Chapter 3 - ANTONIO’S BROTHER HAD BEEN WATCHING HIM
By sunrise, Evelyn knew enough to be afraid and not enough to understand why.
Marco arrived at her hotel with two coffees.
She refused both.
He noticed.
“Wise.”
“I’m not drinking anything handed to me by anyone connected to this family.”
For the first time, Marco almost smiled.
“Also wise.”
He explained who Luca was.
Antonio’s younger brother.
Thirty-four.
Educated in London.
Charming when he wanted something.
Dangerous when charm failed.
For years, Luca had handled the family’s legitimate real-estate and shipping interests while Antonio controlled the larger organization.
“Organization,” Evelyn repeated.
Marco did not pretend.
“Vitelli interests.”
“That is not less suspicious.”
“No.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“Is Antonio mafia?”
Marco’s silence answered.
She stood.
“I’m leaving.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere that doesn’t involve organized crime.”
“Someone entered your hotel room before you arrived.”
“That happened because I helped him.”
“It happened because you saw something.”
“What?”
“We don’t know yet.”
At the hospital, Antonio demanded his phone.
His security team had disabled it.
He threatened to fire all three men.
Marco returned and handed it over without argument.
Antonio immediately called Luca.
No answer.
Then he called his uncle Matteo.
Also no answer.
That interested him.
Matteo Vitelli never ignored Antonio.
Not once in fifteen years.
Antonio opened a secure financial application.
Several large accounts had been frozen overnight.
Not emptied.
Frozen.
Someone expected Antonio to be unavailable long enough for a legal challenge to begin.
He looked at Marco.
“Board meeting?”
“Scheduled for New York in nine hours.”
“Without me.”
“Yes.”
Antonio smiled without humor.
“They thought I would be dead.”
Marco said nothing.
Evelyn, meanwhile, remembered the sealed coffee service.
Antonio had not touched his coffee.
But someone else had.
The man in 3C.
Daniel Rusk had lifted Antonio’s cup accidentally during turbulence, then immediately set it down.
At the time, Evelyn thought nothing of it.
Now she wondered if he had been checking whether Antonio consumed something.
She called Marco again.
“He wasn’t trying to poison Antonio on the plane.”
“We know.”
“He was watching to see whether the poison worked.”
Marco went silent.
“That would mean he knew Antonio had already taken something.”
“Yes.”
“And Luca hired him.”
“Yes.”
The obvious conclusion was ugly.
Too obvious.
Antonio thought so too.
“Luca is reckless,” he said, “not stupid.”
Then an Irish detective entered his room carrying a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was Daniel Rusk’s wallet.
It had been found near a service exit.
One item inside did not belong there.
A photograph of Evelyn.
Not taken on the flight.
Taken three weeks earlier in New York.
She was leaving her apartment building.
Someone had been watching her before she ever met Antonio.
May you like
And on the back of the photograph were two words:
FOSTER GIRL.
