Chapter 1 - The Man in the Photograph
The dead man in the photograph was my younger brother.
Nicholas Moretti had been buried nine years earlier after an explosion near Boston Harbor destroyed the SUV carrying him and two of my men.
I had identified his watch.
I had stood beside his coffin.
I had watched my mother collapse against the front pew.
Yet there he was in Mrs. Dorothy’s faded photograph, standing beside Tessa Callaway with one arm around her waist.
Alive.
Smiling.
And looking happier than I had ever seen him inside my house.
I picked up the photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
Mrs. Dorothy didn’t answer immediately.
That frightened me more than if she had lied.
“From Tessa.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
My eyes moved back to Nicholas.
He was wearing a dark jacket I recognized. Tessa looked younger, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. She was holding his hand.
Then I saw the date printed in the bottom corner.
October 18.
My brother’s funeral had been October 7.
My fingers tightened around the photograph.
“This was taken eleven days after we buried him.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Then I buried the wrong man.”
“No.”
Mrs. Dorothy’s voice softened.
“You buried what was left of the car. Nicholas wasn’t inside when it exploded.”
I stood so quickly my chair struck the wall.
“Where was he?”
“With Tessa.”
For nine years I had believed an enemy crew had murdered my brother.
For nine years I had answered that death with blood, fear, and a war that changed half the city.
And all that time, someone had known Nicholas survived.
“Why didn’t he come to me?”
Mrs. Dorothy looked toward the closed study door.
“Because Nicholas believed the person who tried to kill him lived in this house.”
I stared at her.
Then she turned the photograph over.
On the back, in Nicholas’s handwriting, were five words:
If I die, protect her.
May you like
Below them was another sentence.
Vincent must never know about the baby.
