Chapter 3 - The File With Her Father’s NameBy 10:13 p.m., Tessa was back inside Santoro Estate wearing Leo’s suit jacket over her burgundy dress.
She had not asked for it.
Leo had simply removed the jacket while they were crossing the driveway and placed it around her shoulders without touching more skin than necessary.
The restraint was somehow more disorienting than his earlier possessiveness.
Greg sat in the library surrounded by three heavily armed men while Carlo obtained a statement.
Tessa paced beside the fireplace.
“No.”
Leo stood at the enormous desk.
“Tessa.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“You were shot at.”
“So your solution is locking me inside the estate?”
“My solution is keeping you breathing until I understand who did it.”
“I have a father.”
“I know.”
“He expects me tomorrow.”
Leo’s expression tightened.
That was the wrong reaction.
Tessa stopped pacing.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Leo.”
He looked toward Carlo.
Carlo suddenly found the statement very interesting.
Tessa’s stomach dropped.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Leo removed his cufflinks and placed them slowly on the desk.
“Tessa, your father is secure.”
She stared.
“How do you know that?”
Silence.
Her heartbeat changed.
“Leo.”
“I increased security around his facility four months ago.”
Tessa felt as if the room tilted.
“You what?”
“Quietly.”
“You put men around my father?”
“No one interacts with him. No one interferes with his treatment.”
“Why?”
Leo said nothing.
Tessa walked around the desk.
“Why?”
“Because your father’s name appeared in a conversation it should never have appeared in.”
Every nerve inside her went cold.
“What conversation?”
Leo looked at Carlo.
“Get Davis home.”
Greg stood.
“Tessa, I can stay.”
“No.” She was staring at Leo. “Go. Please.”
Greg hesitated.
Then he approached her carefully.
“I’m sorry tonight went like this.”
“So am I.”
He gave her a small smile.
“I’d still like another date.”
Leo’s jaw flexed.
Tessa noticed.
So did Greg.
Unexpectedly, Greg smiled slightly wider.
“I’ll call you.”
He left with Carlo.
The library doors closed.
Tessa turned toward Leo.
“Now talk.”
Leo remained silent long enough to frighten her.
Then he opened the bottom drawer of his desk.
He removed a black file.
Placed it on the polished mahogany.
Tessa saw the label.
JENKINS, MICHAEL.
Her father.
She crossed the room and grabbed it.
Inside were photographs.
Old photographs.
Her father thirty years younger.
A warehouse.
A group of men standing beside shipping containers.
One of them was unmistakably Leo’s father, Vittorio Santoro.
Another photograph showed Michael Jenkins entering a courthouse.
Tessa looked up.
“What is this?”
“Your father worked for mine.”
“No.”
“He did.”
“My father repaired industrial machinery.”
“At Santoro-controlled docks.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“He was an accountant before the accident, Tessa.”
She stopped.
Her father had never been an accountant.
At least, that was what she had always believed.
Leo pointed toward a faded document.
“Your father handled shipping manifests between 1998 and 2004. Then he discovered my father’s underboss was stealing money and using legitimate cargo routes to move weapons without authorization.”
Tessa’s fingers went numb.
“He became an informant?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“He collected evidence.”
“For police?”
“For himself.”
“Why?”
Leo’s eyes became distant.
“Insurance.”
Tessa flipped through pages.
Bank ledgers.
Photocopied manifests.
Names she did not recognize.
Then she found a hospital report.
Her father’s accident.
Vehicle collision.
Eleven years earlier.
“What does this have to do with the crash?”
Leo said nothing.
Tessa looked up slowly.
“No.”
“Tessa—”
“No.”
“The police report called it an accident.”
“Because it was.”
Leo’s silence answered.
Her lungs emptied.
“You think someone tried to kill my father?”
“I know someone did.”
The file slipped from her hands.
Pages scattered across the floor.
Tessa backed away.
Her father had suffered a traumatic brain injury after his truck went through a guardrail.
He had spent six weeks in intensive care.
Rehabilitation restored some movement and speech, but never enough independence to live alone.
Tessa had built her entire adult life around the consequences of that night.
And now Leo was telling her it had not been an accident.
“You knew.”
“I learned eight months ago.”
“You knew for eight months?”
“Yes.”
“And you hired me anyway?”
Leo looked directly at her.
“I hired you because of it.”
The words struck harder than anything else.
Tessa stared.
The room blurred.
“The agency didn’t randomly place me here.”
“No.”
“You requested me.”
“Yes.”
Tessa slapped him.
The sound cracked through the library.
Leo did not move.
A red mark appeared slowly across his cheek.
“You manipulated my entire life.”
“I needed you somewhere I could protect you.”
“You didn’t even know me.”
