Chapter 4 - The Man in the Photograph Was Supposed to Be DeadThree weeks after Lorenzo Bianchi finally learned how to smile again, a dead man walked into the Velvet Note.
Not literally.
That would have been easier.
The dead man appeared in a photograph.
Matthew Rossi placed it on Lorenzo's desk at 8:17 on a rainy Tuesday morning and said four words that erased every trace of warmth from Lorenzo's face.
“We have a problem.”
Lorenzo had been reading financial reports.
He looked up slowly.
Matthew rarely used that sentence.
In their world, problems came in categories.
There were expensive problems.
Political problems.
Legal problems.
And there were problems that required the doors to be locked before anyone discussed them.
Matthew had already locked the door.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What happened?”
Matthew slid the photograph across the desk.
Lorenzo looked down.
The picture had been taken outside a restaurant in New Orleans.
The quality was poor.
The timestamp in the corner was six days old.
Sienna stood near the entrance.
She was laughing.
Noah was beside her.
And across the street, partially hidden beneath the awning of a closed pharmacy, stood a man in a gray coat.
Lorenzo stared.
His entire body became still.
He knew the face.
Older.
Thinner.
A scar now crossed the man's left cheek.
But Lorenzo knew him.
“Impossible.”
Matthew said nothing.
Lorenzo lifted the photograph.
“Adrian Navarro is dead.”
“That is what we believed.”
“I watched his organization collapse.”
“Yes.”
“I saw the dental records.”
Matthew's expression remained grim.
“Records can be purchased.”
Lorenzo stood.
Three years earlier, after Sophia's death, Adrian Navarro had supposedly died in a warehouse fire near the Mexican border.
Lorenzo had accepted the identification because everything matched.
Dental records.
Personal effects.
DNA recovered from the scene.
Afterward, the remaining Navarro businesses had scattered.
Some men disappeared.
Others joined different organizations.
A few came to Lorenzo asking for protection.
He believed the war was over.
Apparently, he had been wrong.
Lorenzo looked at the photograph again.
“Why was Sienna in New Orleans?”
“Hospital consultation for Noah.”
“I know that.”
Matthew understood the correction.
Why was Navarro there?
“We're working on it.”
Lorenzo's jaw tightened.
“Work faster.”
Matthew nodded.
Then he placed a second photograph on the desk.
Same street.
Different angle.
Navarro was looking directly toward Sienna.
Not Noah.
Sienna.
Lorenzo felt something old and violent awaken inside him.
Matthew saw it immediately.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Become the man you were after Sophia.”
Lorenzo's eyes lifted.
“That man destroyed Navarro's organization.”
“And nearly destroyed himself.”
“He is watching Sienna.”
“Yes.”
“So tell me what part of my reaction is unreasonable.”
“The part where you stop thinking.”
Lorenzo walked toward the window.
Chicago rain covered the glass.
Below, cars moved through River North.
Normal people went to work.
Normal people complained about traffic.
Normal people worried about mortgages, promotions, marriages, and whether they had remembered to buy milk.
Lorenzo had spent his life surrounded by consequences most people never imagined.
For the first time, he hated that world.
Not because it frightened him.
Because Sienna existed inside it now.
“Where is she?”
“Downstairs.”
Lorenzo turned.
“She came in early to rehearse.”
Of course she had.
Sienna had recently agreed to perform three evenings each week.
Phillip had stopped pretending she was merely an employee who occasionally sang.
Customers were booking tables weeks ahead.
A music producer had approached her.
She had refused him.
Another had offered an audition.
She refused that too.
When Lorenzo asked why, Sienna had shrugged.
“I spent too many years singing because other people needed something from me. Right now, I want to sing because I like it.”
Lorenzo respected that.
He respected almost everything about her.
Which was precisely why what he did next was such a mistake.
“Cancel tonight.”
Matthew sighed.
“Lorenzo.”
“Close the club.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“No. You're reacting.”
Lorenzo picked up his phone.
“Double security around Noah. Two men at Sienna's apartment. Nobody approaches her without clearance.”
Matthew didn't move.
“Tell her first.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“Tell her what?”
“The truth.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“When I know more.”
“That isn't the truth. That's a summary after you've already made every decision.”
Lorenzo's expression hardened.
Matthew continued anyway.
“Sienna isn't Sophia.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
The room went silent.
Matthew had known Lorenzo since childhood.
That gave him privileges nobody else possessed.
