Chapter 5 - THE CHILD THEY SHOULD NEVER HAVE TOUCHED
Sophia’s abandoned car was found under an overpass near Cicero.
The driver’s door was open.
Her purse remained inside.
So did Lily’s small pink backpack.
There was no blood.
That was the only reason I remained capable of thought.
Kane crouched beside the rear tire.
“Two vehicles boxed her in.”
“How do you know?”
“Fresh scrape on the passenger side. Tire marks. She tried to reverse.”
I looked at the empty child seat.
“Gabriel knows every property we own.”
“Then don’t think like a Moretti.”
I turned toward him.
“Think like a frightened employee,” Kane said. “Where would someone take two people if he wanted you to believe they were somewhere important?”
I understood.
“Somewhere ordinary.”
We pulled every vehicle that had crossed three nearby traffic cameras before the outage.
Six vans.
Four trucks.
Twenty-three sedans.
Then Kane found one registered to a catering company that had gone out of business eight months earlier.
The old address was a banquet hall on West Roosevelt Road.
It had once belonged to my father.
Gabriel and I had attended birthday parties there as children.
I drove.
Kane cursed me from the passenger seat.
“You have men for this.”
“My men may be his men.”
“That’s why I brought mine.”
“Then they can follow.”
Rain blurred the windshield.
My hands remained steady.
Inside me, nothing was steady.
I remembered Lily telling me to borrow Bernard because he helped.
I remembered firing Sophia.
The look on her face had been part acting and part real pain.
I had made them leave to protect them.
Instead, I had delivered them into Gabriel’s hands.
The banquet hall was dark except for one light above a side entrance.
Kane caught my arm.
“You go through that door, you do it my way.”
“I don’t remember hiring you.”
“You didn’t.”
He handed me a small earpiece.
“Which is why I can still tell you when you’re being an idiot.”
We entered through the kitchen.
Old stainless-steel counters.
Dust.
The smell of wet plaster.
Voices came from the ballroom.
I recognized one.
Dr. Antonelli.
“She doesn’t know anything.”
A man answered.
“The kid heard enough.”
Then Sophia.
“She is three years old.”
My entire body locked.
Alive.
They were alive.
“You want to know what she heard?” Sophia said. “She heard grown men talking like cowards.”
A slap.
I moved.
Kane caught my jacket.
“Not yet.”
I nearly hit him.
Then a smaller voice came through the wall.
“Don’t touch my mama.”
Lily.
My vision narrowed.
A man laughed.
“You got a brave one.”
“She’s a baby,” Antonelli snapped. “Gabriel said scare them, not hurt them.”
That was enough.
Kane whispered into his radio.
Three seconds later, the power went out.
Shouting erupted.
I entered the ballroom in darkness.
Emergency lights flickered red.
A man turned.
I hit him before he could raise his weapon.
Another reached inside his coat.
Kane’s men came through the opposite entrance.
“Hands!”
“Floor!”
“Now!”
I barely heard them.
I saw Sophia.
Her wrists were tied to a chair.
Blood touched the corner of her mouth.
Lily sat beneath the table behind her, hugging her knees.
Our eyes met.
“Mr. Moretti?”
I crossed the room.
She crawled out.
Then ran toward me.
I dropped to one knee.
Lily collided with my chest hard enough to push air from my lungs.
Her arms went around my neck.
I held her.
Too tightly at first.
Then carefully.
“You took a long time,” she whispered.
Something broke inside me.
“I know.”
“I lost Bernard.”
“I’ll find him.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
I had promised men millions of dollars.
I had promised rivals consequences.
I had promised my wife forever.
No promise had ever frightened me as much.
“I promise.”
Sophia watched us.
Her face changed.
I carried Lily to her mother and cut Sophia’s restraints.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I said I’m fine.”
She was angry.
Good.
Angry people stayed alive.
Kane dragged Dr. Antonelli toward us.
The doctor looked twenty years older than he had the night before.
“Tell him,” Kane said.
Antonelli shook his head.
I stepped closer.
“Three years.”
The doctor closed his eyes.
“Dante.”
“Three years.”
“I didn’t start it.”
“Who did?”
“You know.”
I did.
But I needed him to say it.
“Gabriel.”
Sophia inhaled sharply.
Antonelli’s shoulders collapsed.
“After Isabella died, you stopped sleeping naturally. Gabriel asked me how long a man could function that way. At first I thought he was worried.”
“Then?”
“He paid me.”
“How?”
“Offshore accounts. Cash.”
“To do what?”
“Keep you from recovering.”
Sophia covered Lily’s ears.
Antonelli continued.
“Small doses. Changed compounds. Enough that doctors would think your insomnia was psychological.”
“And my tests?”
“I altered reports.”
My hands curled.
Kane stepped between us slightly.
He knew me well.
“What did Gabriel want?”
Antonelli looked at the floor.
“He said you would never surrender control while you could still stand. So he needed you exhausted enough to make mistakes.”
“The council.”
“Yes.”
A sound escaped me.
Almost laughter.
“Three years to win a vote?”
Antonelli looked up.
“It wasn’t only the vote.”
Silence.
My skin went cold.
“What do you mean?”
He said nothing.
I moved closer.
“What wasn’t only the vote?”
His eyes filled with terror.
“There was another file.”
“What file?”
“Isabella.”
The name struck like a bullet.
Sophia tightened her hold on Lily.
“What about my wife?”
Antonelli whispered.
“The fire wasn’t an accident.”
Everything inside the room disappeared.
I heard Gabriel’s voice from three years earlier.
You don’t have to be strong with me.
I remembered him standing beside Isabella’s coffin.
I remembered his hand on my shoulder.
I remembered my brother crying.
Or pretending to.
“Say that again.”
Antonelli shook his head.
“Gabriel didn’t mean for her to be there.”
My voice became almost inaudible.
“Where?”
“The lake house.”
I stepped forward.
Kane blocked me.
“Dante.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“Move.”
“If you kill him, you lose the witness.”
I stared at Antonelli.
He was trembling.
“Gabriel arranged the fire?”
“He arranged a break-in. He wanted financial records destroyed. He didn’t know Isabella had changed her plans and gone there.”
My lungs stopped working.
“He knew afterward?”
“Yes.”
“And he said nothing.”
Antonelli lowered his head.
“He said there was nothing to gain by telling you.”
Three years.
My brother had watched me destroy myself over a death he helped cause.
Then he had made sure I never recovered.
A tiny hand touched mine.
Lily.
She had slipped free from Sophia.
Her fingers closed around two of mine.
“You’re making the scary face again,” she whispered.
I looked down.
The room returned.
Sophia.
Lily.
Kane.
The doctor I wanted to kill.
I slowly opened my fist.
“You’re right,” I told Lily.
Then I looked at Antonelli.
“You’re going to tell Detective Kane everything.”
Antonelli nodded desperately.
“And Gabriel?”
Kane asked.
I stared toward the dark windows.
“He thinks Sophia and Lily are still his.”
“You want him to keep thinking that?”
“Yes.”
Kane studied me.
“What are you planning?”
I lifted Lily into my arms.
She put her head against my shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “my family votes on whether I’m too broken to lead.”
I looked at the doctor.
“Gabriel has spent three years preparing for that meeting.”
May you like
My voice turned cold.
“The least I can do is let him have it.”
