Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Ballroom Door
Dominic raised his gun before the elevator doors had finished opening.
The man inside lifted both hands.
It wasn’t Vincent.
It was Anthony Rizzo, one of the Aster Hotel’s night managers.
His tuxedo shirt was soaked with sweat.
A black device was strapped around his chest.
Clara sucked in a breath.
“Don’t shoot.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Anthony’s eyes filled with panic.
“Mr. Castellano, please.”
Dominic approached carefully.
Tommy examined the device from several feet away.
“No visible timer.”
Anthony shook his head rapidly.
“They put it on me. They said if I removed it—”
“I understand.”
“Where’s my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Wrong answer.”
“I swear.”
Clara moved closer.
“Anthony.”
The manager looked at her.
“Who put it on you?”
“I never saw their faces.”
“Did they speak?”
“One man.”
“The one on the intercom?”
Anthony nodded.
Clara glanced at Dominic.
He knew what she was thinking.
The voice.
Dominic knew that voice.
Eleven years earlier, Salvatore DeLuca had served as his father’s closest adviser.
Then a warehouse burned.
Salvatore had been found inside.
Dominic himself had identified what remained.
Or believed he had.
“Salvatore DeLuca is dead,” Tommy said.
“Apparently,” Clara murmured, “someone disagrees.”
Anthony began shaking harder.
“There’s something in my pocket.”
Tommy searched him and removed an envelope.
Dominic opened it.
Inside was an old photograph.
His father.
Salvatore.
And two teenage boys.
Dominic and Vincent.
On the back:
ONE BROTHER KNOWS.
ONE BROTHER PAYS.
Clara stared at the words.
“Vincent knows something.”
Dominic’s face became unreadable.
“He always has.”
They got Anthony to the bomb team stationed discreetly outside the gala.
The device turned out to contain no explosive.
It had been theater.
Fear.
Manipulation.
Which meant whoever controlled tonight wanted Dominic alive and thinking.
That bothered him more than bullets would have.
At 11:46, Dominic and Clara entered the hotel’s private security office.
Tommy closed the door.
“Start at the beginning,” Dominic said.
Clara folded her arms.
“Three weeks ago, I found a payment routed through Castellano Hospitality.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“To whom?”
“A shell company called Lake Meridian Consulting.”
Dominic knew the name.
One of their legitimate vendors.
“At least I thought it was a shell company,” Clara continued. “Then I discovered Lake Meridian existed before your family purchased the Aster.”
“How long before?”
“Twenty-six years.”
Tommy frowned.
“Dominic was a kid.”
“Yes.”
Clara connected her flash drive to an isolated computer.
Rows of transactions appeared.
“The company received irregular payments every year. Different amounts. Different Castellano subsidiaries. Always authorized through executive-level access.”
“Mine?”
“No.”
“Vincent’s?”
“No.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“Then whose?”
Clara opened a credential record.
CASTELLANO, ENZO.
Dominic stopped breathing for a second.
His father had been dead eleven years.
Yet the most recent authorization was nine days old.
“That’s impossible,” Tommy said.
“I know.”
“Credentials can be copied.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“That’s what Vincent and I were trying to discover.”
Dominic looked at her sharply.
“You went to Vincent before me.”
“I went to whoever appeared in the access logs.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know whether you were involved.”
Tommy stiffened.
Dominic raised a hand.
Clara didn’t apologize.
That was one of the things he liked about her.
Maybe too much.
“When did you decide I wasn’t?”
“Four days ago.”
“What changed?”
“I found a second ledger.”
She opened another file.
Names filled the screen.
Police commanders.
A judge.
Union officials.
Corporate executives.
Dominic recognized nearly all of them.
Then one name stopped him.
Thomas Moretti.
Tommy stared.
“That’s not me.”
Clara nodded.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because these payments began when you were sixteen.”
Tommy’s face changed.
His father had also been named Thomas.
A man murdered twenty years earlier.
Dominic looked at his oldest friend.
Tommy whispered, “My father worked for Enzo.”
“He worked against him,” Clara said.
Silence.
Then an alarm sounded on the computer.
A file had appeared.
No one had downloaded it.
No one had touched the keyboard.
Clara stared at the screen.
A video.
Timestamped eleven years earlier.
Dominic clicked it.
His father appeared.
Enzo Castellano sat behind his office desk.
Alive.
Nervous.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Dominic is watching this, then Salvatore found the archive.”
Dominic felt the room narrow.
Enzo continued.
“Son, Vincent cannot know what I did.”
The video glitched.
Then Enzo leaned toward the camera.
“And if Clara Jenkins is with you…”
Clara stepped backward.
Dominic slowly turned toward her.
The video had been recorded eleven years ago.
Clara had never met the Castellanos until two months earlier.
On-screen, Enzo finished the sentence.
“…then her mother failed to keep the promise she made me.”
Clara’s face lost all color.
Dominic looked at her.
“Your mother knew my father?”
Clara didn’t answer.
The security office door clicked.
May you like
Someone had unlocked it from outside.
The handle slowly began to turn.
