Chapter 4 - The Brother I Buried
For eighteen years, I had remembered Matteo as a twenty-four-year-old man.
The brother standing in front of me was forty-two.
Time had sharpened him.
His hair was darker at the temples. Burn scars disappeared beneath his collar. His posture carried the stiffness of someone who had learned to expect pain before it arrived.
But his eyes were unchanged.
I hated that most.
"You're alive."
Matteo gave a weak smile.
"Apparently."
I punched him.
Daniel didn't interfere.
Neither did the stranger.
Matteo stumbled backward, touched his split lip, and nodded.
"I deserved that."
I hit him again.
This time he caught my wrist.
"That one too."
I pulled free.
"You let Sofia mourn you."
His expression changed.
"I know."
"You let me bury you."
"I know."
"You stood somewhere breathing while we put an empty coffin in the ground."
"It wasn't empty."
I froze.
"What?"
"A man died in that fire. One of Hale's guards."
Disgust rolled through me.
"And you let us bury him as you."
"I was unconscious for three weeks."
"Then what about the next eighteen years?"
"Every year I stayed away was another year Hale didn't use you to reach me."
"Bullshit."
"Adrian—"
"No."
My voice echoed across the storage unit.
"You don't get to turn abandonment into sacrifice because it sounds prettier."
Matteo absorbed that.
Daniel looked away.
The other man finally spoke.
"He's right."
I turned toward him.
He was perhaps thirty-five. Expensive jacket. Calm face. No visible weapon.
"Who are you?"
"Ethan Hale."
Victor's son.
Daniel had identified him.
I raised my gun.
Ethan didn't move.
"That would simplify Thanksgiving."
Matteo sighed.
"Put it down."
"Why is Hale's son standing behind you?"
"Because Ethan has spent nine years helping me build a case against his father."
I laughed once.
"Of course he has."
Ethan's expression remained flat.
"My father killed my mother."
That removed the humor.
"He called it an overdose. She had found records related to his network."
"Why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't."
At least he understood.
"Where's Elena?"
Matteo answered.
"Safe house."
"I want to see her."
"You will."
"Now."
"We have a bigger problem."
"There is no bigger problem than a mother whose three-year-old child was delivered to my bedroom."
Matteo's eyes sharpened.
"Lucy reached you?"
"You didn't know?"
"No."
He looked at Daniel.
Daniel shook his head.
Matteo's face drained.
"Elena was supposed to keep Lucy with her."
"Apparently plans changed."
Ethan took out his phone.
I aimed my gun at him again.
"Slowly."
He showed us the screen.
Six missed calls from Elena.
All within the past twenty minutes.
Matteo dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Daniel checked another number.
"Safe-house line is dead."
My anger vanished beneath something colder.
"When did you last speak to her?"
"Forty minutes ago."
"And Lucy appeared at my house ninety minutes ago."
Matteo stared at me.
"Then the woman I spoke to wasn't Elena."
Silence.
Ethan swore.
"Voice synthesis."
I thought of the call that had sounded exactly like Matteo.
Someone had already demonstrated the technology.
"They can imitate voices."
"Yes," Matteo said.
"How many people knew the safe house?"
"Five."
"Names."
"Me. Ethan. Daniel. Elena. Owen Price."
Price.
The detective currently sitting inside my estate.
I turned to Daniel.
"Call Gabriel."
He did.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My stomach dropped.
I called Sofia.
Straight to voicemail.
"Move."
We left the storage facility within seconds.
Matteo got into my car without asking.
Ethan and Daniel followed separately.
I drove faster than I should have.
"What exactly does Hale want from Elena?" I asked.
"The evidence."
"Then why Lucy?"
"Leverage."
"And me?"
Matteo looked at me.
"You're the one person in Chicago powerful enough to destroy his remaining operation."
"Why not kill me?"
"Because killing you creates chaos."
"He's afraid of chaos?"
"He profits from order."
I gripped the wheel.
"Tell me everything."
Matteo did.
Hale's network had started as financial laundering thirty years earlier.
Then smuggling.
Then people.
Our father, Lorenzo Moretti, had participated in the financial side before discovering what the routes really carried.
When he tried leaving, Hale threatened us.
Matteo found proof.
The fire followed.
My father hid him and began quietly collecting evidence.
Years later, my mother learned the truth.
"Mom knew you were alive?"
Matteo looked out the window.
"Yes."
That cut deeper than anything else.
"She lied too."
"She begged me to stay away."
"Why?"
"Because Hale told her he would kill you first."
I swallowed.
Our mother died in a supposed car accident six years after Matteo's "death."
I already knew the next answer.
"Her crash wasn't an accident."
"No."
My hands tightened on the steering wheel.
"Victor Hale killed our mother."
"His people did."
"And Dad?"
"Heart attack."
"You sure?"
"No."
Great.
Every grave in my family suddenly felt questionable.
We reached the estate.
The gate stood open.
Too open.
No guards visible.
I stopped the car before the main drive.
"Stay behind me."
Matteo almost laughed.
"Some things never change."
We entered through the service wing.
One guard lay unconscious.
Alive.
Another had been handcuffed to a radiator.
Not dead.
That told me whoever entered wanted control, not massacre.
We reached the security room.
Gabriel was gone.
Blood marked the floor.
"Gabriel!" I shouted.
Nothing.
The secure suite door had been opened.
Not forced.
Opened.
I entered.
Sofia's bed was empty.
Dr. Harris lay sedated on the floor.
Lucy was gone.
For the first time in many years, real fear reached my throat.
Matteo stared at the empty room.
"Adrian."
I turned.
On Sofia's pillow sat Buttons.
Lucy's purple rabbit.
A white envelope had been pinned to its chest.
My name was written across it.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph taken less than a minute earlier.
Sofia.
Lucy.
Gabriel.
All three standing somewhere inside my own house.
Behind them was a wooden door I recognized.
The old wine cellar.
Beneath the photograph was one sentence:
Bring Matteo downstairs.
I looked at my brother.
He looked back at me.
"We're not alone," he whispered.
Then the cellar intercom crackled.
My sister's terrified voice came through.
"Adrian, don't come down here. He knows everything."
A second voice interrupted her.
My father's voice.
May you like
A man who had been dead for seven years said:
"Bring me my sons."
