Chapter 9 - PAOLO HAD BEEN INSIDE THE AIRPORT
Airport cameras captured Paolo clearly enough for Antonio to recognize him.
Older.
Thinner.
But alive.
He walked without assistance.
No dying man.
No ghost.
He entered a private conference room near the executive terminal.
Twenty-six minutes later, Charles Vale joined him.
Then Daniel Mercer.
Three men building one death.
Police searched the room.
Empty.
Except for a forgotten paper cup.
DNA confirmed Paolo.
Antonio stared at the report.
There was something almost insulting about scientific proof.
As though his father’s betrayal required laboratory confirmation.
Evelyn sat across from him.
“You don’t have to look calm.”
Antonio’s eyes lifted.
“I am calm.”
“No. You are controlled.”
He almost corrected her.
Then stopped.
“You notice too much.”
“It’s literally my job.”
Marco brought news.
Paolo had left Shannon in a private aircraft shortly after Antonio reached the hospital.
Destination filed as Nice.
The plane never landed there.
Transponder lost over the Mediterranean.
Luca believed he was heading to Sicily.
Antonio wanted to follow immediately.
Doctors refused to discharge him.
Evelyn sided with them.
Antonio looked offended.
“You saved my life once. That does not give you authority over the rest of it.”
“No. Your blood pressure does.”
Luca laughed.
Antonio glared.
For several hours, the atmosphere almost felt normal.
Then Evelyn’s phone received a message.
A photograph of her Brooklyn apartment door.
Another photo followed.
Her neighbor Mrs. Alvarez entering the building.
Then a third.
Her younger half-brother Ethan outside his college dorm in Boston.
Evelyn stopped breathing.
Antonio saw her face.
“What?”
She showed him.
The final message read:
COME TO PALERMO ALONE OR YOUR FAMILY LEARNS WHAT YOU CAUSED.
Antonio’s voice turned quiet.
“You are not going.”
She looked at him.
“You just told me saving your life doesn’t give me authority over yours.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was wrong.”
It was such an unexpected answer that she almost smiled.
Almost.
Marco traced the message through multiple servers.
No location.
But Ethan’s photograph had been taken that morning.
Paolo had people in Boston.
Antonio immediately ordered security around Evelyn’s family.
She hated needing it.
But accepted.
Then Ethan called her.
He sounded confused.
“Evie, do you know a man named Thomas?”
Her body went cold.
“Our dad?”
“No. Some old guy came by asking about him.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Describe him.”
Ethan did.
Gray hair.
Italian accent.
Scar along the right cheek.
Antonio heard the description.
He knew that scar.
Not Paolo.
Someone else.
His uncle Matteo.
The same man denying involvement in New York.
And Ethan revealed the secret neither Antonio nor Evelyn expected.
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“Evie, he said Dad didn’t die when we were kids.”
“He said Thomas Foster is alive.”
