own son.
Adrien stood.
His chair scraped across the floor.
“Where did you meet Gray?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Vince.”
“An old social club in Brooklyn.”
“Address.”
Vincent gave it.
Carlo knew the place.
His face turned pale.
“That club belonged to your father.”
Adrien walked toward the door.
Natalya stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out whether I'm mourning a living man.”
“You can't just walk into a place—”
“I can.”
“Adrien.”
He turned.
She held up the poems.
“If Giancarlo created this entire situation, he wants you angry.”
He stared at her.
“So?”
“So don't give him exactly what he expects.”
His expression remained hard.
“What do you suggest?”
Natalya looked at Vincent.
Then at Carlo.
Then at the archive.
“We make him come to us.”
“How?”
She picked up the sample Pushkin page.
“By telling him we solved the one thing he doesn't want us to solve.”
“What?”
Natalya looked at her father's compass symbol.
“The forty-eighth page.”
Everyone stared.
“There are only forty-seven,” Carlo said.
“No.”
Natalya opened the green book.
Inside the back cover, beneath the compartment where the tiny key had been hidden, she had noticed something earlier.
A second layer of leather.
She carefully lifted it.
A folded sheet slid out.
Adrien stared.
“How long have you known?”
“About thirty seconds.”
She unfolded the paper.
Her father's handwriting.
No poem.
Just a title.
For Giancarlo, when he finally tells the truth.
And beneath it, one line:
The seventh traitor was never the man who betrayed the son. It was the father who betrayed them all.
Adrien read it.
Then looked toward Natalya.
For the first time since she had known him, Adrien Moretti looked afraid.
Not of Volkov.
Not of prison.
Not of enemies.
May you like
Of the possibility that his father had never been the man he needed him to be.
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