Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the Penthouse
The door opened three inches.
Mateo aimed directly at it.
“Show your hands.”
Two hands appeared.
Then a face.
Harper looked from the stranger to Mateo.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Older scars.
Dark hair threaded heavily with gray.
“Gabriel,” Mateo said.
The name sounded like a curse.
Gabriel Falcone smiled.
“You look disappointed.”
“You're dead.”
“So I've been told.”
Liam searched him.
No weapon.
Mateo did not lower his.
Harper remained behind the desk.
Gabriel noticed her.
Then noticed her stomach.
His smile disappeared.
“So Simon wasn't lying.”
Mateo stepped forward.
“You talked to Simon?”
“Before somebody killed him.”
“Who?”
“The same people trying to kill her.”
Gabriel nodded toward Harper.
Mateo's weapon remained steady.
“Start talking.”
Gabriel explained.
Nineteen years earlier, Mateo and Gabriel's father had been assassinated.
Everyone believed Gabriel died three days later in retaliation.
He hadn't.
Their father had discovered that several families were creating a hidden financial coalition.
Not an alliance.
A mechanism for controlling legitimate companies through debt, blackmail, and compromised executives.
Gabriel had disappeared to investigate it.
“You abandoned us,” Mateo said.
“I survived.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
“I was twenty-four.”
“So was I.”
The brothers stared at each other.
Harper understood that nineteen years of rage could not be repaired in one conversation.
Gabriel placed a folded paper on the desk.
“Simon sent this before he died.”
Harper opened it.
Account numbers.
Dates.
And initials.
L.R.
Everyone looked at Liam.
He did not move.
Mateo's gun shifted toward him.
Liam stared at the paper.
“That isn't me.”
Gabriel shrugged.
“Convenient initials.”
“I've been with Mateo twelve years.”
“So was Simon.”
Liam's face hardened.
Harper interrupted.
“The initials prove nothing.”
Mateo looked at her.
“Thank you.”
Liam sounded genuinely relieved.
“They might mean Liam Russo,” Harper continued. “But accounting records use legal entities, not people's names. L.R. could be a company.”
She searched the database.
Thirty seconds later, she found it.
“Lakefront Restoration.”
Mateo frowned.
“I own that.”
“No,” Harper said.
“You finance it. Different thing.”
She opened incorporation documents.
Lakefront Restoration had been created twenty-one years earlier.
Its original registered agent was—
Harper stopped.
“What?”
Mateo leaned closer.
She turned the screen.
ANTONIO FALCONE.
Mateo's father.
Gabriel swore.
The company was still active.
And it had received $6.2 million of the supposedly missing twenty million.
“Your father started this?” Harper asked.
Gabriel shook his head.
“Or he discovered it.”
Another transaction appeared.
Recent.
Yesterday.
Harper clicked.
A Chicago address.
Mateo recognized it.
“My father's old house.”
The property had remained empty for nearly two decades.
Mateo ordered cars immediately.
Harper stood.
“You're not coming,” he said.
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“The records are encrypted.”
“Give me the password.”
“No.”
“Harper.”
“You wanted me to trust you. Try returning the favor.”
Mateo looked at her stomach.
She understood.
“I'm pregnant, Mateo. Not porcelain.”
Gabriel laughed.
Mateo glared at him.
“I like her.”
“Nobody asked.”
They drove to the old Falcone residence shortly before dawn.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Harper followed the numbers from the transaction.
6-2-17.
Gabriel interpreted them as coordinates within the house.
Sixth room.
Second wall.
Seventeenth floorboard.
Mateo pried it open.
A metal box lay beneath.
Inside were financial records.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And a sealed envelope addressed to Mateo.
His hands shook slightly as he opened it.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
Mateo,
If you find this, someone inside our family finished what I could not stop.
Trust numbers before names.
And never trust—
The final word had been cut from the page.
Literally cut.
A rectangular piece of paper was missing.
Harper examined the envelope.
Something was inside the lining.
She tore it carefully.
A tiny photograph fell out.
A woman.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Standing beside Mateo's father.
Harper recognized her immediately.
She had seen that woman every day for two years.
Mateo looked over her shoulder.
His face changed.
“No.”
Harper turned the photograph over.
One name was written on the back.
May you like
Mateo's mother.
And beside her was tomorrow's date.
