Chapter 8 - I had always believed photographs preserved truth.
That was before I learned how efficiently they could manufacture it.
I stared at the image of Ethan and Vanessa until the edges blurred.
My brother looked young.
Happy.
More than anything, he looked alive.
That offended me.
Death makes photographs cruel because everyone inside them continues smiling without understanding what eventually happens.
“Where did you get this?” Matteo asked.
His voice had become businesslike.
I hated that I noticed the change.
Lorenzo removed his coat.
“Found on Vanessa’s desk inside the safe room. She wanted it found.”
“Obviously.”
I looked from one man to the other.
“You both knew about this?”
“No,” Matteo said.
Lorenzo’s silence arrived half a second too late.
I turned toward him.
“You knew.”
Lorenzo’s expression remained still.
“That photograph, no.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Matteo looked at him.
The room changed immediately.
“Lorenzo.”
One word.
An entire command.
Lorenzo lowered his eyes.
“I knew Vanessa knew Ethan.”
My laugh returned.
Wonderful.
Apparently betrayal came in subscription form now.
“How many people in this family knew my brother except me?”
“Chloe,” Lorenzo said quietly.
“Don’t.”
His mouth closed.
“Did they sleep together?”
Matteo’s jaw hardened.
Lorenzo looked at the floor.
That was answer enough.
I pressed my palms against my eyes.
For approximately 10 seconds, I became 19 again.
Ethan had been secretive during the final year of his life.
I remembered telephone calls he ended when I entered a room.
A black sedan outside our mother’s house once.
New shoes he claimed a client had given him.
He had begun carrying cash.
I had believed he was gambling.
Our mother believed he had a girlfriend.
Apparently, Mother had been closer.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Lorenzo looked at Matteo.
I nearly screamed.
“Stop asking him permission to tell me about my own brother.”
Matteo spoke without looking away from Lorenzo.
“Tell her.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
“Ethan met Vanessa approximately 1 year before his death.”
“How?”
“We believe through work. One of Vanessa’s companies managed cold-storage facilities. Ethan serviced equipment.”
“We believe?”
“At the time, we didn’t know how they met. Only that they had become involved.”
“Did Matteo know?”
“No,” Lorenzo answered. “Not until later.”
I looked at Matteo.
He nodded once.
“Continue.”
Lorenzo sat at the far end of the kitchen table, though no one else did.
“Vanessa was involved with a Moretti lieutenant named Gabriel Vescari.”
“Romantically?”
“No.”
“What does involved mean in this family?”
“Financially.”
That almost made me laugh.
Of course.
“Vanessa had been moving money through DeLuca companies without Matteo’s authorization,” Lorenzo continued. “Ethan discovered irregular maintenance orders tied to the warehouses. Then he found invoices that didn’t match any actual equipment.”
“And he confronted her.”
“Yes.”
“Because they were together.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the photograph again.
Ethan’s arm rested around Vanessa’s waist.
Her head leaned toward his shoulder.
I knew that posture.
I had stood that way with Matteo in photographs.
Trust always looked simple after the fact.
“What did she do?”
“We don’t know everything,” Lorenzo said. “Ethan eventually contacted me.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Why you?”
“He was afraid Matteo would kill him.”
The sentence landed exactly where intended.
I looked toward Matteo.
He did not defend himself.
Lorenzo continued.
“Your brother believed Vanessa might convince Matteo that Ethan had been stealing from the family. He asked me for 24 hours to prove what she was doing.”
“Did you give him 24 hours?”
“I gave him 6.”
“Why?”
“Because by then, Moretti men were already looking for him.”
My fingertips went cold.
“What happened that night?”
Lorenzo and Matteo exchanged another glance.
This time, I did not interrupt.
Something in both faces told me the answer had a shape neither wanted to touch.
Matteo walked toward the counter and placed both hands against it.
“The warehouse in the recording belonged to one of our shell companies,” he said. “We brought Ethan there because I intended to move him out of Chicago.”
My anger returned instantly.
“And your voice?”
“He refused to leave.”
“Why?”
“Vanessa.”
Of course.
Matteo’s eyes stayed on the stone beneath his hands.
“He believed she could still be saved.”
The sentence hurt because it sounded exactly like Ethan.
My brother collected damaged things.
Old radios.
Broken furniture.
People.
He had once driven 40 minutes at midnight because a friend from high school called from a gas station after losing his wallet.
Ethan believed everyone deserved one more chance.
It had always terrified our mother.
“Vanessa told him she wanted out,” Matteo continued. “She told him Moretti would kill her unless Ethan helped her disappear.”
“And?”
“It was a trap.”
My throat tightened.
“Matteo.”
“The recording says, ‘Ethan Bennett cannot leave that building alive’ because Moretti had men watching every exit.”
I stopped breathing.
Matteo looked at me finally.
“The complete sentence was: ‘If they believe Ethan Bennett leaves that building alive, they will follow him. So Ethan Bennett cannot leave that building alive. We take him through the drainage tunnel after the lights go out.’”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“No.”
“It was a staged death.”
“No.”
“We had a vehicle prepared.”
“No.”
“We had documents under another name.”
“No.”
I did not realize I was backing away until my shoulders touched the wall.
“Then why is he dead?”
There it was.
The only question that mattered.
Matteo’s eyes shifted toward Lorenzo.
Lorenzo looked older suddenly.
“Because someone gave Moretti the drainage route.”
My stomach dropped.
“Vanessa?”
“We believed so.”
