Chapter 5 - The Enemy Between Two FamiliesRavi was furious when Diane told him she had spoken to Adrian Kane.
Not because she had done anything wrong.
Because Adrian had been close enough to speak to her.
“Where was security?”
“Standing beside me.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten within fifty feet of you.”
“He stayed inside his car.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Ravi.”
“He approached my wife.”
Diane crossed her arms.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where fear turns you into a dictator.”
Ravi stopped pacing.
She pointed toward the chair.
“Sit.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“Then stop behaving like an angry German shepherd and sit down.”
Despite everything, Ezra laughed from the other side of the room.
Ravi glared at him.
Ezra immediately looked at the ceiling.
Ravi sat.
Diane explained everything Adrian had said.
When she finished, Ravi remained silent.
“You believe him?” he asked.
“I believe he was surprised when I mentioned the photographs.”
“He could be acting.”
“Yes.”
“And the warehouse?”
“He denied it.”
“He could be lying.”
“Yes.”
Ravi frowned.
“You’re agreeing with me too much.”
“Because I’m not saying Adrian is innocent.”
Diane leaned forward.
“I’m saying we don’t know.”
Ezra nodded.
“She’s right.”
Ravi looked irritated.
“You’re supposed to be my brother.”
“I am. That doesn’t require me to be stupid with you.”
Diane almost smiled.
Ezra opened the file again.
“There is something strange. Adrian returned three months ago, but there’s no evidence he contacted anyone connected to us until last week.”
“What happened last week?” Diane asked.
Ezra looked at Ravi.
“The old Greedy estate records were transferred out of storage.”
“By who?”
“We don’t know.”
Ravi stood.
“My father’s records?”
“Yes.”
“What records?”
“Financial books. Old correspondence. Property documents. Things that were stored after Dad died.”
“Why would anyone want those?”
Ezra shrugged.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
Diane looked between the brothers.
“Where are they now?”
“Missing.”
The word landed heavily.
Ravi’s father had been dead for sixteen years.
Yet suddenly someone was digging through his secrets.
That afternoon, Ravi arranged a meeting with Adrian Kane.
Diane insisted on attending.
Ravi hated the idea.
Diane refused to change her mind.
They met in a private room at an old downtown hotel.
Adrian arrived alone.
Ravi brought Ezra.
The moment Ravi and Adrian saw each other, sixteen years of inherited hatred entered the room.
Adrian spoke first.
“You look like your father.”
Ravi’s expression remained cold.
“You look like yours.”
“My father was a better man.”
“According to you.”
“According to everyone who knew him before Vincent Greedy decided he needed a scapegoat.”
Ravi moved forward.
Diane touched his arm.
“Enough.”
Both men looked at her.
“This is exactly what whoever sent those photographs wants.”
Adrian studied her.
“You married someone intelligent, Ravi.”
“I know.”
Diane sat.
“Now both of you sit down before your fathers manage to destroy another generation from their graves.”
Ezra coughed to hide a laugh.
Adrian sat first.
Ravi followed.
Adrian placed an envelope on the table.
“My father wrote this three days before he died.”
Ravi opened it.
The letter was addressed to Adrian’s mother.
If anything happens to me, take Adrian and leave the city.
Vincent thinks I betrayed him.
I didn’t.
Someone inside his own family is feeding information to Moretti.
I know who it is.
I need proof before I confront Vincent.
If I fail, never come back.
Ravi read the final sentence twice.
“Inside his own family.”
Adrian nodded.
“My father died three days later.”
“Who was Moretti?”
Diane asked.
Ravi answered.
“A rival boss. Dominic Moretti. He died in the same conflict that eventually killed my parents.”
Adrian leaned back.
“My father discovered someone close to Vincent was secretly working with Moretti.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“If I knew, Ravi, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Ravi looked at the letter again.
“Why come back now?”
“Because my mother died six months ago.”
Adrian’s voice changed slightly.
“She spent sixteen years begging me never to return. I honored that while she was alive.”
“And afterward?”
“I wanted the truth.”
Ravi looked at him.
“Did you send the package to my house?”
“No.”
“Burn my warehouse?”
“No.”
“Photograph Diane and my son?”
“No.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Someone photographed me too.”
He removed another picture.
It showed Adrian entering a restaurant.
On the back were the words:
VINCENT’S SON KNOWS WHAT YOUR FATHER DID.
Ravi stared at it.
Diane understood first.
“Someone sent each of you messages designed to make you blame the other.”
Adrian nodded.
“That’s what I believe.”
“Why?”
Ezra asked.
Adrian looked toward him.
“Because someone is afraid of what happens if Ravi and I compare what we know.”
The room became silent.
For the next two hours, they reconstructed events from sixteen years earlier.
Victor Kane had been accused of stealing money and giving information to Dominic Moretti.
Six months after Victor’s death, Ravi’s parents had been killed.
Ravi had always believed Moretti ordered the attack.
But Moretti himself had been murdered only four days later.
The war ended almost immediately.
At eighteen, Ravi had inherited what remained.
“Who benefited most?” Diane asked.
Ravi frowned.
