Chapter 2 - THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CAME BACK
The next morning, Adrian Moretti found himself looking at the clock at 7:12.
Then again at 7:19.
At 7:27, he realized what he was doing and became annoyed with himself.
He was waiting for a three-year-old.
His breakfast sat untouched.
Coffee cooled beside his right hand.
Sam Russo, his oldest adviser, stood across the study reviewing shipping numbers while Adrian heard only half of them.
“…so if Carbone refuses the revised port percentage, we move everything through Newark for thirty days.”
Adrian glanced at the clock again.
Sam stopped talking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve checked that clock four times.”
“No, I haven’t.”
Sam smiled slowly.
“You absolutely have.”
Adrian looked at him.
Sam’s smile disappeared.
“Continue.”
A small knock interrupted him.
Not a professional knock.
Three soft taps.
Then two more.
Then a voice.
“Mr. Grumpy?”
Sam stared at Adrian.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Come in.”
The door opened six inches.
Mia’s face appeared.
Her dark curls had been tied into two pigtails.
One was already coming loose.
She held her stuffed rabbit beneath one arm.
“Mommy said I have to ask.”
“You asked.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
Mia pushed the door open and walked inside.
Elena appeared immediately behind her.
“I’m sorry, sir. She asked if she could say good morning.”
“She can.”
Mia looked at the breakfast tray.
Then at Adrian.
“You didn’t eat.”
Sam made a choking sound that suspiciously resembled laughter.
Adrian ignored him.
“I was busy.”
Mia climbed onto the same leather chair as the day before.
“Busy is not food.”
Sam turned away entirely.
Adrian gave him a look.
“Leave.”
“With pleasure.”
Sam escaped.
Elena remained in the doorway.
“Mia, Mr. Moretti has work.”
“He has oatmeal too.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
“You can go.”
Her brows drew together.
“Sir?”
“You’re due in the east guest wing.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll watch her.”
That sentence seemed to stun all three of them.
Elena looked at Adrian.
Then Mia.
Then Adrian again.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Mia had already picked up the spoon.
Apparently the matter was settled.
Elena hesitated another five seconds.
“Twenty minutes.”
Adrian almost objected to being given a time limit.
Then he remembered he had voluntarily entered a negotiation with a toddler.
“Twenty.”
Elena left.
Mia lifted the spoon.
“Open.”
Adrian did.
By the third bite, she asked, “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“That’s not usually how it works.”
She frowned.
“Why?”
Adrian looked at her.
Children, he was discovering, considered privacy an administrative inconvenience.
“I never married.”
Mia processed this.
“Mommy married Daddy.”
“I know.”
“He went to heaven.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know Daddy?”
“No.”
Mia looked disappointed.
“He fixed lights.”
Adrian’s spoon stopped midway.
“What kind of electrician was he?”
“Daddy climbed big poles.”
Adrian looked toward the doorway.
Daniel Rossi.
City electrician.
Highway accident.
Something about the name had bothered him yesterday.
Not recognition exactly.
A faint scrape against memory.
Mia continued feeding him.
“Daddy had a red truck.”
Adrian’s attention sharpened.
“Red?”
“Yes.”
“He worked for the city?”
She nodded.
“Mommy says he was brave.”
A memory arrived.
Three years earlier.
Moretti Warehouse Twelve.
An electrical fire.
A union electrician named Daniel Rossi had reported tampered wiring two weeks before the blaze.
Adrian had seen the incident report because the fire killed two night workers.
Daniel Rossi.
Adrian set down the spoon.
Mia frowned.
“You’re not finished.”
“I need to ask your mother something.”
“After breakfast.”
“Mia—”
“You said busy is not food.”
“I did not say that.”
“I did.”
Adrian stared at her.
Then, against every instinct he possessed, picked up the spoon and finished the bowl.
Twenty minutes later, Elena returned.
Mia jumped from the chair.
“Mommy, he ate everything.”
“I see that.”
Adrian stood.
“Elena.”
