Chapter 9 - THE PROOF BURIED WITH A DEAD MAN
Salvatore refused to talk.
His attorney denied everything.
The tea tin was gone.
The old ambulance driver had died four years earlier.
For forty-eight hours, Brena believed the truth about her mother might remain permanently beyond reach.
Then Alio remembered a storage unit.
Salvatore had maintained private storage properties under false company names.
Federal investigators searched three.
The fourth was in Queens.
Inside were old files, jewelry, cash, passports, and one locked steel box.
The tea tin was inside.
Empty.
But forensic testing found trace residue.
Digitalis.
A heart medication that could be deadly in concentrated amounts.
Elaine had not suffered an aneurysm.
She had been poisoned.
Brena sat in silence when investigators told her.
Tiberio sat beside her.
Grant broke down completely.
“I should have protected her.”
Brena looked at her father.
“You should have listened when she wanted out.”
“I know.”
“You should have gone to police.”
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
There was nothing left to shout.
Grant’s cowardice had not killed Elaine directly.
But it had helped create the world that did.
The murder charge against Salvatore would take time.
But the evidence changed everything.
Alio agreed to testify.
Marco did too.
Grant entered negotiations with prosecutors over his financial crimes.
For the first time in decades, men who believed silence protected families began discovering that silence protected only the people who benefited from it.
Then Brena returned to her studio.
Smoke damage blackened one wall.
Several gowns had been destroyed.
Her employees stood among racks covered in plastic.
Brena looked around.
“I’m reopening.”
Her seamstress blinked.
“When?”
“Two weeks.”
“Brena—”
“Ten days if the electricians stop being dramatic.”
By afternoon, Tiberio had sent contractors.
Brena sent half of them back.
He arrived personally.
“You rejected my crew.”
“I need three electricians, not an invasion force.”
“They work quickly.”
“They scare customers.”
“The building is closed.”
“They scare me.”
“They are five-foot-nine contractors from Staten Island.”
“One has a neck tattoo of a skull.”
“He is excellent with wiring.”
Brena stared at him.
Tiberio stared back.
One of the contractors quietly left the room.
Brena started laughing.
Tiberio’s mouth moved.
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet legally your wife.”
Something had changed.
Not enough to erase the beginning.
Not enough to transform revenge into romance overnight.
But trust had started growing in the places where control receded.
Three nights later, Brena found Tiberio asleep in a chair outside her bedroom.
A laptop rested on his chest.
A pistol sat on the side table.
She stared at him.
Then woke him.
“Why are you here?”
His eyes opened instantly.
“Security.”
“There are six men downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“So why are you sleeping outside my door?”
He said nothing.
Brena understood.
After Elaine.
After the studio fire.
After everything.
He was afraid.
Not for himself.
For her.
“You could have knocked.”
“I said we would not share a bedroom.”
“That was before somebody poisoned my mother.”
His expression shifted.
Brena opened the door wider.
“I’m not inviting you into my bed.”
“I know.”
“I’m inviting you to stop pretending the hallway chair is comfortable.”
He entered.
Slept on the sofa.
At 3:14 a.m., a gunshot shattered the bedroom window.
Tiberio was awake before the glass hit the floor.
He pulled Brena down.
Security flooded the room.
The bullet had struck the wall above the sofa.
Where Tiberio’s head had been.
Not Brena’s side of the room.
His.
A sniper had not come for the bride.
Someone had come to finish the Valkcari succession.
And only three people outside the penthouse knew Tiberio had moved into Brena’s room that night.
One was Alio.
May you like
One was Marco.
The third was Grant Walsh.
