Chapter 3 - The Name in the Dark
Vincent drew his weapon but did not fire.
"Luca."
"Here."
"Daniel."
"Here."
Emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
A silhouette appeared at the opposite end of the corridor.
Vincent aimed.
"Stop."
The figure stopped.
Then raised empty hands.
"Still impatient, Vinnie."
Vincent's blood turned cold.
Nobody used that name.
Nobody except his mother.
But the voice belonged to a man.
The emergency lights brightened.
Luca gasped.
"Nico?"
The man smiled.
He looked enough like Luca to be his reflection aged by harder years.
"Nineteen seconds," Nico Bellini said. "That's how long before the men upstairs realize I've disabled their feed."
Vincent kept his weapon aimed.
"Start talking."
"No time."
"Make time."
Nico sighed.
"You haven't changed."
"We've never met."
"Not that you remember."
That sentence landed harder than Vincent expected.
Daniel looked toward the ceiling.
"Who's upstairs?"
"The people waiting for Vincent to leave this station."
Nico pointed toward a maintenance door.
"If you want Anna alive, move."
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"How do I know you're not taking me directly to them?"
"You don't."
"Bad sales pitch."
Nico looked at Luca.
"Tell him."
Luca was staring at his brother as if the dead had stepped out of a grave.
"I watched them bury you."
"No. You watched them bury a sealed casket."
Vincent knew that feeling too well.
Nico moved toward the maintenance exit.
"Eighteen seconds."
Vincent made his decision.
"Go."
They entered a narrow service tunnel as footsteps thundered above.
Nico led them through locked utility corridors.
"Anna is alive?" Vincent asked.
"She was ninety minutes ago."
"Where?"
"Being moved."
"By whom?"
"A group called Meridian."
Vincent had heard the name.
Barely.
Whispers around contracts that changed hands unexpectedly. Judges who retired overnight. Businesses that collapsed after refusing acquisition offers.
Nobody knew whether Meridian was a corporation, intelligence network, or myth invented by frightened criminals.
"Meridian isn't real."
Nico laughed quietly.
"That's why it survived."
Daniel spoke behind them.
"Evelyn called it the machine."
Nico nodded.
"Because it doesn't matter who's sitting at the top. The system keeps operating."
"Who runs it now?" Vincent asked.
Nico looked back.
"Your uncle."
Vincent stopped.
"I don't have an uncle."
"You did."
They entered an underground parking level.
A black SUV waited.
Nico opened the driver's door.
"Get in."
Vincent didn't move.
"Name."
Nico understood.
"Anthony Moretti."
Vincent's father's older brother.
Anthony had supposedly died before Vincent was born.
Plane crash.
No survivors.
Another closed coffin.
Vincent felt sick.
"How many dead people in my family aren't actually dead?"
Nico looked at him.
"More than you'd like."
They drove.
During the next twenty minutes, Nico dismantled Vincent's childhood one lie at a time.
Anthony Moretti had created Meridian with businessmen, corrupt officials, and organized crime families.
Salvatore initially worked beside his brother.
Then Elena discovered what Meridian was becoming.
Bribery became extortion.
Extortion became disappearances.
People were not simply bought.
They were erased.
Elena convinced Salvatore to leave.
Anthony refused to allow it.
The car explosion that supposedly killed Elena had been arranged by Meridian.
She survived because Evelyn Hart switched vehicles with her minutes earlier.
Vincent stared at Nico.
"Evelyn saved my mother?"
"Yes."
"And died because of it?"
"No."
Daniel looked confused.
"What do you mean?"
"Evelyn survived the explosion too."
Daniel leaned forward.
"You said she was killed."
"Three weeks later."
Silence.
Nico continued.
"Meridian captured her. They wanted the evidence she'd copied."
Daniel's voice shook.
"How?"
"I don't know."
"You worked for them."
"I worked against them from inside."
"For fourteen years?"
"Yes."
Luca stared at him.
"You let me think you were dead."
Nico's hands tightened around the steering wheel.
"To keep you alive."
Luca looked away.
Vincent understood that anger.
Too well.
"Where are we going?"
"Anna's fallback location."
"Why would she be there if they took her?"
"She won't."
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
"Then why?"
"Because she left something."
The fallback location was a closed elementary school.
Inside a classroom, they found Anna's laptop beneath a loose floorboard.
Password protected.
Daniel entered Lucy's birthday.
Wrong.
He tried Evelyn's.
Wrong.
Vincent stared at the screen.
"213."
Daniel entered it.
Unlocked.
Folders filled the desktop.
FINANCIAL.
MERIDIAN.
ELENA.
LUCY.
Vincent clicked the last one.
Videos appeared.
Anna sat in front of the camera.
"If you're watching this, Lucy reached Vincent."
Vincent leaned closer.
"Good girl."
Anna smiled briefly, then became serious.
"Vincent, my mother died protecting yours. Your mother spent the next twenty-nine years collecting evidence against Meridian. But Anthony learned she was alive six months ago."
Vincent looked at Nico.
Anna continued.
"Elena disappeared four days ago. I tried to find her. That's why they came for me."
Daniel whispered, "Four days?"
"The night you moved her," Vincent said.
Nico's face tightened.
Anna looked directly into the camera.
"Lucy knows more than she realizes. Do not pressure her. Do not frighten her. The rabbit contains the final access code, but she doesn't know where."
Vincent thought of the hidden zipper.
They had found the medallion.
Maybe there was more.
Anna continued.
"Most importantly, don't trust anyone who insists Lucy should be moved from Vincent's penthouse."
Vincent's phone rang.
Marco.
He answered immediately.
"What?"
Marco sounded breathless.
"Boss, we have a problem."
Vincent stood.
"Lucy?"
"She's safe."
"Then what?"
"Someone came to the penthouse."
"Who?"
"A woman."
Vincent's pulse changed.
"What woman?"
"She says she's Lucy's grandmother."
Rose.
Vincent looked at Daniel.
"Do you know Rose?"
Daniel nodded.
"Anna's adoptive mother."
Marco continued.
"She says she has legal custody documents. She wants Lucy."
Vincent stared at Anna's frozen face on the laptop.
Don't trust anyone who insists Lucy should be moved.
"Nobody takes that child."
"Understood."
"And lock Rose down."
A pause.
"Boss..."
Vincent didn't like the hesitation.
"What?"
"She didn't come alone."
"Who is with her?"
Marco lowered his voice.
"Two federal agents."
Vincent's expression hardened.
Then another voice came through the phone.
A woman.
Calm.
Older.
"Vincent?"
Vincent stopped breathing.
He knew the voice.
He had heard it every night in childhood when nightmares woke him.
A voice he had not heard in twenty-nine years.
May you like
"Vinnie," the woman whispered. "Please come home."
His mother was inside his penthouse.
