Chapter 8 - THE FATHER WHO WALKED AWAY
I wanted the photograph to be fake.
I wanted Luca’s security team to tell me the image had been manipulated.
I wanted anything except the truth staring at me from that screen.
My father was alive.
And he was walking beside the man who had kidnapped two women and tried to lure me into a wedding ambush.
Bastion spoke first.
“Elena…”
“Don’t.”
My voice cracked.
I hated that.
I stared at the image again.
My father.
Andrew Ward.
Thomas Ward.
Whatever name he used now.
He had aged.
Of course he had.
Twenty years had passed for him too.
I had spent those years believing he was under a stone in a cemetery in Pennsylvania.
Had he spent them watching me?
Did he know where I lived?
Where I worked?
Did he know I cried in a funeral home bathroom because I couldn’t afford the flowers he liked?
Luca took the phone from Marco.
“Timestamp?”
“Thirty-eight minutes ago.”
“Direction?”
“South.”
“Track the vehicle.”
“Already doing it.”
I turned away.
The storage unit suddenly felt unbearably small.
Luca approached me.
“Maybe he’s being forced.”
I laughed.
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s possible.”
“He walked beside Enzo.”
“He may have had no choice.”
“He had twenty years of choices.”
My anger rose like heat.
“Twenty years, Luca.”
He said nothing.
“I graduated alone. I got my first job alone. I slept in a laundromat office for three months when I couldn’t make rent. I buried Margaret in my head because nobody ever told me where she went. And all that time he was alive?”
My eyes burned.
“No. He doesn’t get to be kidnapped now and turn this into a tragedy for him.”
Luca didn’t try to defend my father again.
That helped.
Marco’s phone rang.
“Vehicle found.”
I turned.
“Where?”
“Abandoned near Red Hook.”
The warehouse.
Of course.
Luca looked at me.
“You stay here.”
I almost laughed.
“Try something new.”
“Elena.”
“My father may be there.”
“Exactly.”
“And that means I’m going.”
“It means you’re emotionally involved.”
“So are you. Enzo raised you.”
That landed.
He stared at me.
Neither of us looked away.
Finally he said, “You stay beside Marco.”
“I can accept that.”
Marco muttered, “Wonderful. I’ve been promoted to babysitter.”
“I heard that,” I said.
“I intended you to.”
The Red Hook warehouse sat behind rusted fencing and a row of abandoned loading docks.
Rain had started by the time we arrived.
The building looked dead.
Broken windows.
Faded brick.
A sign almost erased by time.
WARD TEXTILE RESTORATION.
My throat tightened.
I had never known this place existed.
We entered through a side door.
The smell hit me first.
Dust.
Old cotton.
Machine oil.
And faintly, impossibly, cedar.
My father used cedar blocks in every drawer he owned.
I was ten years old again for half a second.
Then Marco touched my shoulder.
“Stay close.”
Security cleared the front rooms.
Old cutting tables.
Industrial sewing machines.
Metal racks.
Nothing.
Then I noticed a thread tied to a door handle.
White.
Ordinary.
Except for three red stitches wrapped around it.
Dad’s mark.
I opened the door.
A narrow staircase descended.
Luca caught my arm.
“Behind me.”
Normally I would have argued.
This time I didn’t.
We went down.
At the bottom was a hidden workroom.
The lights were on.
Fresh coffee steamed in a mug.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Photographs covered one wall.
Luca.
Vivien.
Bastion.
Enzo.
Me.
Hundreds of them.
My life documented from a distance.
My first apartment.
My college graduation.
Me walking to work at twenty-seven.
Me laughing beside Bastion outside the atelier last Christmas.
My knees weakened.
“He watched me.”
Luca looked at the wall.
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
Twenty years of my life.
Observed.
Never touched.
Never shared.
A voice came from the doorway behind us.
“I wanted to know you were safe.”
I stopped breathing.
No one moved.
I turned.
He stood there.
My father.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
For one impossible second, everything else disappeared.
No Enzo.
No wedding.
No guns.
No hostages.
Just the man who taught me to thread a needle.
