Chapter 4
The Man Who Should Have Been Dead
I dropped the phone.
Luca caught it before it hit the floor.
His eyes moved across the photograph.
Then he looked at me.
“Emma?”
“That’s him.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
Fourteen years can change a face.
It can soften a jaw.
Gray the hair.
Put years around the eyes.
But it cannot change the way a daughter recognizes her father.
Daniel Sullivan had kissed my forehead the morning he supposedly died.
He'd promised to bring pizza home after work.
At seven that evening, two police officers came to our apartment instead.
A burned car.
An identification card.
A body too badly damaged for my mother to see.
We buried a closed coffin.
Now I was staring at a photograph taken tonight.
“He's alive.”
Another gunshot cracked downstairs.
Luca shoved the phone into my hand.
“Then we keep you alive long enough to find him.”
Michael's voice came through the radio.
“Movement near the south stairs.”
Luca grabbed me.
We moved toward his father's study.
“What about Bruno?”
“With Harris. Locked room. Two guards.”
The emergency lights painted everything blood red.
It felt like a nightmare.
Michael checked the corner ahead.
“Clear.”
We reached the study.
A man appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Black clothing.
Gloves.
Mask.
Michael raised his weapon.
“Stop!”
The man fired.
Luca shoved me down.
The bullet hit the wall above my head.
Michael returned fire.
The stranger disappeared around the corner.
I heard running.
Then silence.
“You hit?” Luca asked.
“No.”
He checked anyway.
His hands ran over my shoulders.
My arms.
My face.
“I'm fine.”
His breathing was harder than mine.
“I said I'm fine.”
“I heard you.”
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I almost died.”
“You almost did.”
That shut me up.
Michael returned.
“Lost him. Service stairwell.”
“How did he get in?”
“Working on it.”
Luca looked toward the study.
“Check the hidden safe.”
We entered.
The bookcase remained open.
The safe was empty.
Only the letter from Luca's father remained because Luca had kept it in his jacket.
The brass key was gone.
“Bruno's tag,” I whispered.
Michael cursed.
Luca looked around.
“They came for both pieces.”
“The drive and the key?”
“Yes.”
“Why would they need the key after opening the safe?”
Luca's expression changed.
“They wouldn't.”
I understood.
“Which means it opens something else.”
A crash echoed below.
Michael's radio exploded with voices.
“Suspect at west exit.”
“Locking west gate.”
“Vehicle approaching from alley.”
Then one voice shouted.
“Fire!”
Smoke hit us thirty seconds later.
They had set the laundry room on fire.
Not to burn the mansion.
To create chaos.
Sprinklers activated.
Cold water poured from the ceiling.
Alarms screamed.
Michael shouted orders.
Luca grabbed my hand.
We ran downstairs.
Staff members were evacuating through the front.
Firefighters had already been dispatched because of the mansion's alarm system.
I looked toward the library.
“Bruno!”
“He's out.”
“How do you know?”
Luca pointed.
Dr. Harris stood beneath the front awning with Bruno wrapped in a blanket and two guards beside him.
I could have cried.
Then someone hit me from behind.
I never saw him.
One second, I was running.
The next, an arm was around my throat.
Something cold pressed against my ribs.
“Don't move.”
Luca stopped.
The masked man dragged me backward.
“Gun down.”
Luca held no gun.
Michael did.
“Michael.”
“No.”
“Put it down.”
“Luca—”
“Now.”
Michael lowered his weapon.
The man holding me laughed.
“Good boy.”
Luca's eyes became terrifyingly calm.
“What do you want?”
“The phone.”
I froze.
My phone.
The photograph of my father.
Luca looked at me.
I understood what he was asking without words.
Was the phone worth my life?
No.
I slowly reached into my pocket.
The man tightened his arm.
“Two fingers.”
I pulled out the phone.
“Throw it.”
I tossed it across the marble.
He shoved me sideways.
Then released me and ran.
Luca caught me before I fell.
Michael chased the gunman.
I heard a vehicle roar outside.
Tires screamed.
Then silence.
“They got away,” a guard shouted.
I looked at Luca.
“My phone.”
“We'll replace it.”
“The message.”
“We saw it.”
“The number.”
“Michael will get the records.”
I grabbed his shirt.
“You don't understand. That's the only proof my father is alive.”
Luca's eyes softened.
“No.”