“What?”
“When your parents died and Moretti died, who benefited?”
“I did.”
“No.”
Diane shook her head.
“You inherited responsibility. That’s different.”
She looked around the table.
“Who gained money? Territory? Power? Who suddenly became important?”
Ravi and Ezra exchanged a look.
There was one name neither wanted to say.
Finally Ezra whispered it.
“Uncle Marcus.”
Ravi went still.
Marcus Greedy.
Their father’s younger brother.
The man who had helped Ravi survive after his parents died.
The man who had taught him how to control the organization.
The man Ravi had trusted almost as much as his own father.
Marcus had retired eight years earlier and moved to a coastal estate.
“No.”
Ravi stood.
“No.”
Ezra looked shaken.
“Ravi—”
“He raised us.”
“So did you,” Ezra replied. “That doesn’t mean we know everything he did.”
Ravi walked away from the table.
Diane could see the conflict inside him.
If Marcus had betrayed their father, everything Ravi believed about his childhood would collapse.
Adrian spoke quietly.
“My father wrote that the traitor was inside Vincent’s family.”
“That could mean dozens of people.”
“Could it?”
Ravi turned sharply.
Adrian did not move.
“Marcus took control of several operations immediately after your parents died. He gained territory. Money. Influence.”
“He gave most of it to me when I turned twenty-one.”
“After three years controlling everything.”
Ravi’s jaw tightened.
Diane intervened.
“We need evidence.”
Everyone became quiet.
“Not accusations. Evidence.”
That evening, Ravi went home earlier than expected.
Sadi was sitting at the dining table studying.
Noah was asleep upstairs.
Diane was in the shower.
Ravi sat opposite Sadi.
She looked up from her textbook.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She returned to her work.
Then she glanced at him again.
“Is something wrong?”
Ravi considered lying.
Instead he said, “I might have been wrong about someone for a very long time.”
Sadi closed the textbook.
“That sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“Do you want advice?”
Ravi almost smiled.
“You’re thirteen.”
“So?”
“So I’m not sure I should be getting life advice from someone who forgot her lunch at home three times last week.”
“That has nothing to do with wisdom.”
He laughed.
“Fine. Give me your wisdom.”
Sadi became thoughtful.
“When Mom and Dad died, I thought the whole world was dangerous.”
Ravi listened.
“But Diane kept telling me there were still good people.”
She looked at him.
“Then you came.”
Ravi’s chest tightened.
“And at first I thought you were scary.”
“At first?”
“You’re still scary.”
“Good.”
“But you’re good too.”
She shrugged.
“I guess people can be two things.”
Ravi stared at her.
“You think someone can love you and still do something terrible?”
“Yes.”
Her answer came easily.
“People are complicated.”
She opened her textbook again.
“Now can I study? I have a science test.”
Ravi remained there.
People are complicated.
It was a lesson Diane had taught him.
Apparently Sadi had learned it too.
The following morning, Ezra called.
They had found something.
One of the missing storage boxes had been recovered from an abandoned office owned by a shell corporation.
Inside were financial records from the final year of Vincent Greedy’s life.
Ravi, Diane, Ezra, and Adrian gathered at the mansion.
For hours, they examined old papers.
Most meant nothing.
Then Diane noticed repeated payments.
Every month, large sums moved from a Greedy-controlled company into an account identified only by initials.
M.G.
Marcus Greedy.
“That proves nothing,” Ravi said.
Adrian disagreed.
“Look at the dates.”
The payments increased dramatically after Victor Kane died.
Then again after Ravi’s parents died.
Ezra found another document.
A handwritten ledger.
Next to one transfer was a notation.
D.M. agreement fulfilled.
Dominic Moretti.
Ravi sat down slowly.
“No.”
Diane moved beside him.
“This still doesn’t prove Marcus killed anyone.”
But Ravi understood criminal accounting better than she did.
He knew what he was seeing.
A secret financial relationship.
Between Marcus Greedy and Dominic Moretti.
Sixteen years ago.
Before his parents were murdered.
Ravi’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
A familiar older voice spoke.
“Hello, nephew.”
Ravi’s blood turned cold.
Marcus.
“I hear you’ve been asking questions about old family business.”
Ravi stood.
“Where are you?”
Marcus laughed softly.
“That isn’t important.”
“Did you betray my father?”
Silence.
Then Marcus sighed.
“Your father was a stubborn man.”
Ravi’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Did you betray him?”
“He was going to destroy everything.”
“Answer me!”
Everyone in the room froze.
Marcus became quiet.
Then he said five words that changed Ravi forever.
“I did what was necessary.”
Ravi stopped breathing.
Marcus continued.
“And if you keep digging, nephew, I may have to do what is necessary again.”
The call ended.
Ravi stared at the phone.
Diane reached for him.
But before she could touch him, another phone rang.
Ezra’s.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What?”
Ravi looked at him.
Ezra slowly lowered the phone.
His face had gone white.
“It’s Sadi.”
Diane stood so quickly her chair fell backward.
“What about Sadi?”
May you like
Ezra looked at her.
“She never arrived at school.”
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