Chapter 12 - THE TRADE
Liam lunged for the door.
Gabriel stopped him.
“Think.”
“That’s my mother.”
“And if you arrive alone, Matteo gains two hostages.”
Liam shoved him.
“Move.”
“Liam.”
I grabbed his arm.
He turned on me.
“You do not get to tell me to stay calm.”
“No.”
“But I get to tell you I am not letting you lose another parent because of me.”
His expression broke.
Alessandro was already issuing orders.
“Send a team to Mrs. Carter.”
“No marked vehicles.”
“Contact Chicago PD through Brennan only.”
“Do not use company systems.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Matteo may be monitoring them.”
“Assume he is.”
Within minutes, we learned Liam’s mother had been picked up safely by two plainclothes officers.
The man following her vanished.
But the message had achieved its purpose.
We understood Matteo could reach anyone.
Alessandro decided to go to the lake house.
I insisted on going too.
“No.”
His answer came before I finished speaking.
“He wants me.”
“He wants the drive.”
“He also wants the witness.”
“You are pregnant.”
“So stop repeating it as if I forgot.”
His eyes flashed.
“I watched two men try to drag you out of my building.”
“And I watched you nearly get killed stopping them.”
“This is not an argument you will win.”
I stepped closer.
“That sentence is exactly why I don’t trust powerful men.”
Silence.
Alessandro stared at me.
Then, to my surprise, he nodded.
“All right.”
Liam blinked.
“All right?”
“She goes.”
“Are you insane?”
“No.”
Alessandro looked at me.
“But she follows the plan.”
“I don’t agree to plans I haven’t heard.”
That almost earned another smile.
Gabriel spread blueprints of the lake house across a table.
Vittorio had owned the property.
After his death, ownership transferred to a family trust controlled by Matteo.
There were two roads in.
One dock.
A maintenance tunnel built during renovations twenty years earlier.
Matteo probably knew the tunnel.
But he might not know Gabriel knew it too.
The flash drive we carried was a copy.
The original remained with a federal prosecutor Gabriel trusted.
That was Alessandro’s first move Matteo had not anticipated.
My second move was riskier.
Before we left, I recorded a video.
“My name is Elizabeth Rebecca Shaw.”
“I have lived under the name Emma Reed because seven years ago I survived the murder of my parents.”
“I witnessed Matteo Vitali at the scene.”
“If anything happens to me, this statement and supporting records should be released.”
I looked directly into the camera.
“I am also pregnant.”
I stopped.
Alessandro stood behind the camera.
He did not tell me what to say.
I continued.
“The father is Alessandro Vitali.”
“He did not know my identity when we met.”
“He did not know about this pregnancy until today.”
“He is not responsible for my concealment.”
I ended the recording.
Gabriel scheduled copies for automatic release to three news organizations and federal investigators if he failed to cancel the transmission by midnight.
For the first time, my secret had become armor instead of a cage.
We reached the lake house after dark.
Snow had started falling lightly over Lake Michigan.
Matteo waited inside the main room beside a fire.
He was alone.
At least visibly.
Alessandro placed the copied drive on the table.
“Let Elizabeth leave.”
Matteo looked at me.
“So much like your mother.”
Rage moved through me.
“You don’t get to say her name.”
He smiled.
“I did not say it.”
“You killed her.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I saw you.”
His expression changed slightly.
There.
For the first time, fear.
“You were unconscious.”
“You never checked beneath the embankment.”
Matteo’s face lost its smile.
Alessandro watched him carefully.
Then Matteo said something neither of us expected.
“I did not order the car hit.”
My chest tightened.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You told them to make sure we were dead.”
“Yes.”
“Then what exactly are you denying?”
Matteo looked at Alessandro.
“Your father ordered Thomas Shaw stopped.”
Alessandro went motionless.
“No.”
Matteo smiled again.
“That drive does not contain the whole story.”
He pointed toward the fireplace.
May you like
“There is another ledger.”
“And when you read it, Alessandro, you may discover your father was not the man you have spent eight years mourning.”
