Chapter 13 - Mateo Finally Spoke
The estate erupted.
Security footage showed Mateo leaving the study with a nurse.
The nurse wasn't Moretti staff.
She had entered using Anthony's credentials.
Lydia's stomach dropped.
“They took him.”
Lorenzo looked ready to tear the city apart.
Instead Lydia grabbed his face.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Don't become stupid because you're scared.”
His breathing slowed.
“Okay.”
“We know where they're going.”
“The docks.”
“Yes.”
“And they expect us.”
“Yes.”
“So we don't give them what they expect.”
Mateo had left one clue.
His communication tablet remained under the desk.
On it was a drafted message.
CAMERA.
Lydia understood first.
“The old clinic footage.”
They reviewed it.
Mateo had deliberately turned his chair toward a camera during the kidnapping.
His fingers tapped the armrest.
Morse code.
Lydia translated.
WAREHOUSE 9.
BASEMENT.
Blackwood's message claimed Warehouse 4.
A trap.
Mateo had given them the real location.
Federal agents moved toward Warehouse 9 while Lorenzo's men approached from the river.
Lydia went too.
Lorenzo argued once.
Only once.
Then accepted the expression on her face.
Inside the warehouse, Mateo sat restrained beside Anthony.
Blackwood paced.
Vane stood near the loading door.
Dr. Cole's daughter cried quietly.
Lydia entered alone.
“I'm here.”
Blackwood smiled.
“Where's Lorenzo?”
“Not coming.”
Vane laughed.
“He'd sacrifice you?”
“No.”
Lydia held up the drive.
“He trusted me.”
That bothered Vane more.
“Give it here.”
“Release them.”
Blackwood aimed at Mateo.
“Now.”
Lydia stepped forward.
Then every light in the warehouse came on.
Lorenzo's voice echoed from the upper level.
“Put it down.”
Agents entered.
Blackwood grabbed Mateo.
Vane ran.
Anthony tackled him.
A shot fired.
Mateo's chair overturned.
Lydia ran.
Blackwood escaped through the loading bay but federal agents pursued.
Vane was arrested.
Anthony lay wounded but alive.
Lydia reached Mateo.
“You okay?”
His eyes were open.
He blinked.
Then something happened.
A sound.
Barely more than breath.
“L...”
Lydia froze.
Mateo's mouth moved again.
“Lyd...ia.”
She stared.
“Mateo?”
He swallowed painfully.
“Lydia.”
The word was rough.
Weak.
But unmistakable.
Lorenzo dropped beside them.
“Mateo?”
His brother looked at him.
For two years Lorenzo had waited for a voice doctors said would never return.
Mateo's lips moved.
“Idiot.”
Lorenzo laughed and cried at the same time.
Lydia did too.
Mateo's neurological function had been changing for months.
Tiny improvements ignored by compromised physicians.
With proper treatment, speech therapy, and evaluation, there was hope.
Not certainty.
Hope.
Sometimes that was enough.
But the danger wasn't finished.
Blackwood had escaped.
And before federal agents could lock down the docks, Lydia received a text from her own number.
A photograph appeared.
Her father's burned auto shop.
Someone stood inside the ruins.
Roland Blackwood.
Below it were six words.
COME FINISH WHAT FRANK COPPOLA STARTED.
May you like
Lydia looked up.
Then she realized Lorenzo was no longer beside her.
