Chapter 3 - The Child They Wanted Dead
The mansion changed in less than thirty seconds.
Doors locked.
Lights cut.
Curtains closed.
Men appeared from corridors Matteo had not known existed, each carrying weapons and speaking into radios.
The beautiful house became what it truly was.
A fortress pretending to be a home.
Salvatore kept one hand on Matteo’s shoulder as Carmine led them down a narrow passage behind the library.
“Three shots,” Carmine said. “Two through the foyer glass. One took out a north camera.”
“Shooter?”
“Gone before our men reached the wall.”
“Vehicle?”
“Nothing yet.”
Salvatore stopped.
“That means he came on foot.”
Carmine nodded.
“Probably already had a route prepared.”
Matteo listened without speaking.
Salvatore noticed.
“You understand what we’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I know.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Matteo looked up at him.
“My mother said when adults tell children not to listen, it usually means the children are the ones in danger.”
Salvatore stared at him.
Elena.
That sounded exactly like Elena.
A memory came without permission.
Twenty-one years old, leaning against the kitchen counter while Salvatore complained that his father had dragged him into a meeting he did not want.
Elena had laughed.
“When men lower their voices, listen harder.”
He had forgotten that.
He had forgotten too much.
They entered a reinforced room beneath the west wing.
Steel door.
No windows.
Two couches, a table, medical cabinet, radio equipment.
Matteo looked around.
“A panic room?”
Salvatore almost smiled.
“Something like that.”
“You have books?”
Carmine glanced at him.
“Books?”
“If I’m staying.”
The room went silent.
Matteo looked from one man to the other.
“You said somebody is trying to kill me.”
“Yes,” Salvatore said.
“And the gate is guarded.”
“Yes.”
“So I’m staying.”
Salvatore sat across from him.
“For tonight.”
Matteo shook his head.
“No.”
“No?”
“My mother said temporary promises are what frightened adults make when they don’t want to say the truth.”
Carmine turned away to hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Salvatore did not.
“You have a lot of your mother in you.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
“You knew her?”
Salvatore stared at the boy.
How could he explain Elena?
She had been his cousin by blood, closest friend by choice, and the only person in the family who had never been frightened of him.
They had grown up in the same house.
She had been the daughter of Salvatore’s mother’s younger sister.
After Elena’s parents died, Salvatore’s mother had raised her.
More sister than cousin.
More conscience than family.
Then nine years earlier, Elena had walked out.
And Salvatore had spent years believing she had betrayed them.
“Yes,” he said.
Matteo leaned forward.
“Was she bad?”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“Who told you she was?”
“She did.”
The answer hurt more than Salvatore expected.
“She said she made a mistake and good people got hurt.”
“What mistake?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Matteo looked at the medicine bottle on the table.
“She said one day I might have to decide whether somebody who did something terrible could still be good.”
Salvatore looked at Carmine.
Neither man spoke.
That sounded like a confession.
Or a warning.
The steel door opened.
Dr. Dominic Russo entered carrying a medical bag.
Behind him came Bianca Moretti.
Salvatore’s mother.
At sixty-seven, Bianca still carried herself like the room belonged to her before she entered it.
Silver hair pinned neatly.
Black silk robe.
No fear in her face.
Until she saw Matteo.
Then her hand gripped the door frame.
The resemblance was worse under proper light.
Not to Elena.
To Salvatore.
Same dark eyes.
Same line of the mouth.
Same tiny indentation near the chin that appeared when neither knew how to answer something.
Bianca looked at her son.
“Who is this?”
Salvatore stood.
“Elena’s boy.”
Bianca became perfectly still.
“Impossible.”
“He has her photograph.”
“That proves nothing.”
“He has her note.”
Bianca’s eyes moved sharply to the folded paper.
“What note?”
Salvatore picked it up.
“I haven’t opened it.”
“Why?”
“Because we were being shot at.”
Bianca’s gaze went back to Matteo.
“Where did Elena get him?”
Matteo frowned.
“Get me?”
Bianca ignored him.
Salvatore did not.
“He says she was his mother.”
“People say many things before they die.”
Matteo’s face went cold.
Salvatore caught the change immediately.
“Mother.”
Bianca looked at him.
“He was attacked fifteen minutes after entering our property. Someone poisoned Elena. He walked here carrying a note addressed to me. Choose your next words carefully.”
