Chapter 6 - THE TRAITOR AT MY TABLE
Thomas’s letter named no one.
That was the problem.
He wrote that Salvatore Castellano had discovered information passing from his organization to the Kolovs.
Not enough to prove who.
Enough to know the leak was close.
My father believed it was Vincenzo.
His own brother.
Thomas disagreed.
According to the letter:
Vince is greedy, not careful. Whoever is feeding Kolov thinks ten years ahead.
I read the line three times.
My uncle had been dead six years.
The leak might not be.
Marco watched me.
“How many people had access to your father’s old protection records?”
“Five.”
“Still alive?”
“Three.”
Myself.
Lucia.
And Raymond Bellini.
Raymond had been my father’s attorney.
Seventy now.
Semi-retired.
The closest thing my family had to an elder statesman.
He had held me at my father’s funeral and told me:
Never let grief make you reckless.
I hated coincidences.
So did Marco.
Emma sat in the back of the SUV holding the ledger.
She had refused to let it out of her sight.
“What exactly is in here?” she asked.
“Enough to destroy Kolov financially,” Marco said.
“How?”
I answered.
“Payments. Politicians. Businesses. Accounts.”
“Murders?”
“Possibly connections to them.”
Emma closed it.
“Then why not give it to the FBI?”
Rose inhaled sharply.
Marco looked at me.
I said:
“That may be exactly what we do.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“Boss.”
“If Kolov wants a war, I’m not giving him one.”
Emma looked surprised.
“What are you giving him?”
“A courtroom.”
That was not how my father would have handled it.
Which was precisely why I liked the idea.
Back in Manhattan, I called Raymond.
Told him I had recovered documents belonging to Thomas Caruso.
There was silence.
Half a second.
Maybe less.
But I heard it.
“So the Carter girl survived,” Raymond said.
My hand tightened around the phone.
I had never told him Emma had been attacked.
“Raymond.”
Another silence.
“Yes?”
“How do you know Emma Carter?”
He disconnected.
Marco was already moving before I spoke.
But Raymond Bellini had served my family too long to leave simple escape routes.
His apartment was empty.
His driver missing.
Office cleared.
One thing remained inside his safe.
A photograph.
Emma leaving my mansion three nights earlier.
Another.
Lucia at a restaurant.
Another.
Marco entering a warehouse.
My house had been watched for months.
Then Marco found a burner phone.
Messages had been deleted.
Not all.
One thread remained.
R:
CREST CONFIRMED.
K:
USE THE GIRL.
R:
DOMINIC WILL REACT.
K:
HE ALWAYS DOES.
I stared at that last line.
Whoever K was thought they knew me personally.
Marco said:
“Kolov?”
“No.”
Viktor Kolov would not refer to himself as K.
Maybe one of his sons.
Or someone else.
Then Lucia called.
Her voice shook.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“Come downstairs.”
We found her in the security room.
She had reviewed mansion camera logs from the night Emma was attacked.
At 7:42 p.m., one exterior camera had been manually disabled for eleven minutes.
Exactly when Emma left.
“Who had access?” I asked.
Lucia looked sick.
“Only senior security.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
Marco.
Two men on shift.
And Lucia.
Then she opened another file.
The disable command had been entered under Marco’s security credentials.
Everyone looked at him.
Marco’s face went completely still.
“I didn’t do that.”
I believed him.
May you like
The problem was someone wanted me not to.
And whoever had framed Marco had access deeper inside my house than Raymond Bellini ever should have had.