“I knew someone had started searching for Michael Jenkins’s daughter.”
Tessa’s breath caught.
“Who?”
“We’re still determining that.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“You always know.”
“Not this time.”
Her eyes burned.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have run.”
“You don’t know what I would have done.”
“I do now.”
She wanted to hit him again.
Instead she crouched and began gathering the fallen pages.
Her hands shook too badly.
Leo bent.
“Don’t.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Tessa.”
“Don’t touch me.”
He froze.
She collected every page herself.
Near the bottom was another photograph.
A man standing beside her father.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Sharp nose.
She had seen him before.
Not in her father’s old albums.
Here.
At the estate.
“Who is this?”
Leo looked.
His expression changed.
“Where did you get that page?”
“It was inside your file.”
He took the photograph.
“That shouldn’t be there.”
“Who is he?”
“Matteo Russo.”
Tessa recognized the surname.
Russo.
Santoro’s primary rival.
“He worked with my father?”
Leo stared at the image.
“Apparently.”
A knock sounded.
Carlo entered without waiting.
“Boss.”
Leo looked up.
“We found the sedan.”
“And?”
“Burned under the Westbridge overpass.”
“Bodies?”
“None.”
“Cameras?”
“Disabled.”
Leo cursed quietly.
Carlo glanced at Tessa.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The restaurant shooter made a call eighteen minutes before the attack.”
“To?”
Carlo placed a phone on the desk.
“We traced the tower. The receiving phone was here.”
Silence.
Tessa’s skin prickled.
“Here where?”
Carlo looked toward the ceiling.
“Inside Santoro Estate.”
Leo’s expression hardened.
“One of ours?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Tessa stared around the library.
The polished shelves.
The expensive rugs.
The quiet walls she had cleaned for a year.
Someone inside this house had known exactly where she was going.
Someone had told the shooters.
A horrible possibility formed.
“They knew about Greg.”
Leo nodded.
“Meaning they knew my plans before I left.”
“Yes.”
Tessa looked toward the servants’ corridor.
“Only a few people knew.”
“Who?”
“I told Maria.”
The elderly cook.
“And yesterday I told Nina.”
Another housekeeper.
Tessa swallowed.
“And someone heard me talking to Greg outside the laundry room.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Leo’s face went still.
Carlo spoke.
“We’re locking the estate down.”
“No one leaves,” Leo ordered.
Tessa looked at him.
“This is because of my father?”
“Most likely.”
“Then I need to speak to him.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tonight.”
“Tessa—”
“If someone tried to kill him eleven years ago and me tonight, I am not waiting until tomorrow because you say so.”
Leo studied her.
Something new appeared in his eyes.
Not irritation.
Respect.
“Carlo.”
“Yes?”
“Prepare two cars.”
Tessa blinked.
“We’re going?”
Leo retrieved his gun from the drawer.
“We are.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“I know.”
He put on his shoulder holster.
“That hasn’t stopped me yet.”
They left fifteen minutes later.
The private care facility sat forty minutes north of the estate, hidden behind trees and landscaped gardens.
Tessa had visited hundreds of times.
Tonight it looked different.
She noticed the security cameras.
The black sedan parked discreetly across the road.
Leo’s men.
Her father was awake when they entered his room.
Michael Jenkins was sixty-three now, his once-powerful body weakened by years of limited mobility.
His gray hair was neatly combed.
A baseball game played silently on television.
His face lit when he saw Tessa.
“Baby girl.”
Her throat closed.
“Hi, Dad.”
Then Michael saw Leo.
Every trace of warmth vanished.
His hand began trembling.
Leo stopped.
Michael’s lips parted.
“No.”
Tessa moved closer.
“Dad?”
Michael stared at Leo.
“No Santoro.”
Leo’s face drained.
Tessa looked between them.
“You know him?”
Michael shook his head frantically.
“No Santoro.”
“Dad, it’s okay.”
Michael gripped her wrist surprisingly hard.
“Russo.”
Tessa froze.
Leo stepped forward.
“Michael.”
Her father looked terrified.
“Blue book.”
“What blue book?”
Michael tapped the side of his wheelchair.
“Blue.”
Tessa knelt.
“Dad, what book?”
“Your mother.”
Her heart stopped.
Tessa’s mother had died when she was seventeen.
“Mom knew?”
Michael squeezed his eyes shut.
“Church.”
“Dad?”
“Blue book. Church. Saint Agnes.”
Leo and Tessa looked at each other.
Michael grabbed her hand again.
“Don’t trust Santoro.”
The words were clearer than anything else he had said.
Tessa slowly turned toward Leo.
For the first time since she had known him, Leo Santoro looked genuinely afraid.
Not of a gun.
May you like
Not of Russo.
Of what Tessa might discover.
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