Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE
I did not sleep that night.
Victor didn’t either.
At 1:17 A.M., he summoned me to his private office.
I almost refused.
Then I remembered Mia pointing at the portrait.
So I went.
Victor stood beside a wall of windows overlooking the rain-soaked grounds.
No guards.
No gun visible.
That somehow made him more intimidating.
“Tell me about your mother.”
I folded my arms.
“That’s personal.”
“So is the fact that you recognized a dead man.”
Fair.
“My mother’s name is Rebecca Brooks.”
Victor turned.
Something flashed across his face.
“You know her.”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
My stomach tightened.
“You know my mother.”
“I knew someone by that name years ago.”
“What does that mean?”
Victor moved toward his desk.
“Rebecca Brooks worked for my father.”
My breath caught.
“No.”
“She was an accountant.”
“My mother was a bookkeeper.”
“For Romano Imports.”
I stared at him.
My mother had always told me she worked for a construction company before leaving New York.
She had lied.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“Why did she leave?”
Victor’s expression closed.
“That’s what I want to know.”
He opened a drawer and removed an old photograph.
My mother.
Younger.
Smiling.
Standing beside Victor’s mother.
My knees nearly gave out.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother kept it.”
I sat without asking permission.
Victor placed another photograph beside the first.
Carlo DeLuca.
“He was my father’s cousin. Security chief. Family adviser.”
“And he died in the bombing?”
“That’s what we were told.”
“Who told you?”
Victor looked at me.
“Carlo’s brother.”
The answer felt wrong.
“Your father trusted him?”
“My father trusted very few people.”
“Apparently one too many.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
I expected anger.
Instead, he said:
“That sounds like something Rebecca would say.”
My heart stumbled.
“You remember her?”
“I was twenty-one. She caught me falsifying a dinner receipt.”
Despite everything, I blinked.
“What?”
“I was trying to hide how much I’d spent on whiskey.”
“And?”
“She made me reimburse the company.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Victor almost smiled.
Then the office door opened.
Mia stood there barefoot.
Victor immediately moved toward her.
She backed away.
He stopped.
I went instead.
“Mia?”
She held something in her hand.
A photograph.
The same portrait from the hallway, only smaller.
Carlo’s face had been scratched out with red pencil.
On the back, someone had written three words.
HE CAME BACK.
Victor read them.
His face went pale.
“Mia wrote this?”
I looked at her.
She shook her head.
Then pointed toward the photograph.
Toward Victor’s mother.
Victor whispered:
“My mother wrote it.”
He flipped the photo over again.
Beneath the three words was a date.
The night before the bombing.
Victor stared at it.
Then Mia tugged my sleeve.
She pointed at Carlo’s scratched-out face.
Her mouth moved.
Nothing came out.
Then, for the first time in two years, Mia forced a sound through trembling lips.
May you like
One word.
“Carlo.”
