Chapter 2 - The Man in the East Wing
Nico Bellini entered first.
His right hand rested beneath his jacket.
Behind him stood Dr. Alessandro Russo carrying a black medical case.
Matteo lowered his own hand.
Barely.
“You could knock,” he said.
Nico looked at the tiny key in Matteo’s palm.
“Something happened?”
“Several things.”
Dr. Russo glanced at Lily, then Elena, then Matteo.
“You called about coffee.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Dining room.”
Matteo handed Nico the folded paper.
Nico opened it.
Read the name.
His expression hardened.
“Where did this come from?”
“Daniel Marlowe hid it.”
Nico looked at Elena.
“Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he write Vittorio’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo watched Elena carefully.
He believed her.
That worried him more.
“Take Russo downstairs,” Matteo ordered. “Have him test the coffee. Nobody else goes near it.”
Nico nodded.
“And Nico?”
He paused.
“Don’t tell Vittorio.”
Something in Nico’s eyes shifted.
“Understood.”
They left.
Elena sat slowly on the edge of the bed.
Lily crawled beside her.
“Mommy?”
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t.
Matteo remained standing.
He looked at the tiny brass key.
“What does it open?”
Elena shook her head.
“Daniel never told me.”
“Warehouse Nine had employee lockers.”
She looked up.
“You think it belongs there?”
“I think your husband hid a key the night he died and wrote down the name of my uncle. That’s enough to make me curious.”
“Curious?”
Matteo met her stare.
“People around me tend to die when I become certain.”
She held his gaze.
He saw fear again.
But also judgment.
“You enjoy that?” she asked.
“No.”
“You say it like you do.”
“I say it like someone who learned early that hesitation gets buried.”
Lily reached for Matteo’s tattooed hand.
He looked down.
Her tiny fingers touched the ink near his knuckles.
Elena immediately pulled her back.
“Lily.”
The child frowned.
“It’s flowers.”
Matteo glanced at the black rose tattoo across his hand.
“Yes.”
“Why black?”
“Because I made bad choices.”
Lily considered that.
Then nodded as if this answer were perfectly reasonable.
Elena almost smiled.
Almost.
Matteo saw it.
The expression disappeared quickly.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Elena stood.
“What?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Warehouse Nine.”
“No.”
Matteo blinked.
People rarely said no to him.
“You misunderstand.”
“No, you misunderstand. My husband died because of whatever he found there. I have a three-year-old daughter. I’m not taking her near that place.”
“She stays here.”
Elena laughed once.
It was not amused.
“With the people who may have killed my husband?”
Matteo had no answer.
That made him angry.
Because she was right.
He looked toward Lily.
Then the tiny key.
“Fine.”
“What’s fine?”
“You both come.”
Elena stared.
“You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately.”
Twenty minutes later, a black SUV moved through the estate gates.
Matteo drove.
He trusted fewer people every minute.
Elena sat in the passenger seat.
Lily was strapped into a child seat behind them, eating crackers Nico had found somewhere in the kitchen.
The morning traffic thickened as they moved toward the industrial district.
Elena stared through the windshield.
“You really think your uncle was involved?”
“I think Daniel thought he was.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Matteo tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Vittorio raised me.”
“So?”
“So he taught me everything.”
“How to run criminal organizations?”
Matteo glanced at her.
She didn’t look away.
“How direct.”
“I’m tired.”
“Of me?”
“Of men who think power makes vague answers impressive.”
Lily giggled from the back.
Matteo nearly smiled.
Nearly.
“Vittorio took me in when I was fourteen,” he said.
Elena turned toward him.
“My father was murdered. My mother died six months later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t tell you for sympathy.”
“I didn’t offer pity.”
That shut him up.
For a moment.
“He taught me survival,” Matteo continued. “Business. Loyalty.”
“And murder?”
Matteo’s eyes stayed on the road.
“Sometimes survival and murder share a hallway.”
Elena looked disgusted.
Yet not shocked.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he said.
“I am.”
“You hide it well.”
“I’m more afraid of whoever killed Daniel.”
That answer stayed with him.
Warehouse Nine sat near the river behind rusting steel fencing.
Matteo had not visited since its closure.
The gates were chained.
He parked outside.
