Chapter 10 - THE FATHER WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR NINE YEARS
Vittorio Moretti had been buried in a closed casket.
Adrian was twenty-six when his father supposedly died from complications after heart surgery in Switzerland.
The body had been flown home.
The family physician confirmed the death.
The casket remained sealed because of “medical damage.”
Adrian had never questioned it.
Until now.
“We open the grave,” Luca said.
Adrian stared at him.
“Tonight.”
I expected resistance.
There was none.
Legal permission was obtained through the family's attorney and cemetery authorities.
By dawn, the truth was undeniable.
The coffin contained a body.
But it wasn't Vittorio Moretti.
Dental records identified the dead man as one of Vittorio's former security guards.
Luca sat on the cemetery steps and stared at nothing.
Adrian remained standing.
His grief looked different.
Colder.
“My father let us bury another man.”
I stood beside him.
“Maybe he was forced.”
Adrian looked at me.
“You still try to find the least terrible explanation.”
“Someone has to.”
“No.”
His gaze shifted toward the open grave.
“Sometimes terrible is simply terrible.”
By noon, Moretti security uncovered financial transfers showing that someone using Vittorio's old offshore accounts had been moving money for nearly a decade.
Black Harbor.
The entire time Adrian believed he had dismantled his family's connection, his father had apparently continued it from the shadows.
Then we found Nathan.
He stumbled into a police station bleeding from the shoulder.
He asked for Adrian.
Not a lawyer.
Not police protection.
Adrian.
We met him inside a secured interview room.
Nathan looked ten years older than he had in the grocery store.
“Where's Ellen?” I demanded.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I helped her escape.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Vittorio moved her last night. I created a distraction before they left.”
“Why?”
Nathan looked at me.
“Because I finally understood he was going to kill you anyway.”
My anger didn't disappear.
But confusion joined it.
Nathan explained everything.
He had started laundering money for Black Harbor three years ago.
At first, he thought it was tax evasion.
Then he learned about bribery.
Extortion.
Murder.
By then, he was trapped.
“Did you date me because of my family?”
“No.”
“Did you stay because of the trust?”
His silence answered.
I looked away.
“That grocery store?”
“I was trying to humiliate you badly enough that you'd leave Chicago.”
“You could have told me I was in danger.”
“I thought they'd kill you if they knew I warned you.”
Adrian's voice turned cold.
“You still enjoyed it.”
Nathan looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
At least he admitted it.
“Where is Vittorio?” Adrian asked.
Nathan swallowed.
“Preparing to leave the country.”
“With Ellen?”
“No.”
My heart stopped.
“Then where is she?”
Nathan gave us an address.
An abandoned riverfront warehouse owned by the Hayes trust.
We found Ellen alive there.
She was frightened but unharmed.
She collapsed into my arms.
Afterward, once doctors cleared her, she finally told us where Samuel Hayes had hidden the ledger.
“Under the old Hayes Foundry.”
Adrian frowned.
“That property was demolished.”
“No,” Ellen said. “The building was. The basement wasn't.”
She turned to me.
“Your grandfather built a hidden room beneath it.”
“How do we enter?”
Ellen pulled my mother's old necklace from beneath her blouse.
A tiny brass key hung from the chain.
“Your mother gave me this before she died.”
I touched the key.
Then Ellen said quietly, “She also gave me a letter for you.”
“When?”
“Nine years ago.”
My throat tightened.
May you like
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“Because she told me not to unless Vittorio Moretti returned.”
