Chapter 11 - The Wife Who Knew
Alessandro locked himself in his study for nearly an hour.
I stayed with Leo.
I understood why he needed distance.
His dead wife had known something about his missing brother.
My dead grandmother had told her.
Neither had told him.
Secrets were beginning to look less like protection and more like poison.
When Alessandro finally opened the study door, I went in.
He stood beside the fireplace.
The photograph rested on his desk.
“You can tell me to leave.”
He looked at me.
“Do you want to?”
I considered the question.
My apartment was destroyed.
My ex-husband had been shot or kidnapped.
My friend had been abducted.
My grandmother had apparently hidden a child from a crime family.
And someone had tried to drop thirty pounds of crystal on a six-year-old boy.
“No.”
“Then I will not tell you to.”
I stepped closer.
“Did Elena ever mention Sofia?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before she died.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I believed people could commit terrible lies for good reasons.”
“And?”
“I said good reasons do not make lies harmless.”
I looked at him.
“She was trying to tell you.”
“Yes.”
Pain flickered through his face.
“She never got the chance.”
Enzo entered carrying a tablet.
“We found Saint Agnes records.”
Alessandro straightened.
“Matteo?”
“Possibly.”
“After the 1998 intake, a boy matching his age was registered under the name Matthew Hale.”
My skin went cold.
“Hale.”
Enzo nodded.
“Sofia’s last name.”
“What happened to him?”
“He remained there six months.”
“Then he was adopted.”
“By whom?”
“A couple named Raymond and Diane Cole.”
“Location?”
“Raymond died eleven years ago.”
“Diane lives in Vermont.”
“Matthew Cole is alive.”
Alessandro did not move.
I barely breathed.
Enzo continued.
“He is forty years old.”
“Owns a small veterinary clinic outside Burlington.”
“Married.”
“One daughter.”
Alessandro stared at the photograph of himself and Matteo.
His missing brother had not grown up in underground casinos or rival compounds.
He had become a veterinarian.
“Does he know?”
I asked.
Enzo shook his head.
“Not from what we can tell.”
Alessandro turned toward the window.
I could almost see the war inside him.
He had searched for a ghost.
Now the ghost had an address.
“Do not contact him.”
Enzo looked surprised.
“Sir?”
“If Sofia hid him for a reason, we understand that reason before we bring danger to his door.”
That was the most loving decision Alessandro could have made.
And somehow it hurt him more than rushing there would have.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
A man laughed.
Then David spoke.
Weakly.
“Mara.”
I grabbed the desk.
“David?”
“I need you to listen.”
“Where are you?”
“No time.”
He coughed.
“You want the ring?”
“I’ll give you the ring.”
“But not to Vitale.”
Alessandro’s gaze hardened.
“Who has you?”
David ignored him.
“Mara, the man running this is not Bellandi.”
“Then who?”
“He calls himself Adrian.”
Enzo looked at Alessandro.
Bellandi’s son.
David whispered.
“But Adrian takes orders.”
“From whom?”
The line crackled.
May you like
Then David said something that emptied the room of air.
“From somebody inside Vitale’s house.”