“Believed?”
“We never proved it.”
“What happened?”
Matteo answered.
“The lights went out at 11:14.”
His voice had become quiet again.
Too quiet.
“I took Ethan to the tunnel myself. Lorenzo went ahead. There was supposed to be a car at the river access road.”
“What happened?”
“Gunfire.”
My eyes filled.
Matteo continued because stopping would have been crueler.
“Four Moretti men were waiting outside. Ethan was hit twice.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth.
I had imagined my brother’s death thousands of times.
Police reports contained almost nothing.
One gunshot, they had told us.
Wrong place.
Wrong time.
He died quickly.
A merciful lie.
“Was he alone?”
“No.”
Matteo’s answer came immediately.
I looked at him.
“He died with me.”
The room disappeared.
For years, the worst part had been imagining Ethan alone.
I had dreamed about it.
An empty warehouse.
Cold concrete.
No one holding his hand.
No one telling him that somebody knew where he was.
No one hearing whatever his final words had been.
My knees weakened.
I sat on the floor because the alternative was falling.
Matteo moved automatically.
I raised a hand.
He stopped 2 meters away.
“Tell me.”
His voice broke slightly.
“He was conscious for perhaps 3 minutes.”
“What did he say?”
Matteo closed his eyes.
I knew then.
He remembered every word.
“He asked whether Vanessa was safe.”
My tears came.
Of course he did.
Stupid Ethan.
Beautiful, stupid Ethan.
“What else?”
“He asked me to make sure your mother never learned what he was involved in.”
I lowered my face into my hands.
“And me?”
There was a silence.
I looked up.
“Did he say anything about me?”
Matteo’s eyes contained a grief that had been there before he ever touched me.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He said his little sister would hate that he had ruined everything again.”
A sob escaped me.
The first loud one.
I had not heard that sentence in 10 years, but I could hear Ethan saying it.
Again.
Because at 16, he had crashed our mother’s car.
At 17, he forgot my birthday and appeared 2 days later with a gas-station cake.
At 18, he accidentally washed my white graduation dress with a red towel.
Every apology began the same way.
Chlo, I ruined everything again.
I folded over myself.
Someone knelt near me.
Not Matteo.
Lorenzo.
He placed a small object on the floor.
A silver chain.
At its end hung a cheap metal guitar pick.
My vision blurred.
Ethan’s.
He had worn it since high school.
I reached for it with both hands.
“Where did you get this?”
“Matteo took it from Ethan that night.”
I looked at him.
Matteo remained standing beside the counter.
His face had lost all color.
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
He answered honestly.
“Cowardice.”
The word remained between us.
Not strategy.
Not protection.
Not family business.
Cowardice.
I held the necklace against my palm.
“You met me 10 years later.”
“Yes.”
“And recognized my name.”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
“That God had a cruel sense of humor.”
Despite everything, the answer sounded like him.
I hated that.
“What did you intend to do?”
“Keep away from you.”
“You failed.”
“Yes.”
“Then you canceled my firing.”
“Yes.”
“Coffee.”
“Yes.”
“Beckett.”
His expression became almost offended.
“Beckett was touching you.”
A broken laugh escaped through my tears.
I covered my face.
This was unbearable.
Because he remained Matteo.
The man who sent coffee.
The man who sat on office floors.
The man who carried my brother’s final moments inside him for 10 years.
Love would have been easier to kill if it transformed into something unrecognizable.
It refused.
My telephone rang.
All 3 of us looked toward my bag.
Mari.
I wiped my face and answered.
“Hey.”
“Chloe?”
Something in her voice made me straighten.
“What happened?”
There was breathing on the other end.
Not Mari’s.
A man’s.
Then Vanessa spoke.
“Hello, darling.”
Every muscle in Matteo’s body locked.
I pressed the phone tighter against my ear.
“Where is Mari?”
“She’s perfectly fine.”
“Let me hear her.”
A rustling sound followed.
Then Mari.
“Chloe, do not come here.”
Her voice shook.
Someone had frightened Mari badly enough to remove sarcasm from her body.
That alone was catastrophic.
“Mari.”
“I’m okay. Don’t—”
The sound cut.
Vanessa returned.
“You’re learning so many family secrets today. I thought perhaps we should complete your education.”
Matteo held out his hand.
I shook my head.
“Where are you?”
“Oh, Matteo knows.”
Vanessa laughed softly.
“The old cold-storage warehouse on Canal.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
He did know.
“I want Chloe,” Vanessa said. “Alone.”
“No,” Matteo said loudly enough for the telephone.
Vanessa became quiet.
Then amused.
“There he is.”
I closed my eyes.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing Ethan wanted 10 years ago.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“The truth.”
The call ended.
For approximately 2 seconds, no one moved.
Then Matteo reached for his jacket.
I stood.
“You are not going,” he said.
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“She has Mari.”
“I know.”
“She asked for me.”
“I know.”
“Then stop saying no like it has magical properties.”
Matteo seized the edge of the table.
“Ten years ago, Vanessa used someone you loved to create a trap. I will not allow her to repeat it.”
I walked toward him.
For the 1st time since opening the package, I crossed all 3 steps.
I stopped directly in front of him.
“You don’t get to protect me by deciding for me anymore.”
His eyes lowered to mine.
Pain moved through them.
Then acceptance.
“What do you want to do?”
It was the first correct question he had asked all night.
I looked at Lorenzo.
May you like
Then at Ethan’s necklace in my hand.
“We go together.”
