Chapter 5 - THE SON NOBODY KNEW EXISTEDBianca survived.
Barely.
The shooter escaped.
Marcus’s team found a rifle position in the woods, shell casings, tire tracks, and nothing useful enough to identify the person who had pulled the trigger.
Professional.
Patient.
Prepared.
The kind of attack that told you two things.
Someone wanted Bianca dead.
And someone had resources.
At the hospital, police surrounded the building while surgeons operated.
I sat in a private waiting room staring at page four.
Lucinda’s reflected face appeared again and again in my mind.
Then Bianca’s words.
Elena was pregnant.
You had a brother.
At three in the morning, Lucinda entered the room.
Marcus had summoned her without telling me.
She saw page four on the table.
Everything in her face collapsed.
“You knew.”
She sat across from me.
“Yes.”
“My mother was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody thought I deserved to know?”
“Your father didn’t know.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“Elena discovered she was pregnant days before the crash. She told me because she was afraid.”
“Afraid of my father?”
“No. Afraid the baby would become leverage.”
“Against whom?”
“Against you. Against Anthony. Against all of us.”
I pushed the photograph toward her.
“Why are you here?”
Lucinda stared at the image.
“That picture ruined everything.”
“Explain.”
She closed her eyes.
“The night Elena discovered the ledger, she called me. She said she needed someone she trusted. I met her at Charles Renner’s office because she had gone there looking for legal records tied to the foundation.”
“Why Charles?”
“He kept corporate documents.”
“And you were reflected in the glass.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She showed me the transactions. Hundreds of millions moving over years. Shell companies. Payoffs. Properties bought under fake names.”
“Did she know who was responsible?”
“She thought she did.”
“Who?”
Lucinda looked toward the door.
“Charles.”
I frowned.
“Bianca said Charles wasn’t the man Elena feared.”
“Because Bianca doesn’t know everything.”
“Apparently nobody does.”
Lucinda leaned forward.
“Elena believed Charles had been manipulating Vittorio for years. But later that night, she discovered something that changed her mind.”
“What?”
“A second signature.”
“Whose?”
“She wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”
“Why not?”
“She said my line might be monitored.”
I stood and paced.
“This entire family spent seventeen years speaking in half-sentences while people died.”
“You think I enjoyed it?”
“I think you let me stand over an empty coffin.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
“No. You remember. I lived it.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I deserve that.”
I looked at her.
“Where did my mother go after the crash?”
Lucinda hesitated.
“Bianca arranged the first safe house.”
“And afterward?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did Bianca know about the pregnancy?”
“Elena told both of us.”
“Was the child born?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because five months after she disappeared, Elena sent me a photograph.”
Lucinda opened her handbag.
From a hidden compartment, she removed a plastic sleeve.
Inside was an old photograph.
My mother sat in a hospital bed holding a newborn.
On the back:
His name is Gabriel.
Protect Sebastian.
I stared until the words blurred.
Gabriel.
My brother.
Alive at least on the day that picture had been taken.
“Where was this?”
“No hospital name. No address.”
“Postmark?”
“Montreal.”
Canada.
“Did you search?”
“For years.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Marcus entered.
“Bianca is out of surgery. Stable.”
I stood.
“When can she talk?”
“Not tonight.”
He paused.
“We also identified the weapon.”
“Good.”
“Not really. It was registered to Preston Moretti.”
Lucinda went still.
“No.”
“Bought twelve years ago. Reported stolen six months later.”
“Convenient.”
“You think Preston shot Bianca?” Lucinda asked.
“I think somebody wants us to.”
My phone rang.
Preston.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His breathing sounded heavy.
“Sebastian, listen.”
“What happened?”
“They’re in my house.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Glass shattered on his end.
Then shouting.
“Preston!”
A gunshot.
The call dropped.
Marcus and I moved immediately.
Preston’s home was twenty minutes away.
We arrived in fourteen.
The front door stood open.
Two security guards were unconscious but alive.
Furniture had been overturned.
A safe in Preston’s study was open.
Preston lay beside the desk with blood on his shirt.
He was breathing.
Marcus applied pressure to a wound in his side.
“Ambulance!”
Preston grabbed my sleeve.
“They took it.”
“What?”
“The file.”
“What file?”
“Anthony’s autopsy.”
I stared.
“You had it?”
“For seventeen years.”
“Why?”
“Because it proved he was poisoned.”
“By what?”
“Digitalis.”
“Who had access?”
His eyes fluttered.
“Charles.”
Of course.
“Charles poisoned my father?”
Preston shook his head weakly.
“No.”
“Then who?”
“The medication came through Charles’s office.”
“Why would a law office have medication?”
“Because it wasn’t for Anthony.”
I leaned closer.
“It was for Vittorio.”
My grandfather.
“Vittorio took digitalis for his heart?”
“Yes.”
“Someone used his prescription to poison my father.”
Preston nodded.
The ambulance siren approached.
I looked at Marcus.
“Charles is connected to everything.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Because obvious evidence appearing seventeen years later usually means somebody wants it found.”
Preston pulled me closer.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Charles called me yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wanted to meet.”
“About?”
“He knows you found the letter.”
“How?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Where is he?”
Preston swallowed.
“Gone.”
Marcus searched immediately.
Charles Renner had missed two court appearances that morning.
His office staff claimed he was sick.
His phone had been disconnected.
His house was empty.
But his private plane had departed New Jersey six hours earlier.
Destination:
Montreal.
I thought of the postmark on Gabriel’s photograph.
My mother.
My brother.
Canada.
Charles wasn’t running away.
He was running toward something.
By dawn, I was on a plane.
Marcus sat opposite me.
“Suppose Elena is alive,” he said.
I looked out the window.
“Then I ask why she never came back.”
“And if she had a good reason?”
“No reason gives me seventeen years back.”
He nodded.
“And Gabriel?”
I had no answer.
How do you prepare to meet a brother you never knew existed?
We landed in Montreal shortly after nine.
Charles’s plane had arrived before ours.
A car rented under his assistant’s name had been traced north.
We followed.
Two hours later, snow began falling.
The road narrowed.
Forests surrounded us.
Finally, we reached a small lakeside town.
Charles’s rental car sat outside a white farmhouse.
The front door was open.
I entered with Marcus.
“Charles?”
No answer.
The kitchen was empty.
A mug of coffee still steamed on the table.
Then a floorboard creaked upstairs.
Marcus raised his weapon.
A young man appeared at the top of the staircase.
Maybe sixteen.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
My father’s eyes.
My eyes.
He stared at me.
I stared back.
And before either of us spoke, a woman stepped behind him.
Older.
Hair streaked with silver.
A scar along her temple.
But I knew her before my mind accepted it.
May you like
My mother whispered:
“Sebastian?”
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