Chapter 4 - THE CAMERA THAT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO EXIST
By sunrise, Lorenzo’s estate was less a home than a crime scene.
Nobody came or went without being searched.
Employee records were pulled.
Security footage copied.
Phones collected.
Nora sat at a kitchen island drinking the best coffee she had tasted in years while three armed men argued about blind spots.
It would have been funny if she were not the blind spot they were discussing.
“The photograph was taken from the north service road,” Nico said.
Lorenzo sat across from him wearing a black sweater instead of a suit.
He looked pale.
Too pale.
Nora noticed.
Apparently nobody else did.
“The road camera?” Lorenzo asked.
“Offline from 10:11 until 12:40.”
“Scheduled?”
“No.”
“Who had access?”
Nico hesitated.
“Security administration.”
“Names.”
“Me. Vincent Calder. Salvatore.”
Again that name.
Nora watched Lorenzo.
“What?” he asked.
“You react every time somebody says Salvatore.”
Nico looked offended.
Lorenzo only asked, “Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Observant.”
“You are not subtle.”
Nico muttered, “He usually is.”
Lorenzo ignored him.
“Salvatore Greco has been part of my family since before I was born.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Lorenzo took a drink.
“He helped raise me.”
Nora understood.
Family without blood.
Sometimes more dangerous because everyone assumed loyalty had already been proven.
Before she could answer, Lorenzo winced.
Small.
Almost invisible.
Nora stood.
“Show me your side.”
“I’m eating.”
“Show me.”
“I have doctors.”
“You have me.”
The words slipped out.
Both of them noticed.
Nora corrected herself.
“You have someone watching you right now.”
Lorenzo sighed and lifted the sweater.
The bandage was clean.
But the skin around the wound looked wrong.
A spreading reddish discoloration.
Nora touched his wrist.
Pulse fast.
“Elias!”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Stop shouting in my kitchen.”
Elias entered from the hallway.
Nora pointed.
“Look.”
He did.
His face changed.
“Fever?”
“Not yet.”
Elias checked.
99.9.
Nora looked at the wound.
“Residue.”
The bullet.
Poison.
Elias swore quietly.
“We need the toxicology.”
Nico was already calling.
Results arrived twenty minutes later.
Not cyanide.
Not anything dramatic.
A concentrated anticoagulant compound mixed with a vascular toxin.
Enough to make internal bleeding harder to stop and clotting unpredictable.
Elias looked furious.
“This was designed to make the gunshot look worse than it was.”
Lorenzo leaned back.
“So if the river didn’t kill me—”
“The bleeding might have.”
Nora looked at him.
“And if you reached a hospital, doctors could have blamed trauma.”
Nico’s jaw tightened.
“Professional.”
“Yes,” Lorenzo said.
Too calmly.
Nora hated that calm.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“I’ve seen this before.”
The room became silent.
“Where?” Nico asked.
Lorenzo’s eyes remained on the table.
“My father.”
Nico stopped breathing.
Lorenzo continued.
“He died after being shot fifteen years ago.”
“I thought it was blood loss.”
“So did everyone.”
Nora understood.
“Same compound?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why think it?”
“Because Salvatore was there.”
Nico stared.
“Boss.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“Salvatore told me my father’s bleeding could not be controlled.”
The kitchen seemed suddenly colder.
“He was the last man alone with him.”
Nico shook his head.
“Salvatore loved your father.”
Lorenzo’s expression went flat.
“That is what I have spent fifteen years believing.”
A guard appeared.
“Mr. Greco is here.”
Nico turned.
“You called him?”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
Salvatore Greco entered thirty seconds later.
Sixty-two.
Silver hair.
Perfect coat.
Warm eyes.
The kind of older man who remembered birthdays and made everyone feel they belonged at his table.
He stopped when he saw Lorenzo.
“Thank God.”
He crossed the room.
Lorenzo did not rise.
Salvatore touched both sides of his face.
“I thought I lost you.”
Nora watched carefully.
Lorenzo allowed the gesture.
Barely.
“Almost.”
Salvatore looked at Nora.
“And this is?”
“The woman who pulled me out.”
Salvatore’s expression softened instantly.
“My dear.”
He walked toward her.
“New York owes you a debt.”
Nora took one step backward.
His smile did not change.
Then she smelled something.
Cologne.
Cedar.
Citrus.
And beneath it—
Bitter almond.
Very faint.
Her eyes dropped to his leather gloves.
One had a dark stain near the cuff.
Salvatore noticed her looking.
“Something wrong?”