It also occasionally gave him terrible judgment.
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“Be very careful.”
Matthew did not retreat.
“You couldn't save Sophia. So now you're going to try controlling every variable around Sienna until she can't breathe.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
“That isn't protection.”
“Enough.”
“No. Not enough. Because if Navarro is alive, you need Sienna to trust you.”
“She will.”
Matthew's expression changed.
“You sound very confident for a man planning to lie to her before breakfast.”
The door opened.
Both men turned.
Sienna stood there.
She carried two coffees.
Her smile disappeared.
“Lie to me about what?”
Matthew closed his eyes.
Lorenzo silently promised to murder him later.
Sienna looked between them.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyebrows rose.
Matthew muttered, “Excellent beginning.”
Lorenzo glared at him.
Sienna put the coffees down.
“Matthew.”
“Yes?”
“Leave.”
Matthew looked delighted.
“With pleasure.”
“Matthew.”
He stopped at the door.
Lorenzo's tone contained a warning.
Matthew smiled.
“Good luck.”
The door closed.
Sienna crossed her arms.
“What happened?”
Lorenzo considered lying.
For approximately two seconds.
Then he remembered Sophia's letter.
Don't turn loving me into the reason you stop loving the world.
He wondered whether the same principle applied to trust.
Probably.
He handed Sienna the photograph.
She looked down.
At first, she didn't understand.
Then she recognized Navarro from the photograph in Sophia's box.
Her face changed.
“This was taken in New Orleans.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six days ago.”
Sienna stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“But he's dead.”
“Apparently not.”
She looked at the second photograph.
Fear appeared.
Lorenzo hated seeing it.
“Why was he watching me?”
“I don't know.”
“Does this have something to do with Sophia's documents?”
“Probably.”
“Or my mother?”
“Possibly.”
Sienna placed the photographs down carefully.
Then she looked at Lorenzo.
“What are we going to do?”
The word stopped him.
We.
Not you.
Not what are you going to do?
What are we going to do?
Lorenzo had spent his life believing responsibility meant making decisions alone.
Sophia had fought him about it.
Matthew fought him about it.
Now Sienna stood across from him, waiting to see whether he had learned anything.
He exhaled.
“We increase security.”
She nodded.
“Reasonable.”
“You don't go anywhere alone.”
Her expression changed.
“Temporarily.”
“How temporarily?”
“Until Navarro is found.”
“That could be months.”
“It won't.”
“You can't know that.”
“No.”
She studied him.
“What else?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“The Velvet Note closes tonight.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Sienna.”
“You asked what we're going to do. You didn't say you were going to tell me what I'm allowed to do.”
“Navarro may be watching this building.”
“He already knows where I work.”
“Exactly.”
“So disappearing tells him we're afraid.”
“We are afraid.”
Sienna blinked.
The admission surprised both of them.
Lorenzo rarely acknowledged fear.
He continued.
“I am.”
Her anger softened slightly.
“Sienna, the last time someone connected to Navarro threatened a woman I loved, I buried her.”
There it was.
The truth beneath everything.
Not control.
Not arrogance.
Terror.
Sienna walked around the desk.
She stopped in front of him.
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
“Then explain it.”
He looked at her.
“If something happens to you because of me—”
She interrupted.
“Stop.”
Lorenzo went silent.
“You did that with Sophia for three years.”
His face hardened.
“You blamed yourself for choices made by violent men. Then you discovered Sophia had her own history with Navarro.”
“That doesn't change what happened.”
“It changes the story you told yourself.”
Sienna reached for his hand.
“And you're starting the same story again.”
Lorenzo looked down at their fingers.
“What would you have me do?”
“Protect me.”
“I am trying.”
“Protect me without erasing me.”
The words landed harder than anger.
Sienna continued.
“I'll accept security. I'll tell you where I'm going. I won't do anything reckless. But you don't get to lock me in an apartment because you're scared.”
“I wasn't going to lock you anywhere.”
“You were thinking about it.”
Lorenzo almost denied it.
Then he sighed.
“Yes.”
Sienna's mouth twitched.
“At least you're improving.”
“This isn't funny.”
“No.”
She squeezed his hand.
“But fear makes you unbearable.”
“I was unbearable before.”
“True.”
He almost smiled.
Then the office telephone rang.
Lorenzo answered.
Phillip's frightened voice came through.
“Mr. Bianchi?”
“What?”
“There's a package downstairs.”
