Chapter 4 - BEFORE MATTEO EVER KNEW HER NAME
Norah had found the document accidentally.
Inside the Raven folder was a scanned surveillance report from four years earlier.
Six months before she met Matteo.
It contained photographs.
Her apartment.
Her father’s old bookkeeping office.
The diner where she worked weekends.
Even a picture of Norah carrying groceries beside her mother.
Someone had followed her.
The report identified her as:
NORAH BENNETT — POSSIBLE ACCESS POINT.
Matteo’s chest tightened.
“Access to what?”
“My father.”
Norah’s father, Thomas Bennett, had been dead five years.
Official cause:
Heart attack.
He had kept financial records for the Ferraro organization, one of the Rossi family’s old rivals.
“What did your father know?”
“More than I thought.”
“Where are you?”
“No.”
“Norah.”
“I called to warn you, not return.”
He pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“Then warn me.”
She explained what she had pieced together.
Thomas Bennett had quietly documented money disappearing from Ferraro-controlled accounts years before Matteo absorbed much of their territory.
Someone inside Ferraro was stealing.
The thief later moved into Rossi-connected businesses.
Same pattern.
Same companies.
Same intermediary names.
Luca was connected.
But so was someone else.
“Who?”
“I need proof.”
“Norah, if you’re carrying evidence people killed for—”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
Matteo felt sick.
She was pregnant, alone, scared, and still refusing to trust him.
He had created that.
“Please come back.”
“No.”
“I won’t stop you leaving afterward.”
Silence.
It was the first time Matteo had admitted she could leave.
He forced himself to continue.
“I’ll put you somewhere safe. No guards inside. No restrictions. You choose the location.”
Norah breathed quietly.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“What?”
“You’re negotiating freedom like it belongs to you.”
He closed his eyes.
She was right.
Again.
“I’m sorry.”
The words felt unfamiliar.
Norah went silent.
Matteo Rossi apologized to almost nobody.
“Say it again,” she whispered.
He almost laughed despite everything.
“I’m sorry.”
“For Harper?”
“Yes.”
“For every time you called me dramatic when I knew you were lying?”
“Yes.”
“For making me believe safety meant I had to accept humiliation?”
His throat tightened.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then she said:
“I needed that three months ago.”
The line nearly ended.
“Norah.”
“What?”
“The baby.”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“No.”
Of course.
Then her voice sharpened.
“Matteo, one more thing.”
“What?”
“The report on me was ordered by a company called Meridian Risk.”
Arthur looked up immediately when Matteo repeated the name.
Meridian Risk.
A private intelligence firm.
They had worked for the Rossi organization years earlier.
Matteo remembered who hired them.
His uncle Salvatore.
The man who raised Matteo after his father died.
The man who currently lived in retirement outside Providence.
The man Matteo trusted more than almost anyone.
“Why would Salvatore investigate you?”
Norah whispered:
“That’s what you need to ask him.”
Then the line disconnected.
Matteo stared at the phone.
Arthur said nothing.
Finally:
“Boss?”
Matteo looked toward him.
“Get the car.”
“Where?”
May you like
“Providence.”
Because if Salvatore had been watching Norah before Matteo even knew she existed, then his marriage might have begun as something much darker than coincidence.
