Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER IN THE MIRROR
Brena saw the reflection before she saw the man.
A pale face.
Dark hair.
A thin scar across one eyebrow.
He stood behind the mirrored pillar no more than forty feet away.
And then he disappeared.
“Tiberio.”
Her husband turned instantly.
“I saw someone.”
“Who?”
She pointed.
“He looked like the photograph in your study.”
Tiberio stopped breathing.
Only for a second.
But she saw it.
“Which photograph?”
“The one beside the engineering award. You and your brother.”
His face changed so completely that Brena’s stomach tightened.
“Alio?”
“I think so.”
Tiberio crossed the ballroom.
Fast.
Not running.
Never running.
But people moved out of his path instinctively.
Brena followed.
By the time they reached the mirrored pillar, nobody was there.
A service door swung slowly shut.
Tiberio pushed through it.
Empty corridor.
Industrial carpet.
Gray walls.
Emergency exit at the far end.
One of his security men appeared.
“No one passed us.”
“Check every staircase.”
“Yes, sir.”
Brena caught up.
“If Alio is dead, tell me now.”
“He is.”
“You’re sure?”
“I buried him.”
The words came out like stone.
“You saw his body?”
Tiberio looked at her.
And did not answer.
That was enough.
“You didn’t.”
“My uncle identified him.”
“What happened?”
“Car fire.”
Brena stared.
“Then you didn’t bury your brother. You buried what someone told you was your brother.”
Tiberio’s face went cold.
“Do not speculate about things you don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
He turned away.
Brena grabbed his sleeve.
Every security man in the corridor froze.
Tiberio looked down at her hand.
Then at her face.
“Your brother supposedly died after my father ruined him,” she said. “You spent two years building your entire revenge around that death. If Alio is alive, everything changes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My father could still have destroyed him financially.”
“That isn’t the same as killing him.”
“I never said Grant killed him.”
“No. You just married his daughter to punish him for it.”
For several seconds, silence stretched between them.
Then Tiberio’s phone rang.
He answered.
“What?”
His expression tightened.
“Where?”
Pause.
“Do not touch anything.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Brena asked.
Tiberio looked at her.
“The man who delivered the envelope was found in the hotel laundry room.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s talk to him.”
“He can’t talk.”
“Why?”
Tiberio’s jaw flexed.
“Someone cut out his tongue.”
Brena’s stomach turned.
The world around Tiberio had suddenly stopped being an abstraction.
No whispers.
No carefully worded rumors.
Someone had mutilated a man three floors beneath a charity gala.
“Police?”
“Hotel management hasn’t called yet.”
“You mean your people stopped them.”
“For the moment.”
“Tiberio.”
“If police arrive before we know what happened, whoever did this disappears.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I find them first.”
That answer frightened her more.
He started toward the private elevator.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Brena removed the note.
“11:30. This address.”
“You are not going there.”
“You can either come with me or spend the next four hours wondering whether I went without you.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You wouldn’t.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You met me four times before marrying me. Your confidence seems ambitious.”
For one impossible second, the corner of his mouth almost moved.
Then it disappeared.
At 11:26 p.m., their SUV stopped outside an abandoned Catholic school in Hoboken.
Boarded windows.
Chain-link fence.
Graffiti beneath a stone statue of Saint Michael.
Tiberio had brought six men.
Brena noticed only three.
Which meant three more were somewhere she could not see.
“Stay beside me.”
“I thought I was supposed to stay out of family affairs.”
“You stopped qualifying for that privilege when someone wrote your name on an envelope.”
They entered through a side door.
The hallway smelled of dust and rain.
At the end of the corridor, a light burned beneath an old classroom door.
Tiberio drew a weapon.
Brena stared at it.
“So much for subtle engineering contractor.”
“Behind me.”
He pushed the door open.
Inside stood a single chair.
A tape recorder sat on the desk.
No person.
No Alio.
Tiberio approached the recorder.
Pressed play.
Static.
Then a young man’s voice.
Tiberio went absolutely still.
Brena knew immediately.
Alio.
“If you’re hearing this, brother, then Grant Walsh was never the man you should have been hunting.”
Tiberio’s face drained of color.
The recording continued.
“The signature that destroyed me wasn’t Grant’s.”
A pause.
May you like
Then the secret that shattered the room.
“It was our father’s.”
