Chương 6
“And the school?”
“Closed for two days. I paid for the plumbing emergency they’re going to announce.”
“You can’t buy everyone’s reality.”
“I can buy time.”
“You think that’s the same thing.”
“No.”
He removed his wet coat and handed it to Marco.
Elena followed him into the office without waiting for permission.
“Where is Daniel?”
Adrian glanced at Marco.
“Downstairs,” Marco said.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
The pause before the answer told her more.
“Did he take the photograph?”
“We don’t know yet,” Adrian said.
“You’re hurting him anyway.”
Adrian walked behind the desk. “He lied about the position of his phone.”
“That doesn’t prove he sent it.”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Because he has forty-two thousand dollars in gambling debt and placed six calls to a number associated with a Cicero crew during the last month.”
Elena stopped.
Adrian opened a drawer and placed a phone on the desk. The screen was cracked.
“Daniel’s?”
“Yes.”
“Did you search it legally?”
Marco gave her a look.
She hated that the question sounded absurd in the room.
Adrian sat. “You should take Lily upstairs.”
“I want to go home.”
“Not tonight.”
“You don’t decide that.”
“Someone posted her school address.”
“And staying in a mafia boss’s house is your solution?”
“The walls are reinforced. The windows are laminated. There are twenty-three men on the property.”
“You say that as if it should help.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
He rubbed his injured hand. The skin was split, but the blood was not enough to explain her fear. She imagined Daniel in a basement, tied to a chair because he had moved his eyes at the wrong time.
Adrian noticed where she was looking.
“I didn’t hit him.”
“Then whose blood is that?”
“A man who tried to enter the school parking lot before Marco arrived.”
Elena’s anger vanished so quickly it left nausea behind.
“Who?”
“He claimed he was a reporter.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
“What did he want?”
“He had a camera, two prepaid phones, and a knife.”
She gripped the back of the chair.
Adrian’s voice lowered. “This is not about a funny photograph anymore.”
“Was it ever?”
He did not answer.
Marco’s phone vibrated. He checked the message.
“Daniel’s attorney is here.”
Elena looked at him. “Attorney?”
Adrian closed the drawer. “Daniel requested one.”
The detail unsettled her. It sounded almost legitimate.
“You’re letting him have a lawyer?”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened. “You expected a dungeon?”
“I don’t know what to expect.”
“That makes two of us.”
He turned to Marco. “Bring the attorney to the library. Keep Victor out until they’re finished.”
Marco paused. “Victor won’t like that.”
“I didn’t ask.”
After Marco left, Adrian opened the folder on his desk. Elena recognized her own employment file beneath a stack of printouts.
On top was a copy of the Lakeshore Freight fire report.
Her heart began to pound.
“You had no reason to pull that today,” she said.
“I had reasons.”
“Because of me?”
“Because Victor reacted when I mentioned your husband.”
“How?”
“He knew which records office Mateo died near before I told him.”
Elena stared at him.
Adrian continued. “That detail wasn’t in the public report.”
“Maybe he saw the internal one.”
“He told me he hadn’t.”
“People lie to you?”
“Constantly.”
The answer was almost dry.
She moved closer to the desk. “What does this mean?”
“It means I’m reviewing the fire.”
“Your family reviewed it two years ago.”
“My family’s attorneys reviewed liability. That isn’t the same thing.”
Elena looked at the papers but did not touch them.
“Why now?”
He looked tired for the first time. Not physically tired; she had seen him awake before sunrise and still working after midnight. This was a heavier exhaustion, one that seemed built into the way he held his shoulders.
“Because your daughter painted a heart on my face, and twelve hours later someone used her name to start a war.”
“That doesn’t explain Mateo.”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Adrian glanced toward the rain-dark window. “Victor knew the photograph made me vulnerable before anyone else saw it. He was here within forty minutes. He knew what language our rivals would use. He also knew where your husband died.”
“You’ve trusted him for years.”
“Twenty-three.”
“And a facial expression changed that?”
“People don’t usually reveal themselves in speeches.”
Elena thought of Mateo’s late-night call. The alarm chirping behind him. If anyone asks, I wasn’t copying anything.
“Mateo found something,” she said.
Adrian looked back at her.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
She hated how calmly he said it.
Elena glanced at the office door. She could leave. She could take Lily upstairs, wait for morning, and disappear the moment Adrian’s men relaxed. But the fire report lay on his desk, and for the first time in two years, someone with access to the Romano organization had admitted the investigation might have been false.
“My husband called me the night he died,” she said.
Adrian became very still.
“He said, ‘If anyone asks, I wasn’t copying anything.’ Then the line went dead.”
“Why isn’t that in the report?”
“I told the police.”
“Which detective?”
“Paul Kennelly.”
Adrian’s expression changed at the name.
“You know him.”
“He retired last year.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He handled security work for one of our contractors after the fire.”
Elena’s fingers tightened around the chair.
“Did you hire him?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The uncertainty in his voice sounded genuine, but genuineness did not erase the initials on Mateo’s file.
She took a breath.
“There was a document on his laptop.”
“What document?”
“A list of numbers. Initials. Dates.”
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
He stood.
Elena stepped back despite herself.
Adrian stopped on the other side of the desk. His voice remained level.
“If the document relates to the fire, keeping it unsecured in your apartment is dangerous.”
“It has been there two years.”
“People didn’t know you had it.”
“You know now.”
May you like
“Yes.”
The word carried more warning than reassurance.
