Chapter 3 - What Happened on the Waterfront
I didn't sleep.
At sunrise, I was waiting in Adrian's kitchen.
He entered at 6:12 wearing yesterday's black shirt, sleeves rolled up, exhaustion visible beneath his eyes.
He stopped when he saw me.
"You heard us."
"I heard enough."
"No, you heard one sentence."
"Then finish it."
He poured coffee.
I wanted to throw the cup at him.
"Why were you with Daniel when he died?"
Adrian's hand stopped.
"Sofia—"
"No. You don't get to protect me with silence anymore."
He turned.
"Daniel called me that night."
"Why?"
"He had evidence against Rizzo."
"The flash drive?"
"Part of it."
"What happened?"
Adrian's jaw tightened.
"He asked me to meet him at Pier Nineteen."
My brother's crash had occurred less than a mile away.
"He was terrified. He said Rizzo knew he'd copied financial records."
"And?"
"I sent men."
"You went yourself."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Daniel saved my life two years earlier."
I stared.
Adrian told me the story.
A shipment had been sabotaged.
Daniel discovered it before Adrian boarded the vessel.
He warned him.
The explosion destroyed half the dock.
Adrian survived because Daniel made one phone call.
"After that, your brother became someone I trusted."
"Then why didn't I know?"
"Because Daniel didn't want you involved."
That sounded painfully like him.
Always protecting me.
Always deciding what I could handle.
"He was alive when you reached the pier?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"Rizzo's men arrived first."
I stopped breathing.
"There was a chase."
Adrian's voice had become quieter.
"Daniel got into his car."
"The crash."
"I followed."
"Did you see it happen?"
"Yes."
The word nearly broke me.
"Was he conscious?"
Adrian looked away.
That was answer enough.
"You spoke to him."
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Adrian's eyes returned to mine.
"Protect Sofia."
Tears burned behind my eyes.
I hated that they came.
I hated that my brother's final words had been about me.
"What else?"
"Nothing."
Lie.
I knew it immediately.
Adrian knew I knew.
But he refused to continue.
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"Because one of the responding officers worked for Rizzo."
My grief changed shape.
Nine months of believing Daniel died alone.
Nine months of wondering whether he suffered.
Adrian had known.
"You buried the truth."
"I kept you alive."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
His voice sharpened for the first time.
"Rizzo asked about you the morning after the crash."
I went still.
"What?"
"He wanted to know whether Daniel had given you anything."
"The key?"
"Maybe."
"And you told him?"
"That Daniel hadn't spoken to you in months."
"But he had."
"Exactly."
Adrian had lied to protect me.
I didn't want that to matter.
It did.
Vincent entered carrying a laptop.
"We opened part of the drive."
Adrian immediately became businesslike.
"What did you find?"
"Payments. Names. Shipping schedules."
"Enough?"
"For federal charges? Probably."
"Probably isn't enough."
Vincent looked at me.
"There's also a video."
My heart stopped.
"Daniel?"
Vincent hesitated.
Adrian said, "Play it."
Daniel appeared on screen.
Alive.
My brother.
Same crooked smile.
Same dark curls.
He looked exhausted.
"If Sofia is watching this, then something went wrong."
My hand covered my mouth.
Daniel continued.
"Sof, I'm sorry. I should've told you."
He explained the debt.
Except it wasn't his.
Rizzo had forced him to sign loan documents after Daniel discovered the weapons operation.
The $300,000 had never been borrowed.
It was leverage.
A fake debt designed to make Daniel look compromised if he went to police.
"I thought I could gather enough evidence to stop him."
Daniel glanced behind the camera.
"If I don't make it, trust Adrian."
I looked at Adrian.
He didn't move.
Daniel continued.
"He isn't what people say."
That almost made me laugh through my tears.
What people said about Adrian included murder, racketeering, extortion, and worse.
But Daniel's face was serious.
"He gave me a chance to walk away when nobody else would."
The video glitched.
Then Daniel said:
"There's a second file. Sofia knows the password even if she doesn't know she knows it."
The screen went black.
"That's it?" I asked.
Vincent nodded.
"What password?"
I thought.
Birthdays.
Addresses.
Pet names.
Then I remembered something Daniel said whenever we fought as children.
Three words.
Mom's old rule.
Flowers forgive everything.
I typed it.
FLOWERSFORGIVEEVERYTHING.
A second encrypted folder opened.
Inside were photographs.
Ledgers.
Audio recordings.
And a list of names.
Police.
Politicians.
Business owners.
Then I saw one that made Adrian swear.
Vincent.
I looked at the older man.
His face drained of color.
"What?"
Vincent stepped closer.
"That's not possible."
His name appeared beside a transfer of $250,000.
Rizzo organization.
Recipient: Vincent Santoro.
Adrian said nothing.
Vincent stared at him.
"You think I took money from Rizzo?"
"I think Daniel found something."
"Adrian."
"Tell me."
"I didn't."
The room became dangerously quiet.
Vincent had practically raised Adrian.
Yet suspicion entered anyway.
Then another file opened automatically.
An audio recording.
Rizzo's voice.
"We'll make it look like Santoro took the payment. DeLuca will turn on his own family."
Vincent exhaled.
Adrian's shoulders loosened.
The setup had failed.
But the recording continued.
Another voice answered Rizzo.
A woman's voice.
"We don't need DeLuca to turn on Vincent."
Rizzo asked, "Then what?"
The woman replied:
"We need the Bellini girl inside Adrian's house."
Every person in the kitchen froze.
My skin went cold.
The recording timestamp was seven months old.
Two months after Daniel died.
Before anyone had approached my flower shop.
Before the debt collectors.
Before the marriage.
They had planned for me to end up here.
"This wasn't about collecting money," I whispered.
Adrian shut the laptop.
"No."
"They wanted me near you."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He looked toward my wedding ring.
"I don't know."
For the first time since meeting him, Adrian DeLuca looked genuinely afraid.
Not for himself.
For me.
Security doubled immediately.
I was forbidden to leave alone.
I hated it.
I also understood.
That afternoon, I returned to the flower shop with Adrian and four guards.
I needed clothes.
I needed something normal.
While Adrian checked the back door, I noticed the broken rose Marco had left days earlier.
It was still beneath the counter where it had fallen.
Except now something reflected inside the split stem.
Metal.
I pulled it apart.
A tiny listening device dropped into my palm.
"Adrian."
He crossed the room instantly.
His expression darkened.
"Don't touch anything else."
We searched the shop.
Another device beneath the register.
A third near my office.
Then Adrian opened Daniel's old desk drawer.
Empty.
Except it hadn't been empty before.
I remembered leaving a framed photograph there.
Daniel and me at Fenway.
Gone.
Someone had entered.
Adrian checked the security feed.
Three minutes of footage from the night before had been erased.
But one frame survived.
A woman standing behind the counter.
Her face was turned partly away.
She wore a red coat.
I had seen that coat before.
At Daniel's funeral.
My hands went cold.
"Who is she?" Adrian asked.
I enlarged the image.
I knew her.
Daniel's former fiancée.
Elena Russo.
The woman who had disappeared from our lives one week after my brother died.
Adrian stared at the screen.
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
He slowly turned toward me.
"Because Elena Russo was found dead six months ago."
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
I opened it.
One sentence.
HE DIDN'T TELL YOU EVERYTHING ABOUT THE CRASH.
Below it was a photograph taken seconds earlier.
Adrian and me standing inside the flower shop.
May you like
Then another message arrived.
ASK HIM WHO PULLED DANIEL FROM THE CAR.
