Chapter 2 - The Woman His Father Tried to Protect
Elena Moretti stepped out of the locker room.
Lorenzo stared at his mother.
"Why are you here?"
Her face was pale.
"I followed Isabella."
"Where is she?"
"Inside."
Lorenzo pushed past her.
Isabella sat on a wooden bench, breathing hard.
She wasn't injured.
Marco stood beside her with two security men.
"What happened?" Lorenzo demanded.
Isabella looked embarrassed.
"Someone grabbed me when the lights went out."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Marco held up a torn black glove.
"Whoever it was ran through the loading entrance."
Lorenzo looked at Elena.
"And you?"
"I saw someone following her."
"So you followed them?"
"Yes."
"At seventy-three?"
"I was seventy-three in the ballroom too."
Isabella almost laughed.
Lorenzo didn't.
He crouched in front of her.
"Did they say anything?"
She nodded.
"One thing."
"What?"
"'Rossi should have stayed buried.'"
Elena gripped the bench.
Lorenzo saw it.
"Mother."
She looked away.
"Tell me what you know."
"Not here."
"You've said that once tonight."
"And I meant it."
Twenty minutes later, Isabella sat inside Lorenzo's armored sedan.
She had protested.
Lorenzo ignored the protest.
Elena sat beside her.
Marco followed in another vehicle.
As Chicago passed outside the tinted windows, Isabella finally asked the question that had been building since the ballroom.
"Who are you?"
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Lorenzo Moretti."
"I gathered that."
"What are you asking?"
"Why did that room go silent when you touched Bellini?"
Elena answered.
"My son has a reputation."
"For what?"
Lorenzo said, "Logistics."
Isabella stared at him.
"Right."
Elena laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh Lorenzo had heard from her since his father died seven years earlier.
That alone made Isabella dangerous to him in a completely different way.
They arrived at the Moretti residence near midnight.
Isabella stopped at the entrance.
"This is ridiculous."
"You were attacked," Lorenzo said.
"I can call the police."
Marco coughed.
Isabella looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She turned back to Lorenzo.
"You think the police won't help?"
"I think whoever photographed you before tonight knew where you lived."
That silenced her.
Inside Lorenzo's study, Elena finally explained.
Twenty-seven years earlier, Enzo Moretti had employed a bookkeeper named Gabriel Rossi.
Isabella's father.
Isabella stared at her.
"My father fixed furnaces."
"No."
Elena's answer was gentle.
"That was later."
Lorenzo remained standing.
"What did he do for Father?"
"He kept private records."
"What records?"
"The kind your father didn't trust anyone else to see."
Lorenzo's expression hardened.
"You knew?"
"I knew Gabriel existed."
"That's not what I asked."
Elena looked at Isabella.
"Your father discovered money disappearing from several Moretti companies. He believed someone close to Enzo was stealing."
"Victor?" Lorenzo asked.
"I don't know."
"Did Father?"
"He suspected."
Isabella stood.
"My father died when I was eleven."
Elena nodded.
"Car accident."
"That's what the police said."
The room became quiet.
Isabella's face changed.
"You're saying it wasn't?"
"I'm saying your father came to Enzo three days before he died and told him he had found proof."
"Proof of what?"
Elena hesitated.
"That someone was building a second organization inside ours."
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed.
"Why have I never heard this?"
"Because Enzo destroyed the investigation after Gabriel died."
"Why?"
"He was afraid Isabella would be next."
Isabella stared at Elena.
"Me?"
"You were a child."
Lorenzo removed the badge.
"E.M.M."
Elena nodded.
"Your father marked things he wanted Gabriel to inspect with those initials."
"But this badge didn't exist then."
"No."
That bothered Lorenzo.
Someone had scratched those letters recently.
Someone wanted him to notice.
Marco entered.
"We checked the catering agency."
"And?"
"Isabella wasn't originally assigned tonight."
Isabella frowned.
"I was called this morning."
Marco nodded.
"Someone specifically requested you."
"Who?"
"The request came through a shell company."
Lorenzo knew the answer before Marco said it.
"Bellini Holdings."
Isabella went still.
Victor had arranged for her to be there.
The humiliation of Elena.
The maid.
The badge.
None of it had been accidental.
Lorenzo looked at his mother.
"Victor staged tonight."
"Why?"
"To make Isabella intervene?"
"How could he know she would?"
"He couldn't."
Lorenzo paced once.
"Unless the argument wasn't the trap."
Marco understood.
"She was."
Lorenzo turned to Isabella.
"Someone wanted you inside that building."
She wrapped her arms around herself.
"I need to go home."
"No."
"You don't control me."
"Tonight somebody tried to abduct you."
"And staying in a mafia boss's house is supposed to make me feel safer?"
Silence.
Lorenzo looked at Marco.
Marco looked at the ceiling.
Elena said softly, "He's terrible at lying."
Isabella blinked.
"So it's true?"
Lorenzo met her eyes.
"Yes."
She stepped backward.
"The Moretti family?"
"Yes."
"And you're—"
"Yes."
"You could have mentioned that in the car."
"You didn't ask the right question."
"That's your defense?"
"No."
She grabbed her coat.
"I'm leaving."
Lorenzo didn't stop her.
Elena did.
"Isabella."
The girl turned.
"Your father once saved my husband's life."
That stopped her.
"How?"
"By discovering a betrayal before it happened."
Elena walked to an antique cabinet.
She removed a small wooden box.
Inside was a photograph.
Two young men stood outside a warehouse.
Enzo Moretti.
Gabriel Rossi.
Between them stood a third man.
Victor Bellini.
Isabella touched her father's face.
She had never seen him that young.
On the back, Gabriel had written:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, ENZO KNOWS WHERE TO LOOK.
Below it was an address.
Isabella whispered, "Where is this?"
Marco checked his phone.
"South Side. Old warehouse district."
Lorenzo knew the building.
It had belonged to his father.
It had been abandoned for twenty years.
"We go tomorrow," he said.
"No," Isabella replied.
He looked at her.
"We go tonight."
That surprised him.
She folded the photograph and placed it carefully back into Elena's hand.
"If someone killed my father, I've waited fourteen years already."
Lorenzo nodded once.
"Marco."
"Cars in five."
Elena grabbed Lorenzo's sleeve.
"There's something else."
He stopped.
"What?"
"Your father went to that warehouse the night before he died."
Lorenzo stared at her.
Enzo Moretti had supposedly died from a heart attack in his own bed.
Elena's eyes filled with tears.
"He came home bleeding."
Lorenzo felt the room tilt.
"You told me he died naturally."
"I lied."
"Why?"
"Because he made me."
Before she could explain, Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
"What?"
He looked at Lorenzo.
"The warehouse alarm just activated."
"Motion?"
May you like
Marco shook his head.
"Someone opened the basement from the inside."