A security guard from one of Matteo’s other companies arrived ten minutes later with bolt cutters.
Matteo sent him away immediately after opening the gate.
Inside, the warehouse smelled of dust, oil, and old wood.
Rows of empty shelving disappeared into darkness.
Lily held Elena’s hand.
Matteo looked toward the far wall.
Employee lockers.
Most stood open.
A few had rusted shut.
“Daniel’s number?”
“Twenty-seven,” Elena said immediately.
They found it.
Locker 27.
Locked.
Matteo inserted the tiny brass key.
It fit.
Elena stopped breathing.
Matteo turned it.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside was an old jacket.
A flashlight.
A pair of gloves.
Nothing else.
Elena’s shoulders dropped.
Then Lily pointed.
“Daddy’s shoe.”
At the bottom of the locker sat one black work boot.
Only one.
Matteo removed it.
Something rattled inside.
He turned it upside down.
A small USB drive fell into his palm.
Elena stared.
“Daniel never used those.”
“Apparently he did.”
Matteo looked around the warehouse.
No cameras.
No movement.
Still, he felt watched.
He put the USB drive in his pocket.
“Let’s go.”
They turned.
Lily stopped.
“Mommy.”
Elena looked back.
The girl pointed toward a dusty wall.
There, beneath an old safety poster, were three scratches.
Vertical.
Then one horizontal.
Elena went pale.
Matteo asked, “What?”
“Daniel used to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Four lines like that. When we were dating, if he hid a note for me somewhere, he’d draw four marks.”
Matteo pulled the poster away.
Behind it was a narrow hole in the wall.
Inside lay a cheap prepaid phone.
Dead.
Matteo took it.
Elena stared at the phone.
“Why would he hide two things?”
“Because one might get found.”
Matteo pocketed it.
Then he heard something.
A metallic sound.
From above.
He looked up.
The warehouse catwalk.
Empty.
Then a shadow moved.
“Nobody move.”
Elena gripped Lily.
Matteo drew his pistol.
The shadow disappeared.
He advanced toward the stairs.
“Stay behind me.”
He climbed.
Slowly.
The old metal steps creaked.
At the top, the catwalk extended toward an office overlooking the warehouse floor.
The office door stood half open.
Matteo approached.
He pushed it wider.
Empty.
But on the desk was a fresh cigarette.
Still burning.
Someone had been there seconds earlier.
Matteo moved to the broken rear window.
A man was running across the loading yard.
Black jacket.
Baseball cap.
Matteo raised the gun.
Then lowered it.
Too far.
“Who is he?” Elena called from below.
“I don’t know.”
The man reached a parked motorcycle.
Started it.
Turned his head.
For one second, Matteo saw his face.
He knew him.
Gabriele Neri.
One of Vittorio’s personal guards.
Matteo’s stomach dropped.
The motorcycle disappeared through a rear gate.
Elena climbed halfway up the stairs.
“Did you recognize him?”
Matteo stared after the bike.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He did not answer.
His phone vibrated.
Nico.
Matteo answered.
“What did Russo find?”
Silence.
Then Nico said, “You need to come back.”
“What was in the coffee?”
“Something called aconitine.”
Matteo’s eyes hardened.
“Poison?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Elena covered Lily’s ears.
Matteo asked, “Enough for what?”
Nico’s voice dropped.
“To stop your heart before an ambulance reached the gates.”
Matteo looked at Elena.
Then at the cigarette still burning in the office.
“Tell me everything.”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Russo says aconitine has a strong bitter smell when concentrated.”
Matteo looked down at Lily.
The girl was tracing the scratches on the wall with one finger.
Nico continued.
“And I searched Daniel Marlowe’s hospital file.”
Matteo stopped breathing.
“What did you find?”
“The toxicology report was altered.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Nico.”
“I found the original lab request.”
Matteo gripped the phone.
“There’s a signature at the bottom.”
“Whose?”
Nico hesitated.
Then said, “Your uncle’s personal physician.”
Before Matteo could answer, Elena gasped.
Lily was no longer beside her.
The small red door at the end of the catwalk stood open.
May you like
A child-sized footprint marked the dust beyond it.
And from somewhere inside the darkness, Lily screamed.
