Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO ARRANGED THE FIRST MEETING
Salvatore Rossi lived beside the ocean in a house with no visible guards.
That was deceptive.
Men like Salvatore never stopped preparing for enemies.
He was seventy-two, silver-haired, elegant, and still capable of silencing a room without raising his voice.
When Matteo arrived just before dawn, Salvatore was already awake.
“Coffee?”
“No.”
Salvatore studied him.
“Bad night?”
“Meridian Risk.”
That changed the old man’s face.
Barely.
Enough.
Matteo’s anger became cold.
“You investigated Norah.”
Salvatore walked toward the window.
“Years ago.”
“Why?”
“Sit.”
“No.”
Salvatore sighed.
“You’ve always been impatient.”
“And you’ve always answered questions with stories.”
“Fine.”
He turned.
“Norah’s father possessed records connected to money stolen from Ferraro accounts.”
“I know.”
“No. You know part.”
Thomas Bennett discovered the theft was larger than anyone understood.
Funds moved between rival families.
Rossi.
Ferraro.
Moretti.
Someone had been using old criminal wars to hide personal theft.
“If the families blamed one another,” Salvatore said, “nobody examined the accountants.”
“Luca?”
“His father first.”
Matteo froze.
Luca’s father, Enzo Rossi, had been Matteo’s uncle.
Dead twelve years.
“How much?”
“Millions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father found out too.”
The room went silent.
Matteo’s father had supposedly died during a failed robbery when Matteo was fifteen.
Salvatore now looked away.
“No.”
Matteo understood before he spoke.
“My father wasn’t killed by strangers.”
“No.”
“Who?”
Salvatore took a long breath.
“Enzo ordered it.”
Matteo’s vision narrowed.
“And you knew?”
“Afterward.”
“You kept Luca beside me for twenty years.”
“I had no proof against the son.”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“You raised me on the idea that blood remembers debts.”
“And I was trying to stop you from inheriting one.”
Matteo wanted to overturn the table.
Instead:
“Norah.”
Salvatore nodded.
“Thomas Bennett later discovered Enzo’s old records had not ended with Enzo’s death. Someone continued the theft.”
“Luca.”
“Possibly.”
“You investigated Norah because?”
“Thomas died before giving me his records.”
“So you watched his daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Why not approach her?”
“She didn’t know anything.”
“So you let me meet her.”
Salvatore said nothing.
Matteo stepped closer.
“You arranged it.”
Their first meeting.
Charity dinner.
Norah volunteering at a literacy foundation.
Matteo had spilled whiskey near her dress.
She told him he was rude.
He had fallen half in love with her because she seemed completely unimpressed by his name.
Now—
“Was that dinner staged?”
Salvatore’s silence answered.
Matteo felt something twist inside him.
“You put her near me.”
“I thought if Thomas left anything, she would be safer attached to you than alone.”
“You used my marriage.”
“I did not make you marry her.”
“No.”
Matteo’s voice turned deadly.
“You only put her in my path because of her father.”
Salvatore looked ashamed.
“I underestimated what would happen.”
“So did I.”
For the first time, Matteo understood how Norah must feel.
To learn that pieces of your life had been arranged by other people who claimed it was for protection.
Then Salvatore opened a drawer.
He removed an envelope.
“Thomas gave this to me before he died.”
Matteo stared.
“You said he never gave you anything.”
“He told me not to open it unless Norah disappeared from Boston.”
Matteo’s breath stopped.
Salvatore handed it over.
On the front, in Thomas Bennett’s handwriting:
FOR NORAH. NOT MATTEO.
Matteo almost tore it open.
Then stopped.
It was not his.
That small decision felt unfamiliar.
He handed it back.
“Get it to her.”
Salvatore raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t want to know?”
“Yes.”
Matteo stared at the envelope.
“But it isn’t mine.”
Salvatore’s expression changed.
Maybe surprise.
Maybe approval.
Then his phone rang.
One of Matteo’s men.
Luca had moved.
Straight to a warehouse in South Boston.
May you like
The same warehouse Thomas Bennett once used for record storage.
Luca had run directly toward the secret.
