Chapter 5 - The Last Copy
Lorenzo moved first.
He pushed me behind the bed.
The door opened.
Teresa stood there.
Her face was wet with tears.
"Mr. Duca."
Lorenzo lowered his weapon.
"Teresa?"
"They took Marco."
"We know."
"No."
She shook her head.
"You don't understand."
Marco had called her.
He wanted to trade information for protection.
Vittorio had discovered Daniel's final safeguard.
Not another flash drive.
A person.
Me.
Daniel had taught me something without telling me what it meant.
Numbers.
Years earlier, he used to play a memory game with me.
He would read sequences.
I repeated them.
I thought it was silly.
It wasn't.
Some sequences corresponded to account numbers.
Others to safe deposit boxes.
Daniel had hidden information inside my memory.
I felt violated.
Then amazed.
Then furious.
"How am I supposed to remember numbers from four years ago?"
Emma, awake now, whispered:
"The song."
I looked at her.
"What song?"
"Daddy's number song."
Daniel had sung sequences to Emma.
A ridiculous melody.
I remembered.
Two-seven-three.
Eleven-four.
Nine-nine-one.
Pieces returned.
Hale spent hours matching them to Daniel's records.
One sequence unlocked an encrypted file.
Inside was the complete list.
Every official.
Every payment.
Every crime.
Vittorio's empire had just become evidence.
Hale contacted a federal team she trusted.
Arrests began before dawn.
Two officers.
A judge.
Three executives.
Then another name appeared.
Father Matteo.
But Vittorio remained missing.
So did Marco.
At 6:12 a.m., Lorenzo received a video.
Marco sat tied to a chair.
Vittorio stood behind him.
"Bring Sophia."
I stared at the screen.
"No."
Lorenzo agreed.
"No."
The video continued.
Vittorio smiled.
"Or I visit the child."
That decided it.
We couldn't keep running.
Hale proposed a controlled exchange.
I hated the plan.
Lorenzo hated it more.
But Vittorio wanted the final access codes.
We would give him false ones.
The meeting location was an abandoned Duca Construction warehouse near the harbor.
I entered wearing a wire.
Lorenzo stayed hidden.
Federal agents surrounded the building.
Vittorio stood beside Marco.
Father Matteo was there too.
Marco looked terrible.
"Sophia," Vittorio said.
"You've caused remarkable trouble."
"My husband caused it."
His smile disappeared.
"Daniel was stubborn."
"He was better than you."
"Morality is expensive."
"No. Your kind of life is."
He held out his hand.
"The codes."
I gave him the paper.
He examined it.
Then laughed.
"These are false."
My blood froze.
"Daniel used a pattern. You don't know it."
He did.
Of course he did.
Because Marco had told him.
Vittorio raised his gun.
Lorenzo emerged.
"Enough."
Everything erupted.
Agents entered.
Matteo ran.
Marco kicked Vittorio's knee.
A shot fired.
Vittorio fell.
Alive.
Wounded.
Federal agents surrounded him.
Father Matteo was caught outside.
Marco surrendered.
For the first time in two years, the men responsible for Daniel's death were in custody.
It should have ended there.
It didn't.
Because as Hale examined Daniel's files, she discovered one last recording.
Addressed to Lorenzo.
We played it together.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Alive.
Smiling nervously.
"If you're watching this, Lorenzo, I probably didn't make it."
Lorenzo looked away.
Daniel continued.
"Don't become what Vittorio wants you to become."
Then he said something that stunned both of us.
"Take care of Sophia and Emma if they'll let you. Not because you owe me. Because someday you may need them more than they need you."
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Lorenzo walked out.
I found him in the library.
Sitting in the same chair.
The envelope of money was gone.
Emma entered behind me.
She carried the yellow blanket.
Lorenzo saw her.
"No."
Emma stopped.
"No what?"
"I'm not cold."
She considered this.
Then climbed onto the rug beside him.
"You look sad."
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
"That is different."
Emma placed the blanket over his hand anyway.
I almost smiled.
Then the doorbell rang.
Teresa answered.
A federal courier stood outside.
He carried a sealed package recovered from Vittorio's private safe.
Addressed to me.
Inside was Daniel's wedding ring.
And beneath it was a photograph I had never seen.
Daniel.
Lorenzo.
And Marco.
On the back Daniel had written one sentence:
ONE OF THESE MEN WILL BETRAY THE OTHER.
I turned the photograph over again.
There was another line beneath the first.
The ink was faded.
May you like
But readable.
AND IT ISN'T MARCO.