He touched his temple.
“I saw him.”
Then pointed at me.
“You saw him.”
He looked toward the security cameras.
“And this house copies every incoming network packet to an independent server.”
I blinked.
“You save my texts?”
“I save everything that touches my Wi-Fi.”
“That is deeply creepy.”
“Tonight, you may learn to appreciate creepy.”
Despite the smoke, the alarms, and the fact that someone had just held a gun against me, I laughed.
I don't know why.
Maybe shock.
Luca stared at me.
Then he laughed too.
One breath.
One impossible moment.
Then the firefighters arrived and reality returned.
By sunrise, the fire was out.
The intruder was gone.
The flash drive and brass key were missing.
But Michael had recovered the text.
More importantly, the photo metadata contained a location.
A convenience store outside Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Seventy miles north.
Luca spread the information across the breakfast table.
“We don't go.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The photograph could be bait.”
“It probably is.”
“Good. Then we agree.”
“No, we agree it's bait. We don't agree that I'm staying here.”
“Emma.”
“That's my father.”
“Maybe.”
My temper exploded.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means somebody has manipulated every event since you found Bruno.”
“He's alive!”
“You saw one photograph.”
“I know my father's face.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why are we arguing?”
“Because believing he is alive does not mean believing he is standing at that location waiting to hug you.”
That hurt because it was true.
I looked away.
Luca lowered his voice.
“If someone wanted you in Wisconsin, what better way?”
“So I do nothing?”
“No.”
“What do you do when someone threatens your family?”
His expression became unreadable.
“Things you probably shouldn't ask about.”
“Exactly.”
“Emma—”
“So don't tell me to sit in a safe room.”
He stared at me for a long time.
Then he said, “You are the most exhausting employee I've ever had.”
“I think Vanessa fired me.”
“I overruled her.”
“Maybe I quit.”
“You didn't.”
“You can't overrule that.”
“No.”
A beat.
“But you haven't quit.”
I hated that he was right.
Michael entered.
“We found something else.”
He put a printed image on the table.
The convenience store security camera showed my father beside a dark SUV.
A man stood beside him.
At first, I didn't recognize him.
Luca did.
His face hardened.
“Victor Bellini.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father didn't simply survive.”
Luca touched the photograph.
“He's been with the Bellinis.”
My stomach twisted.
“For fourteen years?”
“We don't know.”
I thought of my mother.
All the nights she cried when she thought Ethan and I were asleep.
All the overdue bills.
All the birthdays without him.
If Dad had chosen to stay away...
I couldn't finish the thought.
“I need to see him.”
Luca exhaled.
“Then you're not going without me.”
Three hours later, we were driving north.
Luca sat beside me in the back of a black SUV.
Two security vehicles followed.
Bruno remained at the mansion under veterinary care.
The closer we got to Wisconsin, the less I could breathe.
“What if he doesn't want to see me?” I asked.
Luca looked out the window.
“Then he's a fool.”
I turned.
“You don't even know him.”
“I know you.”
Something changed inside the car.
It was subtle.
Dangerous.
I looked away first.
The convenience store appeared twenty minutes later.
Michael's team checked the building.
No sign of my father.
But the cashier remembered him.
“He comes in sometimes,” she said.
My heart nearly stopped.
“Sometimes?”
“Yeah. Guy buys black coffee and those terrible cinnamon rolls.”
My father's favorite.
“When was the first time?”
She shrugged.
“Couple years?”
I gripped the counter.
“Do you know where he lives?”
“No.”
“Does he come with anyone?”
“Usually alone.”
She looked at the photo.
“Sometimes that other guy.”
Victor Bellini.
Luca asked, “Did they argue last night?”
The cashier nodded.
“Actually, yeah.”
“About what?”
“Couldn't hear.”
“Which direction did they go?”
“Old man drove east.”
We searched for five hours.
Nothing.
Then, near sunset, Michael found the SUV abandoned beside a rural road.
The driver's door was open.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
My father's blood type was unknown.
But there was something else.
An envelope on the passenger seat.
My name was written across it.
Emma.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a note.
Baby girl,
If you're reading this, they finally pulled you into something I spent fourteen years trying to keep away from you.
Do not trust a Bellini.
Do not trust Antonio Moretti.
And no matter what Luca tells you—
May you like
Do not trust Luca either.
Chapters 1–10
