Chapter 4 - The Ghost at the Door
“Don’t shoot.”
Gabriel’s voice stopped Enzo’s finger on the trigger.
The footsteps stopped outside the bedroom.
Sadi looked from Gabriel to Mateo.
Mateo had gone pale.
“That’s impossible,” Enzo whispered.
The door opened slowly.
An elderly man stepped into view.
He was not Gabriel’s father.
But he looked enough like him to explain the reaction.
Same dark eyes.
Same sharp cheekbones.
Same deliberate posture.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Uncle Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo Falcone smiled faintly.
“I wondered if you’d remember.”
Enzo lowered his gun by an inch.
Sadi understood immediately.
There were more dead men in this family than seemed statistically reasonable.
Gabriel’s older uncle Lorenzo had supposedly died seventeen years earlier.
Car accident.
Closed coffin.
Sadi almost laughed.
Instead she said, “Does anybody in your family actually stay dead?”
Nobody answered.
Lorenzo entered.
Two guards followed him.
They were Gabriel’s guards.
That frightened Sadi more than the stranger himself.
Gabriel noticed.
“So,” he said, “you own part of my house.”
Lorenzo’s smile widened.
“Still quick.”
“What do you want?”
“To keep you alive.”
“You’re late.”
“Actually, I arrived exactly when necessary.”
Mateo stepped forward.
“You knew Matteo survived?”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“I helped him survive.”
Every weapon in the room rose again.
Lorenzo lifted his hands.
“Years ago.”
Gabriel’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Explain.”
Lorenzo looked older suddenly.
“When your father discovered Matteo and Thomas Vale were stealing from the family, he wanted them dead.”
“That sounds like my father.”
“I convinced him to exile Matteo instead.”
“Why?”
“Because he was my brother.”
“And then?”
“Matteo promised to disappear.”
Gabriel laughed without humor.
“Apparently he lied.”
“Yes.”
“What about my father?”
Lorenzo looked down.
“Matteo killed him.”
Silence.
Gabriel’s face became stone.
Sadi watched his right hand tighten around the pistol.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You let me believe the wrong people did it.”
“I was trying to prevent you from starting a war.”
“Instead, you gave Matteo eight years.”
Lorenzo did not deny it.
Gabriel stood.
Warren protested immediately.
“Absolutely not.”
Gabriel ignored him.
He was pale.
One arm nearly useless.
But he stood.
“You came into my house after someone tried to kill me,” Gabriel said. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t finish the mistake my father made.”
Lorenzo reached into his coat.
Enzo raised his weapon.
“Slowly.”
Lorenzo removed an envelope.
He placed it on the table.
“Because Matteo has your sister.”
Gabriel stopped.
Sadi looked at him.
She had not known Gabriel had a sister.
Enzo’s face confirmed the information.
“Isabella is in Paris,” he said.
“No,” Lorenzo answered. “She left Paris forty-eight hours ago.”
Gabriel grabbed his phone.
He called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His face changed.
Lorenzo said, “Matteo took her this morning.”
“Proof.”
Another envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
A young woman sat in a chair.
Hands bound.
Eyes furious.
Alive.
Gabriel stared at it for a long time.
Then he sat slowly.
“What does he want?”
“The ledger.”
Mateo spoke.
“He knows I have it?”
“He knows you stole it.”
Sadi looked at her brother.
“Where is it?”
Mateo remained silent.
“Mateo.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Mom’s house.”
Sadi felt the room tilt.
“The house is gone.”
“No.”
“Yes. I sold it after she died.”
“You sold the building.”
“What does that mean?”
“The ledger isn’t in the building.”
Sadi stared.
Mateo looked ashamed again.
“I put it inside something she gave you.”
Sadi’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“The sewing machine.”
She almost slapped him again.
Their mother’s old Singer sewing machine was sitting inside Sadi’s apartment closet beneath winter blankets.
“You hid mafia evidence in my apartment?”
“Before I disappeared.”
“Six years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You absolute idiot.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that like it helps.”
Gabriel interrupted.
“Who else knows?”
“Matteo knows the ledger survived. He doesn’t know where.”
Lorenzo looked at Sadi.
“He will.”
Sadi’s blood went cold.
“My apartment.”
Gabriel was already moving.
Enzo stopped him.
“You are not leaving.”
“My sister—”
“Will still be taken if you bleed to death in a car.”
Gabriel’s eyes flashed.
Sadi said, “I can go.”