Lorenzo's eyes changed.
“What package?”
“For Miss Holloway.”
Sienna heard.
“Don't touch it.”
Phillip swallowed audibly.
“I already did.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
“Of course you did.”
Five minutes later, the package sat alone on the center of a table in the empty club.
Security had cleared the room.
One of Lorenzo's specialists examined it.
No explosive.
No chemical device.
Just a small cardboard box.
Lorenzo opened it himself.
Inside was a cassette tape.
Sienna stared.
Another cassette.
But this one was new.
A handwritten label had been attached.
PLAY ME.
Lorenzo looked at Matthew.
“Player.”
They returned to the office.
The cassette clicked.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Older.
Calm.
Adrian Navarro.
“Lorenzo.”
Sienna felt Lorenzo's hand close around the edge of the desk.
Navarro continued.
“You always were sentimental.”
A pause.
“I heard you've started smiling again.”
Lorenzo's face became stone.
“Congratulations.”
Another pause.
Then:
“The girl sings beautifully.”
Sienna's blood ran cold.
“I understand why you like her.”
Lorenzo stood.
Matthew quietly moved closer.
Navarro laughed on the recording.
“But history has a cruel sense of humor, doesn't it?”
The tape hissed.
“Sophia found something that belonged to me. Marie helped her hide it. Now Marie's daughter has brought it directly to you.”
Sienna looked at Lorenzo.
The recording continued.
“You think you've found the evidence.”
“You haven't.”
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed.
“There is one more thing.”
Silence.
“One thing Sophia hid before she died.”
Sienna stopped breathing.
“And I believe your little singer knows where it is.”
The tape clicked off.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Sienna whispered:
“I don't.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“I believe you.”
“I don't know anything else.”
“I know.”
Matthew picked up the cassette.
“Navarro may not believe that.”
Sienna wrapped her arms around herself.
“What could Sophia have hidden?”
Lorenzo looked toward the wooden box.
They had searched everything.
Letters.
Photographs.
Sketches.
Documents.
The hidden envelope.
Then Sienna suddenly frowned.
“My mother had a piano.”
Lorenzo turned.
“What?”
“In New Orleans.”
She was remembering.
“It belonged to her mother. Old upright. Terrible condition.”
“Where is it?”
Sienna's face slowly lost color.
“In storage.”
Matthew asked, “Where?”
She looked at him.
“New Orleans.”
Lorenzo was already reaching for his phone.
“No.”
Sienna stared.
“What?”
“You are not going.”
“It's my mother's piano.”
“I'll send men.”
“You don't know what you're looking for.”
“Neither do you.”
“Exactly.”
“Sienna.”
She stepped closer.
“We do this together.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
Every instinct told him no.
Every lesson he had learned over the previous months told him something else.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Then:
“Fine.”
Sienna blinked.
“Fine?”
“You come with me.”
Matthew looked shocked.
“Who are you?”
Lorenzo ignored him.
“We leave tomorrow morning.”
Sienna nodded.
Then Lorenzo pointed at her.
“You stay beside me.”
“I can do that.”
“You follow security instructions.”
“Reasonable.”
“If I tell you to run—”
“I run.”
“If I tell you to hide—”
“I hide.”
“And if I tell you—”
Sienna put one finger against his chest.
“Don't ruin the progress.”
Matthew laughed.
Lorenzo stared at her.
Then, despite the danger surrounding them, the corner of his mouth lifted.
Sienna noticed.
“There.”
“What?”
“That.”
“This is not a smile.”
“It absolutely is.”
Matthew walked toward the door.
“I'll prepare the plane.”
Lorenzo looked at the photographs again after he left.
Adrian Navarro.
Alive.
Watching.
Waiting.
Three years earlier, Lorenzo would have responded with rage.
This time, he felt rage.
But he also felt something stronger.
Responsibility.
Not the responsibility to decide Sienna's life.
The responsibility to stand beside her while she decided it herself.
He looked at her.
“Tomorrow changes everything.”
Sienna took his hand.
“No.”
He frowned.
She looked toward Sophia's wooden box.
“Tomorrow we find out what really happened.”
And hundreds of miles away, in a dark New Orleans hotel room, Adrian Navarro received a photograph of Lorenzo and Sienna leaving the Velvet Note together.
He studied it for several seconds.
Then he smiled.
May you like
Because Lorenzo Bianchi had finally done exactly what Navarro had been waiting for.
He had fallen in love again.
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