Chapter 14 - The Last Recording
Lorenzo had seen the message.
And gone alone.
“Damn him.”
Mateo managed one rough word.
“Idiot.”
“Exactly.”
Lydia grabbed Carlo's car keys.
Federal agents tried to stop her.
She gave them the location instead.
“Follow me.”
The ruins of Coppola Auto Repair had never been rebuilt.
Lydia hadn't visited in years.
Seeing it again hurt.
The office where her father balanced invoices.
The bay where he taught her to change oil.
The corner where he kept terrible coffee.
Now only charred brick remained.
Lorenzo's car sat outside.
Lydia entered.
“Lorenzo?”
Blackwood's voice answered.
“Back here.”
He stood near the old service pit.
Lorenzo knelt several feet away, weapon on the floor.
Blackwood held a gun against him.
“Lydia.”
Lorenzo's voice was furious.
“I told you to stay—”
“Finish that sentence and I'll let him shoot you.”
Even Blackwood looked amused.
“You two are exhausting.”
Lydia held up her hands.
“What do you want?”
“The original recording.”
“You already lost.”
“Vane lost.”
“You think there's a difference?”
Blackwood's smile vanished.
“Yes.”
He planned to disappear.
The recording could identify accounts he intended to use.
Lydia didn't have it.
Then she remembered.
Her father's workbench.
The phrase Mercer had repeated.
Frank had hidden copies everywhere.
Lydia looked toward a rusted metal cabinet.
Blackwood noticed.
“There?”
She didn't answer.
He ordered her to open it.
Inside was an old cassette recorder.
Lydia almost laughed.
Her father distrusted computers.
Of course.
Blackwood grabbed it.
“Play it.”
She pressed the button.
Frank's voice emerged.
“If Roland Blackwood is hearing this, I'm guessing I'm dead.”
Blackwood went still.
Lorenzo looked at Lydia.
Frank continued.
“You always thought fear made people predictable, Roland.”
Lydia felt tears rise.
“But here's your problem. Fear only works when somebody still has something they're unwilling to lose.”
Blackwood's hand tightened around the gun.
The recording listed accounts.
Names.
Dates.
Then Frank said:
“And Anthony Moretti wasn't the man who started this.”
Lydia froze.
Blackwood did too.
“The first payment came from Roland Blackwood himself.”
There it was.
Proof that Blackwood had manipulated Vane, Anthony, Vincent, everyone.
Not because he was some mythical mastermind.
Because he understood how to exploit weakness.
Greed.
Fear.
Family.
Shame.
Blackwood smashed the recorder.
Too late.
Lydia's phone had recorded everything.
So had Lorenzo's.
So had the federal agents surrounding the building.
Blackwood realized it.
His face changed.
He raised the gun toward Lydia.
Lorenzo moved.
The shot exploded.
Lydia fell.
For one terrifying second, Lorenzo thought she'd been hit.
Then Blackwood collapsed.
A federal agent stood behind him.
The gun slid away.
Lorenzo crawled toward Lydia.
“Where are you hit?”
“Nowhere.”
“There's blood.”
“Your blood.”
He looked down.
A graze along his arm.
Lydia laughed shakily.
“You're terrible at this.”
“At being shot?”
“At listening.”
He pulled her against him.
For several seconds neither cared who watched.
Blackwood was arrested alive.
That mattered.
A dead man could become a legend.
A living one could answer questions.
Outside, dawn began breaking over Chicago.
Lydia stood beside the ambulance while paramedics wrapped Lorenzo's arm.
His phone rang.
Mateo.
Video call.
Lorenzo answered.
Mateo appeared from the hospital.
His voice was weak.
“Alive?”
Lorenzo smiled.
“Unfortunately.”
Mateo looked at Lydia.
“Keep... him... out... trouble.”
She laughed.
“Impossible.”
Then a federal agent approached.
“We found something in Blackwood's coat.”
He handed Lydia an envelope.
Her name was written on it.
Not Blackwood's handwriting.
Her father's.
Lydia stared at it.
“How did he get this?”
“We don't know.”
She opened the envelope.
Inside was one final photograph.
Frank stood beside a much younger Lydia at her nursing graduation.
On the back he'd written:
You save people. Don't let them make you ashamed of that.
Lydia pressed the photograph against her chest.
Then she noticed another line beneath it.
Smaller.
A location.
A locker number.
May you like
And three words:
FOR LYDIA ONLY.
