Chapter 7 - THE MAN I TRUSTED MOSTThere are betrayals that make you angry.
Others make you stupid.
When somebody you trust appears in evidence connecting them to the people hunting your family, every instinct tells you to act before thinking.
I had spent years training myself not to do that.
“Hands where I can see them,” I told Marcus.
He raised both.
Gabriel moved beside my mother.
One of Marcus’s men appeared in the doorway.
I ordered him back outside.
Nobody needed confusion with loaded weapons.
Marcus nodded toward the laptop.
“That photograph is real.”
“Great start.”
“But not what you think.”
“You were at dinner with Michael.”
“Yes.”
“And Charles.”
“Yes.”
“You forgot to mention it.”
“I was working.”
“For whom?”
“Your father.”
The room became silent.
“My father had been dead fifteen years when that photo was taken.”
“I know.”
“Then choose a better lie.”
Marcus exhaled slowly.
“Anthony hired me six months before he died.”
I stared.
“You didn’t meet me until years later.”
“Correct.”
“He hired me for what?”
“To investigate his own family.”
My mother’s face changed.
“You were Anthony’s second investigator.”
Marcus nodded.
“Charles handled financial records. I handled people.”
“You were what, twenty-nine?”
“Army CID.”
That matched his background.
“What did my father ask you to investigate?”
“Everyone connected to Elena’s crash.”
“Did you know she survived?”
“No. Not until three years ago.”
“Then how did you find her?”
“I didn’t. Michael brought me to Charles. Charles showed me evidence Elena was alive.”
“And you said nothing to me.”
“Because Charles said telling you would get her killed.”
I laughed bitterly.
“It’s amazing how many people made that decision for me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Marcus stayed silent.
My mother asked, “Why did Michael arrange the dinner?”
“He claimed he wanted to help expose whoever had infiltrated the foundation.”
“Did you believe him?”
“For six months.”
“And afterward?”
“I discovered Michael was making secret payments.”
“To Vescari’s organization?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell Sebastian?”
Marcus looked directly at me.
“Because I couldn’t determine whether Michael was the source or another victim.”
“And now?”
“Now I think he’s a victim.”
I frowned.
“Of whom?”
Before he could answer, his radio crackled.
A vehicle matching the fleeing attackers had crashed near the highway.
One occupant had been captured alive.
We left the farmhouse within minutes.
My mother refused to remain there.
For the first time in seventeen years, she and Gabriel climbed into a vehicle beside me.
That should have felt miraculous.
Instead, every mile carried more questions.
The captured attacker was nineteen years old.
Terrified.
Bleeding from a broken nose.
Canadian police held him while federal contacts coordinated jurisdiction.
Marcus and I were allowed a brief identification through glass.
Gabriel recognized him.
“He works at the hardware store.”
My mother stared.
“What?”
“I’ve seen him in town.”
A local recruit.
Not a professional.
That meant whoever organized the attack did not care about quality.
They cared about speed.
Someone panicked after our arrival.
Police recovered his phone.
A recent message instructed:
HOUSE CONFIRMED. WOMAN + BOY + S.M.
S.M.
Me.
Sender registered through a disposable account.
But a photograph stored in the attacker’s messages showed his payment.
Cash inside an envelope marked:
M.M.
Michael Moretti?
Too convenient.
Again.
By afternoon, we returned to New Jersey aboard a secured private flight.
My mother had resisted.
Gabriel had resisted more.
“You said we would never go back,” he told her.
She answered quietly, “Hiding didn’t protect us anymore.”
He looked at me.
“This is because of you.”
“Yes.”
My mother objected.
“No, Gabriel.”
“He shows up and people start shooting.”
“He didn’t lead them to us.”
“You don’t know that.”
I did not defend myself.
Because he had spent sixteen years believing secrecy meant safety.
I was a stranger who had shattered the only world he knew.
When we landed, Bianca was conscious.
