Chapter 5 - The Betrayal Inside the Family
Marco entered with his hands visible.
Vincent stood between him and Delphine.
"Talk."
Marco looked exhausted.
"You think I shot you."
"Did you?"
"No."
"The cuff links?"
"Mine."
"Convenient."
"They were stolen."
Vincent laughed once.
No humor.
"Try harder."
Marco looked at Delphine.
"Ask your nurse why her mother hid Anthony."
Delphine stiffened.
"She saved him."
"Yes."
"What's your point?"
"Anthony wasn't hiding only from his enemies."
Marco looked at Vincent.
"He was hiding from you."
Vincent's expression changed.
"I was twenty-six."
"And angry."
"Not murderous."
"I know."
Vincent stared.
Marco continued.
"Anthony didn't."
That landed.
Vincent had spent his life becoming a man nobody could betray.
Now he was discovering that even his father had once feared him.
Marco explained that Elena had contacted him before her death.
They had been secretly engaged.
Vincent looked stunned.
"You?"
Marco nodded.
"She knew you'd never approve."
"You were working for my father."
"I loved her."
Vincent stepped forward.
"You let me bury her believing she died alone."
"I was trying to stay alive."
Vincent hit him.
One punch.
Marco fell.
Delphine stepped between them.
"Enough."
Vincent's breathing was heavy.
"Move."
"No."
Again.
That word.
No.
Nobody told Vincent Moretti no.
Delphine seemed to specialize in it.
Marco wiped blood from his lip.
"That's why Elena didn't tell you."
Vincent stopped.
Marco stood.
"Because everything became violence with you."
The room went silent.
Vincent looked away.
Delphine saw something in his face.
Shame.
Not anger.
Marco continued.
"The men who killed Elena believed she had Anthony's evidence. They searched her car after the crash. They found nothing."
"Who ordered it?"
"I never knew."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"What about my shooting?"
Marco reached into his coat slowly.
Vincent tensed.
Marco removed a phone.
He opened a photograph.
It showed Vincent entering the warehouse where he'd been shot.
Time stamp.
Ten minutes before the attack.
Another photograph showed a man leaving.
Tomas leaned closer.
"That's Dominic."
Vincent's cousin.
Dominic Moretti.
The family member who handled political connections and legitimate business operations.
The one nobody suspected because he had never wanted Vincent's position.
Vincent stared at the image.
"Dominic wasn't there."
Marco nodded.
"Exactly."
"Where is he?"
"That's why I disappeared. I've been following him."
Marco opened another image.
Dominic entering St. Augustine.
The night Vincent was shot.
Delphine's stomach tightened.
"He was the person in the elevator."
Marco nodded.
"And he sent the message to Delphine."
Vincent's face became terrifyingly still.
"You can prove that?"
"Not yet."
"Then why come here?"
"Because Dominic knows about Room 614."
Delphine stared.
"How?"
"He followed Teresa for years."
Vincent looked at her.
Her mother.
Again.
Marco explained that Teresa had spent the last years of her life moving pieces of Anthony's evidence.
She never kept everything together.
The hospital held only part.
There was another piece.
Something Elena had entrusted to Teresa.
"Where?"
Marco looked at Delphine.
"Your mother left it to you."
Delphine shook her head.
"I went through everything."
"Not everything."
"How would you know?"
"Because Elena told me."
Delphine's mind raced.
Her mother's apartment had been emptied after her death.
Furniture sold.
Clothing donated.
One thing Delphine had kept untouched.
Her mother's old recipe box.
Not because she cooked.
Because opening it hurt.
It sat on the highest shelf of her kitchen.
They drove to Delphine's apartment.
The door was open.
Vincent stopped her.
"Stay here."
"It's my home."
"Exactly."
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Cushions cut.
Closets searched.
The recipe box remained on the shelf.
Delphine reached for it.
Vincent stopped her.
"Gloves."
They opened it carefully.
Recipes.
Handwritten cards.
At the bottom was a false panel.
Under it lay a photograph.
Elena.
Anthony.
Teresa.
And a baby.
Delphine stared.
The date was thirty-one years ago.
The baby was wearing a bracelet.
D.R.
Her initials.
Vincent looked at Delphine.
She couldn't speak.
On the back Teresa had written:
The night everything began.
Marco looked confused.
Vincent turned the photograph over again.
There was something else.
A name.
DR. SAMUEL HART.
Delphine knew it.
Everyone at St. Augustine did.
Samuel Hart had founded the hospital's private trauma program.
He was also Delphine's godfather.
He had attended every birthday until she was sixteen.
Then disappeared from her life.
Vincent looked at her.
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Retired. Wisconsin."
They drove north before dawn.
Hart lived beside a lake.
When he opened the door and saw Delphine, he began crying.
"You found Teresa's box."
Delphine stared.
"Tell me why my mother was photographed with Anthony Moretti and Elena."
Hart invited them inside.
His hands shook.
"Because Teresa saved Anthony twice."
"Twice?"
"The first time wasn't after his assassination."
Hart looked at Delphine.
"It was the night you were born."
Delphine felt the room tilt.
Vincent moved beside her.
Hart continued.
"Your mother wasn't supposed to survive that night."
"What are you talking about?"
"Someone tried to kill her."
"Why?"
Hart looked at Vincent.
"Because Teresa had witnessed something involving Anthony Moretti."
Delphine's voice became barely audible.
"What?"
Hart reached into a cabinet.
He removed a sealed envelope.
Before he could hand it to her, headlights swept across the windows.
Vincent turned.
Three vehicles stopped outside.
Hart's face went white.
"They found us."
Vincent looked through the curtain.
A man stepped from the first car.
Dominic Moretti.
May you like
He wasn't alone.
And the woman stepping out beside him was wearing Teresa Rios's silver necklace.