Bianca had not been spoken to that way by her son in years.
She looked at Matteo again.
This time longer.
Then she whispered, “Those eyes.”
Salvatore heard it.
“So you see it too.”
Bianca did not answer.
Dr. Russo cleared his throat.
“The boy needs to be examined.”
Matteo recoiled when he approached.
Salvatore noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like doctors.”
Dominic stopped.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s what the doctor at St. Joseph’s said before he told the nurses to take me away from my mother.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
Salvatore crouched.
“Matteo.”
The boy looked at him.
“He needs to make sure you’re not sick from the rain.”
Matteo glanced at Dominic.
“Will you stay?”
The words hit Salvatore unexpectedly.
He nodded.
“I’ll stay.”
The examination revealed bruised feet, mild hypothermia, dehydration and several old scars.
One across Matteo’s ribs troubled Dominic most.
“What caused this?”
Matteo looked at Salvatore.
“Men came to our apartment last year.”
“What men?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“My mother put me through the bathroom window.”
Salvatore went still.
“What happened to her?”
“They broke her wrist.”
Bianca sat down.
“When?”
“March.”
Salvatore looked at Carmine.
“Why didn’t we know?”
Carmine shook his head.
“If she was living under another name—”
“She was.”
Matteo interrupted.
“We moved a lot.”
“How many times?”
“Seven houses.”
“In how long?”
“Three years.”
Salvatore’s anger began changing shape.
For nine years, Elena had been hiding.
Not from him.
From someone else.
“Open the note,” Bianca said.
Salvatore looked at her.
She had gone pale.
“Now.”
He unfolded the paper.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Sal,
If Matteo reaches you, then I failed.
Do not trust the story you were told about the Bellini warehouse.
I did not betray you.
I was ordered to disappear because I saw who opened the east gate.
The man responsible is still inside the family.
Matteo knows nothing about this, and I kept it that way to protect him.
But there is something else you must know.
His father is—
The paper ended.
Torn cleanly across the bottom.
Salvatore stared.
“Where is the rest?”
Matteo blinked.
“That’s all there was.”
“No. There was more.”
“I never opened it.”
Salvatore turned the paper.
The lower section had been removed recently.
The edge was too fresh.
Carmine swore.
“Someone got to the letter before he reached us.”
Matteo shook his head.
“No one touched it.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Think.”
Matteo did.
Then his eyes changed.
“At the orphanage.”
“What happened?”
“A man came yesterday.”
“What man?”
“He said he was from child services.”
Carmine leaned forward.
“What did he look like?”
“Gray coat. Bald here.”
Matteo touched the crown of his head.
“Scar on his neck.”
Salvatore and Carmine exchanged a look.
Matteo continued.
“He searched my things.”
“You saw him?”
“I hid under the laundry cart.”
“What did he take?”
“Nothing.”
Salvatore held up the torn letter.
“He took this.”
Matteo stared.
Then whispered, “He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That I was coming here.”
The radio on Carmine’s belt crackled.
“Boss?”
Carmine answered.
“Go.”
“We found the shooter’s position.”
“Anything useful?”
A pause.
“One shell casing.”
“Caliber?”
“Eight-millimeter Lebel.”
Carmine frowned.
Old.
Very old.
The guard continued.
“And something carved into the tree beside it.”
Salvatore felt Bianca stiffen.
“What?”
The guard hesitated.
“A bird with folded wings.”
Matteo looked at his mother’s medicine bottle.
“The same bird.”
Bianca stood too quickly.
Her chair struck the wall.
Salvatore looked at her.
“You know what it means.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Bianca’s lips parted.
Salvatore had seen his mother face prosecutors, funerals and gunmen without flinching.
Now she looked afraid.
“Mother.”
Bianca looked at Matteo.
Then back at her son.
“The bird doesn’t belong to the Vescari family.”
Carmine frowned.
“But their signet—”
“They copied it.”
“From whom?”
Bianca swallowed.
“Your father.”
Salvatore stared.
“My father never wore a bird.”
“No.”
Bianca’s voice dropped.
“Your brother did.”
Silence filled the room.
Salvatore’s older brother, Gabriel Moretti, had died seventeen years ago.
At least that was what the family had been told.
Bianca closed her eyes.
May you like
And said the sentence that reopened every grave in the Moretti family.
“Gabriel may still be alive.”