Nora smiled.
“No.”
Lorenzo saw her face.
He said nothing.
Salvatore turned toward him.
“Who did this?”
“We’re figuring that out.”
“I have men searching.”
“Without asking me?”
Concern flickered across Salvatore’s face.
“I was worried.”
Lorenzo leaned back.
“I’m touched.”
Nora knew enough about dangerous men to recognize when politeness had become a weapon.
Salvatore looked at Nico.
“Has Vincent checked the bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Any witnesses?”
Nora felt Lorenzo go completely still.
Salvatore realized what he had said.
Too late.
Nico frowned.
“Nora is the witness.”
“Yes.”
Salvatore smiled.
“Of course.”
Lorenzo’s voice softened.
“How did you know we were looking for witnesses?”
The kitchen became silent.
Salvatore blinked.
“Common sense.”
“No.”
Lorenzo stood.
The movement cost him.
Nora saw his hand grip the table.
But his voice never changed.
“You asked if there were witnesses before anyone told you what happened.”
Salvatore’s smile faded.
“You’re tired.”
“And you’re answering a question I didn’t ask.”
Nico shifted toward his weapon.
Salvatore noticed.
His face hardened.
“After forty years with this family, I’m being interrogated because of wording?”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“After forty years, you should know wording matters to me.”
Salvatore’s eyes moved toward Nora.
Hatred flashed.
Only for a second.
Enough.
He said, “She’s confused you.”
Nora laughed.
Salvatore turned.
“You find this amusing?”
“No.”
She pointed toward his glove.
“I find that interesting.”
He looked down.
“The stain.”
“What stain?”
“Right cuff.”
His hand moved instinctively.
Lorenzo saw it.
Nico did too.
Nora continued.
“You smell like the bullet.”
Salvatore went still.
Nico drew his gun.
Salvatore moved faster than a sixty-two-year-old man should have.
He grabbed a kitchen knife from the block and caught Nora by the hair.
The blade touched her throat.
Lorenzo froze.
Every guard raised a weapon.
Salvatore backed toward the door.
“So this is what loyalty gets?”
Lorenzo’s voice went frighteningly quiet.
“Let her go.”
“She is nothing.”
Something changed in Lorenzo’s face.
“No.”
He stepped forward.
Nora felt the blade press harder.
A bead of blood ran down her neck.
Lorenzo did not blink.
“She jumped into a freezing river when she thought I was nobody.”
Salvatore laughed bitterly.
“And now you think she’s family?”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s gaze locked on Nora.
“She is a person under my protection.”
He looked at Salvatore.
“That used to mean something to you.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
Nora felt his attention shift.
Just enough.
Nursing school had taught her how to restrain combative patients.
Homelessness had taught her that rules disappear when somebody puts a knife against your throat.
She drove her heel down on Salvatore’s foot.
Hard.
Then twisted beneath his arm.
The blade sliced her shoulder instead of her throat.
Nico tackled Salvatore.
The room erupted.
Guards pinned him.
Nora hit the floor.
Lorenzo was beside her immediately.
He should not have moved that fast.
“You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
“That isn’t funny anymore.”
“It wasn’t funny the first time.”
Elias pressed gauze against her shoulder.
Across the kitchen, Salvatore was on his knees.
His calm was gone.
Lorenzo stood.
“Was it you?”
Salvatore spat blood.
“You think I would kill you?”
“I think you tried.”
Salvatore smiled.
“You still have no idea what you interrupted.”
“What?”
“The sixty-million-dollar acquisition.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“What about it?”
“You thought you were buying warehouses.”
Salvatore started laughing.
“You bought evidence.”
Nora looked at Lorenzo.
Salvatore continued.
“Files your accountants were never supposed to see.”
“Of what?”
Salvatore’s smile disappeared.
“Ask your insurance division.”
Nora’s body went cold.
Insurance.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“My mother’s claim.”
“What about it?”
“The company that denied her cancer treatment.”
Her voice almost failed.
“Moretti Assurance.”
Every face in the room turned toward Lorenzo.
He said nothing.
Nora stood slowly despite Elias’s protest.
“You owned the company that denied the treatment that might have saved my mother.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“Nora—”
She stepped away.
“No.”
He followed.
“I didn’t know.”
She laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
The answer stopped her.
Lorenzo looked at Salvatore.
Then back at Nora.
“No. It doesn’t.”
For the first time since she pulled him from the river, Nora saw something in the mafia boss that looked almost like fear.
May you like
Not fear of death.
Fear of discovering exactly what had been done in his name.