Preston was recovering.
Lucinda remained at the hospital under guard.
Michael had disappeared.
His son Carlo, whose wedding had begun all of this, was furious and terrified.
We gathered in a secure conference room beneath my company headquarters.
My mother entered last.
Lucinda saw her.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Lucinda began crying.
“Elena.”
My mother slapped her.
Hard.
Nobody moved.
“You kept Gabriel from Anthony.”
Lucinda touched her cheek.
“I was trying to protect him.”
“You stole my son’s father from him.”
“I thought Anthony was compromised.”
“By whom?”
“You.”
The room went silent.
My mother stepped back.
“What?”
Lucinda’s voice shook.
“I thought you were working with Vescari.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael showed me records.”
Michael again.
“What records?” I asked.
“Transfers from Elena’s account to a Vescari company.”
My mother stared.
“I never made them.”
“I know that now.”
“When?”
Lucinda’s tears returned.
“Too late.”
There it was.
The pattern.
Every person had been shown evidence implicating someone else.
My mother suspected Charles.
Lucinda suspected my mother.
Preston feared the Moretti leadership.
Marcus suspected Michael.
Everybody mistrusted everybody.
Who benefited?
Someone who understood the family well enough to isolate every potential threat.
I turned to Preston.
“You said Michael is harmless.”
“I thought he was.”
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows.”
Carlo stood.
“My father called me.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
Every head turned.
“What did he say?”
“He said he was sorry about the wedding. Then he told me to stay away from the old cannery.”
“Which cannery?”
Preston stood too quickly and winced from his wound.
“No.”
“What?”
“The Moretti cannery in Newark. Vittorio owned it before the shipping company.”
“Why?”
Preston looked at my mother.
“That was where Vescari’s men killed Anthony’s friend in 1998.”
Carlo’s phone buzzed.
A message from his father.
One image.
Michael tied to a chair.
Bruised.
Behind him stood Charles Renner.
Also restrained.
Text beneath:
BRING ELENA’S LEDGER.
MIDNIGHT.
ONE DRIVER.
NO POLICE.
OR BOTH MEN DIE.
Gabriel whispered, “They want Mom’s evidence.”
“No,” I said.
Everybody looked at me.
“They already know the ledger exists. If they only wanted it destroyed, they could have burned the storage unit years ago.”
“Then what do they want?” Carlo asked.
I stared at the photograph.
“Something written inside it.”
We examined the red ledger again.
Page by page.
Transfers.
Dates.
Initials.
Nothing obvious.
Then my mother noticed faint marks along the inner spine.
Numbers.
Handwritten.
A sequence repeating every few pages.
17-4-12.
3-8.
22-9-20.
Gabriel leaned forward.
“It’s a book cipher.”
Every adult looked at him.
He shrugged.
“I read spy novels.”
We used the ledger entries as coordinates.
Page.
Line.
Word.
Slowly, a message emerged.
Not from my mother.
From Vittorio.
My grandfather had discovered the scheme.
He had encoded the identity of the traitor inside the evidence.
The final decoded sentence contained four words.
TRUST NO ONE NAMED MORETTI.
Preston scoffed.
“That narrows it down.”
But Gabriel pointed at the next sequence.
We decoded a name.
Not Michael.
Not Lucinda.
Not Preston.
Not Bianca.
VINCENT.
I frowned.
“There is no Vincent Moretti.”
My mother went white.
“Yes, there is.”
“Who?”
She whispered:
“Your grandfather’s first son.”
Nobody spoke.
Vittorio Moretti had a son before my father.
A son erased from the family history.
A son named Vincent.
And according to my mother, Vincent had supposedly died at age six.
Then Charles’s phone sent another message.
A photograph.
An old man’s hand wearing a black crown-and-serpent ring.
May you like
Beneath it:
THE DEAD HAVE BEEN RUNNING THIS FAMILY FOR A VERY LONG TIME.