“No.”
She turned on him.
“It’s my apartment.”
“That is precisely why you’re not going.”
“You said I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“You aren’t.”
“You’re doing the controlling thing again.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Fine. You’re right.”
Sadi narrowed her eyes.
“Why do I hate when you say that?”
“Because you know what comes next.”
Three SUVs left the estate ten minutes later.
Gabriel remained behind.
Under protest.
Sadi rode with Enzo and Mateo.
Two additional vehicles followed.
When they arrived at her building, nothing looked wrong.
That worried Sadi immediately.
Her upstairs neighbor’s music played through an open window.
A delivery bicycle was chained to the railing.
A dog barked somewhere.
Normal.
Too normal.
Enzo stopped Sadi before the front door.
“Stay behind me.”
“I live here.”
“Today, pretend I do.”
They climbed three flights.
Her apartment door was closed.
No damage.
Sadi reached for her key.
Mateo grabbed her hand.
“Wait.”
He pointed near the lock.
A tiny scratch.
Fresh.
Enzo signaled his men.
The apartment was entered room by room.
Empty.
Sadi followed.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Kitchen.
Living room.
Bedroom.
Then she opened the closet.
The sewing machine was gone.
Sadi closed her eyes.
“Damn it.”
Mateo searched the shelf.
“They knew.”
Enzo’s phone rang.
Gabriel.
“Tell me.”
Enzo explained.
Silence.
Then Gabriel asked, “Anything else?”
Sadi looked around.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it.
Not because of what was missing.
Because of what remained.
Her apartment was too clean.
She went to the kitchen.
A mug sat beside the sink.
Not hers.
White porcelain.
A gold stripe around the rim.
She had seen the same cups at Belladonna.
“Enzo.”
He came over.
Sadi pointed.
“Somebody brought that here.”
Mateo stared at it.
Under the mug was a folded napkin.
Sadi picked it up carefully.
One sentence had been written inside.
YOU KEPT HIS ARM. LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP HIS SISTER.
Sadi’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone looked at it.
Enzo said, “Speaker.”
Sadi answered.
“Hello?”
A man laughed softly.
“Miss Moreno.”
She recognized the voice.
Not from Belladonna.
From somewhere older.
Much older.
“Who is this?”
“You don’t remember me.”
Her skin prickled.
“Should I?”
“You were fourteen the last time we met.”
Mateo’s face changed.
He knew.
The caller continued.
“Ask your brother about the man who paid for your mother’s surgery.”
Sadi looked at Mateo.
He whispered one name.
“Thomas Vale.”
The voice on the phone laughed again.
“Good boy.”
Sadi gripped the phone.
“What do you want?”
“Bring me the ledger.”
“We don’t have it.”
“Incorrect.”
“You took the sewing machine.”
“Yes.”
“Then you have it.”
“No, Miss Moreno.”
The man’s voice became colder.
“The sewing machine was empty.”
Mateo stared at Sadi.
She stared back.
Then they both realized the same thing.
Their mother had found it.
Years ago.
And if Elena Moreno had discovered a hidden ledger inside her sewing machine, she would not have left it there.
Thomas Vale said, “Your mother moved my property before she died.”
Sadi’s mouth went dry.
“I don’t know where.”
“You have twelve hours to remember.”
A muffled voice sounded in the background.
Female.
Angry.
Gabriel’s sister.
Then Thomas returned.
“Midnight.”
The call ended.
Sadi lowered the phone.
Mateo spoke first.
“Mom knew.”
“Apparently.”
“But where would she put it?”
Sadi thought of the hospital.
Her mother’s final months.
The boxes.
The storage unit.
The church.
Then she remembered the last thing her mother had given her.
Not jewelry.
Not money.
A cookbook.
Old.
Handwritten.
Sadi had never opened it after the funeral because seeing her mother’s handwriting hurt too much.
She turned toward the bedroom.
Her bookshelf stood against the wall.
The cookbook was still there.
Sadi pulled it free.
Something rattled inside the spine.
Mateo whispered, “Sadi.”
She opened the back cover.
A brass key fell into her palm.
Taped beneath it was a small handwritten note.
Sadi recognized her mother’s handwriting immediately.
FOR MY CHILDREN. TRUST NO FALCONE.
Behind them, Enzo slowly lowered his phone.
Sadi looked at him.
He was no longer watching the note.
May you like
He was watching the front door.
Someone had just inserted a key from the other side.
