Chapter 7 - The Name Behind the Fire
Lydia locked the door.
“Lorenzo?” she called.
No answer.
Mateo's eyes remained fixed on it.
A knock.
“Lydia?”
Lorenzo.
She opened the door.
He immediately saw her expression.
“What happened?”
She showed him the photograph.
His face hardened.
“Where's Anthony?”
“Downstairs?”
“He was.”
Lorenzo called Carlo.
No response.
Then another guard.
Nothing.
They moved toward the main staircase.
Anthony Moretti stood alone in the foyer.
Sixty-three.
Silver hair.
Perfect overcoat.
He looked more like a retired banker than someone Mateo feared.
“Lorenzo,” he said.
“Why are you here?”
Anthony smiled.
“I heard my nephews were attacked.”
“How?”
The smile faded.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn't call you.”
Anthony looked toward Lydia.
“So this is the maid.”
Lydia disliked him instantly.
Not because of what Mateo had said.
Because Anthony looked at her the way powerful men had looked at her in hospital conference rooms.
As something already categorized.
“She has a name,” Lorenzo said.
Anthony's eyebrow lifted.
Interesting.
“Lydia Coppola,” Anthony said.
Now she went cold.
“I didn't introduce myself.”
“No. But I knew your father.”
Lorenzo moved between them.
“How?”
Anthony sighed.
“Frank repaired my cars.”
“That's not why Mateo is afraid of you.”
For the first time Anthony's composure cracked.
“Mateo?”
Lydia watched carefully.
Not guilt.
Surprise.
“Take off your coat,” Lorenzo said.
Anthony did.
No weapon.
“Phone.”
He handed it over.
Lorenzo searched it.
Nothing obvious.
Anthony looked at Mateo.
“If you're afraid of me, nephew, you have every reason.”
Lorenzo's eyes darkened.
“Explain.”
“Because I failed you.”
Anthony admitted he had known about Blackwood's network.
He had tried to investigate quietly.
Frank Coppola had helped him.
“But someone learned what we were doing.”
“Vincent?” Lydia asked.
“I thought so.”
“You were wrong?”
“Yes.”
Anthony looked at Lorenzo.
“The night Frank's shop burned, Vincent was with me.”
Lydia stared.
“What?”
“For three hours. I have photographs and toll records.”
“Then who burned it?”
Anthony answered with a name.
“Charles Vane.”
The alderman had personally supervised the destruction because Frank possessed evidence connecting him to Blackwood.
Lydia felt sick.
“My father died because of Vane?”
“Your father died because he refused to give Vane the ledger.”
Lydia turned away.
Lorenzo touched her back.
Anthony continued.
“Vincent eventually joined them. But not until later.”
“Why?”
“Money. Fear. Maybe both.”
Lorenzo's voice was ice.
“He tried to murder Mateo.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew he was compromised?”
“I suspected.”
“You said nothing.”
“I didn't know who you trusted.”
“I trusted you.”
Anthony's face collapsed slightly.
“That was the problem.”
Silence.
Lorenzo understood.
If Anthony had approached him, Vincent would have learned everything.
Still, betrayal by silence remained betrayal.
Lydia knew that kind.
Her father had done the same to her.
Protected her with secrets until secrets became another cage.
Mateo typed.
ASK.
ABOUT.
AMBUSH.
Anthony closed his eyes.
Lorenzo read the words.
“What about it?”
Anthony looked at Mateo.
“I knew it might happen.”
Lorenzo crossed the room in two strides.
Lydia caught his arm.
“You knew?”
“I warned him.”
“You let my brother drive into an ambush?”
“I tried to stop him.”
Mateo typed rapidly.
TRUE.
Lorenzo stopped.
Mateo continued.
I.
WENT.
ANYWAY.
“Why?”
PROOF.
Mateo had been carrying evidence.
The evidence disappeared after the shooting.
Anthony believed Vincent had taken it.
Lydia suddenly remembered the blood-streaked wheelchair.
The torn black fabric.
The attack two nights ago.
“They weren't trying only to kill Mateo,” she said.
Everyone looked at her.
“They were searching his room.”
Anthony nodded.
“For the evidence.”
“But Mateo doesn't have it.”
Mateo's eyes moved toward Lydia.
Then toward her apron.
She frowned.
“What?”
His tablet spoke.
YOUR.
FATHER.
GAVE.
YOU.
KEY.
Lydia's hand went unconsciously toward the old key ring in her pocket.
Her father's keys.
She'd carried them for years.
One opened the storage unit.
Several opened nothing she knew.
Anthony stared.
“Frank said the final evidence would be somewhere no Moretti or Blackwood would ever think to search.”
Lydia examined the keys.
One was tiny.
Brass.
Numbered 118.
A bank-deposit key.
Lorenzo looked at it.
“Which bank?”
Lydia remembered something her father used to say.
If the shop ever burns, go where your mother kept Sunday money.
Her mother had banked at Lakeshore Federal.
They arrived shortly before closing the next morning.
Box 118 existed.
It was registered to Lydia.
She had never known.
The manager left them alone.
Lydia inserted the key.
Inside was one envelope.
One photograph.
And a microSD card.
The photograph showed Frank Coppola beside Mateo before the ambush.
Between them stood a third person.
Lydia stared at the face.
“No.”
Lorenzo whispered, “What?”
The third man wasn't Vincent.
It wasn't Blackwood.
It was someone who had been inside the Moretti estate since Lydia's first day.
May you like
Someone Lorenzo still trusted.
Then the vault door slammed shut behind them.