Something in his tone made her wary.
“Yes?”
“Your husband worked electrical maintenance?”
“Before he died.”
“For whom?”
“Several companies. City subcontracting mostly.”
“Did he ever work for Moretti Logistics?”
Her face changed.
Adrian noticed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About a month before the accident.”
“What did he do?”
Elena picked up Mia.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
Her eyes met his.
For the first time since she started working for him, there was defiance in them.
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I remember his name.”
Elena went completely still.
Mia looked between them.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“There was a warehouse fire three years ago. Daniel filed a report about electrical tampering.”
Elena’s grip tightened around her daughter.
“He told me there were problems.”
“What problems?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Elena.”
“He said it was safer if I didn’t know.”
Adrian felt something cold settle in his chest.
“When did he die?”
“Six days after the fire.”
Six days.
Adrian remembered the official report.
Daniel Rossi lost control on a wet highway.
Vehicle crossed the median.
No witnesses.
Adrian had never connected the two.
Elena’s expression hardened.
“The police said it was an accident.”
“I’m sure they did.”
She stared.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want the file reopened.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Adrian was not accustomed to immediate no.
“Elena—”
“No.”
She backed toward the door.
“My husband is dead. Mia has already lost her father. I am not digging into something that might put her in danger.”
“If Daniel discovered something connected to my family—”
“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
The words landed hard.
Mia looked at Adrian.
“Mommy’s scared.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“I’m not scared.”
Mia touched her cheek.
“You do the mouth thing when you’re scared.”
Adrian knew that mouth thing.
Elena pressed her lips together when she was trying not to show emotion.
He stepped back.
“I won’t force you.”
She visibly relaxed.
“But I’m going to investigate Daniel’s death.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You just said—”
“I said I won’t force you to participate.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Adrian.”
She stopped.
“I think we’ve moved past Mr. Moretti.”
“No, we haven’t.”
Mia whispered loudly, “I call you Mr. Grumpy.”
Elena looked upward as if asking Daniel for patience.
Adrian almost smiled.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message from Marcus Vale, head of security.
Adrian had texted him ten minutes earlier.
Pull everything on Daniel Rossi. Quietly.
Marcus’s reply contained one sentence.
You need to see this now.
Attached was a photograph from an old warehouse security camera.
Daniel Rossi stood beside an electrical panel.
Across from him was another man.
One Adrian recognized instantly.
Samuel Russo.
Adrian’s oldest friend.
The man who had been sitting in this room fifteen minutes earlier.
He enlarged the photograph.
Date stamp.
Four days before the warehouse fire.
Two days before Daniel filed the tampering report.
Adrian slowly looked toward the doorway Sam had used.
Something in his stomach turned cold.
Elena noticed.
“What?”
Adrian locked the phone.
“Nothing yet.”
She stared at him.
“You just told me not to lie to you.”
“I did not.”
“You were thinking it.”
Mia nodded.
“He does the eyebrow thing.”
Adrian looked at the child.
Apparently he now had a mouth thing too.
He returned his attention to Elena.
“Go to work. Keep Mia with you.”
“Why?”
“I’m changing your assignments.”
Her face hardened.
“I don’t need protection.”
“This isn’t a debate.”
“It becomes one when it concerns my daughter.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“That photograph connects your husband to someone inside my organization.”
Her anger disappeared.
“Who?”
He hesitated.
Then told her.
“Sam Russo.”
Elena’s face emptied.
“You know him?”
Her answer made every instinct Adrian possessed wake up.
“Yes.”
“How?”
She held Mia tighter.
“Because Sam Russo came to my apartment three days after Daniel’s funeral.”
Silence.
Adrian stared.
“What did he want?”
Elena whispered, “He wanted whatever Daniel had found.”
Outside the study, somewhere deep in the Moretti estate, a door closed.
May you like
Adrian suddenly wondered how many people in his own house were listening.
And for the first time in years, the safest place he could think to keep Elena Rossi and her daughter was directly beside him.
