Chapter 5 - The Detective Who Wasn't Fiction
“Russo.”
Matteo said the name into the darkness.
Gemma remembered the guard.
Russo had worked at the estate for eleven years.
He had access to the cameras.
Leonardo's schedules.
Every locked door.
Matteo drew a handgun.
“Stay behind me.”
Emergency lights came on.
Locker 214 was empty.
The phone was gone.
Someone had taken it during the darkness.
Matteo ran into the corridor.
A fire door swung shut.
No one.
But Gemma saw muddy footprints.
They led to the elevator.
Then stopped.
“Someone knew we were coming,” Leonardo said.
Matteo looked at Gemma's key.
“No.”
He looked at Leonardo.
“Someone has been listening.”
They returned to the mansion and discovered three cameras that Matteo had never installed.
One in his office.
One in the surveillance room.
One inside Leonardo's wheelchair.
That discovery changed the investigation.
Matteo removed every camera from the east wing himself.
Eleven lenses.
One by one.
Leonardo watched.
When Matteo reached the final camera above the south window, he stopped.
“You want this one gone too?”
Leonardo considered.
“No.”
Matteo frowned.
“Why?”
“I want whoever is watching to think we haven't found everything.”
For the first time in years, the brothers planned something together.
Gemma became the bait.
They staged an argument.
She loudly announced she had discovered Daniel's missing dash-camera recording.
Matteo pretended to fire her.
At eight-thirty, Gemma left the mansion carrying a canvas bag.
Inside was nothing but towels.
A car followed her bus.
Matteo's men followed the car.
It belonged to a shell company.
The driver eventually led them to an abandoned warehouse.
Inside they found Joseph.
Alive.
Bound to a chair.
Beaten.
Joseph had not run.
He had been taken.
Matteo cut him free.
Joseph could barely speak.
“Russo.”
“We know.”
Joseph shook his head.
“No. You don't.”
He coughed.
“Russo works for someone.”
“Who?”
Joseph looked at Leonardo.
“Your father.”
Silence.
“Our father is dead,” Matteo said.
Joseph shook his head again.
“Not your father.”
Leonardo understood first.
“The man who raised us?”
Joseph nodded.
Matteo grabbed his shoulder.
“Speak clearly.”
Joseph's eyes closed.
“Vittorio Ferraro wasn't your biological father.”
The room seemed to contract.
Leonardo whispered, “Then who was?”
Joseph looked toward Gemma.
“Daniel knew.”
Gemma recoiled.
“My father?”
“He found the adoption papers in the wreck.”
“What adoption papers?”
Joseph struggled for breath.
“The accident wasn't about Matteo.”
He looked at Leonardo.
“It was about you.”
A gunshot shattered the warehouse window.
Matteo pulled Leonardo down.
Gemma screamed.
Joseph jerked backward.
Blood spread across his shirt.
A second shot struck the wall.
Matteo's men returned fire.
The shooter vanished.
Gemma pressed both hands against Joseph's wound.
“Stay with me.”
Joseph grabbed her wrist.
“Your father left one more thing.”
“Where?”
Joseph whispered an address.
Then his eyes closed.
He was still breathing.
Barely.
Paramedics took him away.
Matteo looked at the address.
Leonardo recognized it.
It was the apartment where the twins had been born.
They arrived just before midnight.
The building was scheduled for demolition.
Apartment 3C was empty except for a table.
On it sat Leonardo's manuscript.
Every chapter.
Printed.
Someone had been reading it.
Beside the manuscript was a photograph of two newborn boys.
On the back:
MATTEO — 4:11 A.M.
LEONARDO — 4:18 A.M.
Underneath, another line had been added.
ONLY ONE IS A FERRARO.
Gemma heard movement behind the bedroom door.
Matteo raised his weapon.
Leonardo stared at the photograph.
The bedroom handle turned.
A woman's voice came from the other side.
“Put the gun down, Matteo.”
May you like
He froze.
Because the woman had called him by the childhood name only his mother had ever used.
