Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the House Betrayed Them
Mrs. Donnelly had vanished.
Her room was empty.
Her phone was gone.
Her car sat untouched behind the mansion.
For sixteen years she had been part of the Castalano household.
And suddenly, according to every official record, Margaret Donnelly seemed to have stopped existing at three o’clock that morning.
Dominic arrived at the safe house before dawn.
He was forty-five, tall, gray beginning at his temples, and carried himself with the quiet competence of someone who had spent decades expecting doors to explode.
He placed Alina’s jewelry box on the table.
“We recovered this from a locker at Union Station.”
She opened it.
Her mother’s earrings remained.
So did a cheap necklace from high school.
The brass key was gone.
Alina closed her eyes.
Marco swore quietly.
“She has a twelve-hour advantage,” Dominic said.
“Find her.”
“We are.”
“Find her faster.”
Dominic nodded.
But Alina was watching him.
“How did she know about my key?”
Neither man answered.
“I never told anyone.”
Dominic glanced toward Marco.
Marco replied, “She may have searched your belongings before.”
“For eleven months?”
“Possibly.”
Alina stared at the jewelry box.
She felt violated in a way the attack itself had not accomplished.
Someone had watched her sleeping space.
Handled her mother’s belongings.
Followed her through grocery stores.
Turned her ordinary life into evidence.
“What happens if she opens the box?”
Marco frowned.
“The bank box?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t know.”
“So we go there first.”
“No.”
Alina looked up.
“No?”
“You’re staying here.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I absolutely do while armed men are looking for you.”
“I’m not one of your employees right now.”
“You are technically still on payroll.”
“Then I quit.”
Dominic looked away, possibly hiding amusement.
Marco was not amused.
“Rejected.”
“You can’t reject someone quitting.”
“I just did.”
“Marco.”
“Alina.”
Their eyes locked.
Something dangerously alive passed between them.
Dominic cleared his throat.
“I’ll be outside.”
The door closed.
Alina pointed at Marco.
“You are unbelievably controlling.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I’m not going to apologize for keeping you alive.”
“You don’t keep people alive by locking them away.”
His expression darkened.
“Sometimes you do.”
Something in his voice made her stop.
“This isn’t only about me.”
Marco looked away.
“Luca?”
“Yes.”
He walked toward the window.
“The night my brother died, he called me three times.”
Alina said nothing.
“I was nineteen and angry with him. He’d spent months arguing with our father. He wanted out. I thought he was being dramatic.”
“What did he call about?”
“I never answered.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“He left a voicemail.”
“What did it say?”
“‘If anything happens, don’t trust the people closest to Dad.’”
Alina’s stomach tightened.
“Then he died.”
“Two hours later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I promised myself I’d never ignore another warning.”
Now his behavior made terrible sense.
Marco was not only protecting Alina.
He was trying to rescue his brother twenty-two years too late.
She crossed the room carefully.
“You couldn’t have known.”
He laughed once.
“There are sentences that sound kind but change nothing.”
“Maybe.”
She stopped near him.
“But they can still be true.”
Marco looked at her.
For a moment they were no longer employer and employee.
No rumors.
No estate.
No danger.
Just two people carrying the consequences of things that happened when they were too young to understand.
Then Dominic rushed back inside.
“We found Donnelly.”
“Where?”
“St. Augustine Cemetery.”
Alina’s skin prickled.
“My mother is buried there.”
Dominic nodded.
“That’s why I came in.”
Marco grabbed his coat.
Alina reached for hers.
“No.”
She ignored him.
“Alina.”
“The woman stole my key and went to my mother’s grave. I’m coming.”
His jaw flexed.
She stared him down.
Finally he muttered something in Italian that was almost certainly impolite.
Twenty-five minutes later, they reached the cemetery.
Snow had begun to fall.
Mrs. Donnelly’s car was parked near the rear wall.
The driver’s door stood open.
They found footprints leading through the snow.
Straight toward Elena Vasquez’s grave.
There was no sign of Margaret Donnelly.
But the ground beside the headstone had been disturbed.
Fresh dirt covered the snow.
Marco’s men began digging.
Six inches down, they found a metal box.
Alina knelt despite her ankle.
Her mother’s name was carved into the lid.
Inside lay an envelope.
FOR ALINA.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
There were only two things inside.
A photograph.
And a handwritten note.
Alina recognized her mother’s writing immediately.
She read aloud.
“If you are reading this, then someone has started looking for what your father discovered. Trust Marco only if he tells you the truth about Luca.”
Alina slowly raised her eyes.
Marco had gone pale.
“What truth?”
He said nothing.
“Marco.”
His expression broke.
“My brother wasn’t killed because he knew what your father discovered.”
A pause.
“He was killed because he helped Diego hide it.”
Alina stared.
“What did they hide?”
Marco looked at the photograph in her hand.
It showed Diego Vasquez and Luca Castalano standing before a warehouse.
Behind them was a blue star painted on the door.
Marco’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Proof that someone stole more than money from my family.”
May you like
He looked at Alina.
“They stole children’s identities.”
