Chapter 4 - The Brother They TookMatteo’s younger brother, Gabriel, was twenty-nine years old and possessed every quality Matteo pretended not to.
He was charming.
Impulsive.
Funny.
And apparently terrible at following security protocols.
At 12:31 a.m., Gabriel left a private restaurant in SoHo without his driver.
At 12:47, his phone stopped moving.
At 1:03, it was found inside a trash can three blocks away.
At 1:16, Matteo received a photograph.
Gabriel was tied to a chair.
A newspaper dated that morning rested against his chest.
Beneath the photograph was one sentence.
THE LEDGER FOR YOUR BROTHER.
Matteo read it once.
Then his face became emotionless.
That frightened everyone around him.
“Matteo,” I said.
He ignored me.
“Daniel, activate every contact. Traffic cameras, private garages, toll readers.”
“We’re doing it.”
“Call federal—”
“No authorities.”
Everyone stopped.
Matteo looked at me.
“They’ll kill him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know people like this.”
“So do I.”
His eyes moved toward my bruises.
I wished I hadn’t said it.
“We don’t have the ledger,” Daniel reminded him.
“But they think Elena can get it.”
Matteo turned toward me.
“No.”
“What?”
“You’re done.”
My anger ignited.
“Your brother was kidnapped because of something connected to my mother.”
“That doesn’t make you responsible.”
“It makes me useful.”
“It makes you bait.”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
“Stop saying no as though that ends conversations.”
“In my house, it occasionally does.”
“Good thing we’re standing in my destroyed apartment.”
Daniel pretended to examine his phone.
Matteo came closer.
“They already hurt you.”
“And now they have Gabriel.”
“I’m not trading you for my brother.”
“I never asked you to.”
“You were about to suggest it.”
I hated that he was right.
The bank slip from my mother led to a branch in Lower Manhattan.
The box had not been accessed in six years.
It opened at nine.
The kidnappers demanded contact by noon.
That gave us three hours.
At 8:58, Matteo, Daniel, and I entered the bank through a private entrance.
Matteo objected until the last possible second.
I ignored him.
Safe-deposit box 417 required two keys.
The bank had one.
My mother’s brass key was supposed to be the other.
The one stolen from my apartment.
But when the manager examined the records, he frowned.
“Ms. Marlowe, your mother requested a replacement key seven years ago.”
I stared.
“She did?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He reviewed the form.
“It says it was released to her legal representative.”
“Who?”
The manager looked at the signature.
“Charles Bennett.”
I knew that name.
My mother’s attorney.
He had attended her funeral.
And two months after she died, he vanished.
Matteo made one phone call.
Daniel made another.
Twenty minutes later, they discovered Charles Bennett had not vanished.
He had changed his name.
He was living in Vermont.
And someone had withdrawn money from his account three days earlier in Manhattan.
“Bring him in,” Matteo said.
Daniel shook his head.
“He’s already here.”
“What?”
“Hotel surveillance puts him at the Plaza.”
We reached the hotel at 10:14.
Bennett was gone.
His room wasn’t.
Inside we found blood on the bathroom sink.
A burner phone.
And an envelope addressed to Elena Marlowe.
Again.
I opened it.
This time the note was short.
Your mother never trusted banks. Think about where she taught you to hide things.
I stared at the message.
Matteo watched my face.
“You know.”
I did.
When I was ten, my mother taught me to sew secret pockets into coat linings.
She said women used to hide money there during difficult times.
Her old winter coat.
The navy wool one.
I had donated it after she died.
Or thought I had.
Then I remembered.
I couldn’t let it go.
I had put it inside a cedar trunk in a storage unit in New Jersey.
We left immediately.
At 11:02, Matteo’s phone rang.
A distorted voice filled the car.
“Noon, DeLuca.”
Matteo gripped the phone.
“I need more time.”
“You’ve had fourteen years.”
“Show me my brother.”
A video appeared.
Gabriel was bruised but alive.
Someone stepped behind him wearing a black mask.
Then came a voice.
“Bring the ledger to Pier 19 at noon.”
Matteo’s gaze hardened.
“If you touch him—”
The call ended.
I looked at the clock.
Fifty-eight minutes.
New Jersey was thirty-five away without traffic.
Daniel drove like laws were optional.
We reached the storage facility at 11:31.
The unit had been opened.
My heart sank.
“They beat us here.”
But nothing looked disturbed.
I found the cedar trunk.
Inside was my mother’s coat.
My fingers shook as I felt along the lining.
Nothing.
Then the collar.
A seam was slightly uneven.
I tore it open.
A USB drive fell into my palm.
Matteo stared at it.
“That’s it?”
“Maybe.”
We connected it to Daniel’s encrypted laptop.
Password protected.
A security question appeared.
What did Elena call the stars?
My eyes filled with tears.
When I was little, my mother took me onto the roof during summer power outages.
She called stars heaven’s lanterns.
But I couldn’t pronounce lantern.
I called them “lanties.”
I typed:
LANTIES.
The drive opened.
Hundreds of documents appeared.
Accounts.
Contracts.
Recordings.
Scanned signatures.
And one video file.
My mother appeared on screen.
She was thirty-one.
Terrified.
“If you’re watching this, Vittorio is probably dead.”
Matteo stopped breathing.
My mother continued.
“The person responsible is someone he trusts completely.”
A door sounded behind her in the recording.
She looked frightened.
Then spoke quickly.
“I copied everything. The real ledger is not paper. Vittorio divided the evidence because he believed someone in his own family was involved.”
Matteo leaned closer.
My mother whispered one final sentence.
“Lorenzo wasn’t working alone.”
The video ended.
Daniel looked at the clock.
11:46.
Fourteen minutes.
Matteo closed the laptop.
“We go to Pier 19.”
“With copies,” I said.
“With nothing.”
“What?”
“We don’t know who we can trust.”
“You have proof.”
“We have evidence. Proof requires surviving long enough to deliver it.”
At 11:58, we reached the waterfront.
Gabriel sat tied to a chair inside an abandoned warehouse.
Five armed men surrounded him.
And standing beside them was someone none of us expected.
Not Lorenzo.
Not a stranger.
Matteo stopped walking.
Daniel whispered, “Jesus.”
Gabriel raised his head.
“Matteo, don’t.”
A man stepped from the shadows.
Silver hair.
Expensive suit.
A familiar face from the photographs in Matteo’s library.
Matteo’s godfather.
His father’s closest friend.
The man who had helped raise both brothers.
Vincent Bellini.
He smiled.
“You always were slow, Matteo.”
May you like
Then he looked at me.
“But Anna’s daughter finally brought me what I needed.”
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