Chapter 12 - The Traitor at the Table
Security locked down the estate.
Every employee was questioned.
Phones were collected.
Cars were searched.
Nobody left.
Alessandro hated doing it.
I could tell.
Some of these people had served his family for decades.
But Leo stayed beside me while Enzo moved through the house with armed men.
Rosa brought us grilled cheese sandwiches.
Leo dipped his into tomato soup.
“Mara?”
“Yes?”
“Are bad people always strangers?”
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“Sometimes people we know make bad choices.”
He thought about that.
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
“It is.”
Alessandro heard from the doorway.
His expression told me the same thought had occurred to him.
Enzo entered behind him.
“We found something.”
A burner phone.
Hidden inside the garage office.
Calls had been made to a number connected to Adrian Bellandi.
The office belonged to Carlo Rizzi.
Alessandro’s chief financial officer.
His oldest friend.
Carlo had grown up with him.
He had stood beside Alessandro at his wedding.
He was Leo’s godfather.
When they brought him in, Alessandro’s face was terrifyingly calm.
Carlo looked broken.
“I can explain.”
Alessandro sat across from him.
“Then explain.”
“They have my daughter.”
That changed everything.
Carlo’s daughter Sofia was nineteen.
College student.
Missing for forty-eight hours.
He had told everyone she was studying abroad.
“They said they would kill her if I talked.”
“What did you give them?”
“Schedules.”
“Guard rotations.”
“Leo’s school route.”
Alessandro’s fist closed.
Carlo began crying.
“I never told them to hurt him.”
“You gave them what they needed.”
“I thought they wanted to scare you.”
“You gave strangers my son’s movements.”
“I had no choice.”
Alessandro stood.
“Yes.”
“You did.”
Carlo stared at him.
“What would you have done?”
Alessandro went still.
The question landed.
He looked toward Leo.
Then at me.
When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its fury.
“I do not know.”
Carlo covered his face.
“There’s more.”
Enzo stepped closer.
“What?”
“They asked about Mara before the restaurant attack.”
I felt ice travel down my spine.
“How did they know me?”
“They sent your photograph.”
“What did they want?”
“They wanted confirmation that you still wore the green ring.”
My hand moved toward the empty chain.
“I stopped wearing it years ago.”
“I told them that.”
“They said David had lost it.”
Alessandro leaned forward.
“What else?”
Carlo looked at me.
“They believe Sofia Hale gave you a second key.”
“I have no key.”
“They think you do.”
“Why?”
“Because she left you a box.”
I froze.
“What box?”
Carlo’s eyes widened.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He looked at Alessandro.
“She had a storage unit.”
“In Mara’s name.”
My grandmother had been dead four years.
I had never heard of any storage unit.
Carlo gave us the address.
Enzo checked it.
Still active.
Still paid annually.
Cash deposits.
The most recent payment had been made six months earlier.
May you like
After my grandmother died.
Someone had been keeping Sofia Hale’s secret alive.