“Ellie.”
The nickname destroyed me.
I crossed the room before I knew what I was doing.
Then stopped three feet from him.
He looked like he wanted to hug me.
I slapped him.
The sound echoed off the concrete walls.
Marco looked away.
Luca didn’t.
My father closed his eyes.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserve twenty years of them.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
My voice rose.
“Do you know what it was like to bury you?”
“Elena—”
“No.”
He flinched at the name.
Good.
“You don’t call me Ellie.”
His face crumpled.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You could have called.”
“If I did, Enzo would have found you.”
“He found me anyway.”
“Yes.”
My father looked suddenly ancient.
“And that is my failure.”
Luca stepped forward.
“Where is Enzo?”
Dad’s eyes moved to him.
“You’re Vittorio’s boy.”
“I’m forty-three.”
“To me, you’re still the kid who stole cigars from his father’s desk.”
Marco glanced at Luca.
Luca ignored him.
“Where is he?”
“Preparing tomorrow.”
“Where are Celeste and Camille?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared.
“You were with him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he thinks I’m helping him.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
“You shouldn’t.”
That answer stopped me.
Dad reached slowly into his coat.
Marco raised his weapon.
Dad froze.
“Photograph.”
Luca nodded.
Dad removed a photograph and placed it on the table.
Celeste and Camille were together.
Behind them was a distinctive wall of green tile.
Bastion stepped closer.
“I know that place.”
“Where?”
“The old Grand Lorne Hotel.”
Luca frowned.
“It closed six years ago.”
Bastion nodded.
“My company designed uniforms for them. Green tiled service kitchens.”
Marco immediately sent the image.
Dad looked at me.
“I’ve been trying to get that photograph to Luca’s people all morning.”
“You could have walked into the police station.”
“And expose two federal agents who have spent nine years protecting the case?”
Silence.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What case?”
Dad looked at him.
“The ledger.”
I folded my arms.
“Apparently everyone knows about this ledger except me.”
Dad nodded toward the tiny dress I still carried inside a protective bag.
“The pattern did not show where the ledger was.”
“What did it show?”
“Where to find me.”
I stared.
“You wanted me to find you?”
“Only if Enzo resurfaced.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew he would come for the ledger eventually.”
Luca’s voice sharpened.
“Where is it?”
Dad looked directly at him.
“Inside Moretti property.”
Luca didn’t blink.
“What property?”
“The wedding venue.”
The room went silent.
Of course.
The wedding.
Not Luca.
Not me.
Not even the archive.
Everything led back to tomorrow night.
Dad continued.
“Twenty-one years ago, your father purchased the old Halston Hotel.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“It became Moretti Grand.”
“The ballroom renovation began before your family acquired it. I supervised textile restoration there.”
I understood.
“You hid the ledger during construction.”
“In a place Enzo could never search without tearing apart the building.”
“Where?”
Dad looked at me.
“You’ll recognize it.”
I hated riddles.
“Stop making me guess.”
“The ceiling canopy above the old bridal salon.”
My breath caught.
I had been inside that salon two weeks ago for Vivien’s preliminary fitting.
Fabric panels covered the ceiling.
Vintage silk.
Hand restored.
“You sewed it inside fabric.”
Dad nodded.
“Between two conservation layers.”
Luca’s voice became hard.
“And now Enzo knows?”
“He knows the ledger is somewhere inside the venue. He doesn’t know where.”
“Then why does he need Elena?”
Dad looked at me.
“Because I used your first dress as the pattern key. Only Elena would recognize my notation well enough to locate the correct panel.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So my childhood became a lock.”
“I thought it would protect you.”
“It made me the key.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
“Grand Lorne confirmed. Heat signatures inside.”
Bastion grabbed his arm.
“Camille?”
“Possibly.”
Luca immediately issued orders.
I looked at Dad.
“You’re coming.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“If Enzo sees me beside you tomorrow, he’ll know I betrayed him.”
“You already did.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
Luca understood.
“You want to stay undercover.”
Dad nodded.
“One more night.”
I stared at the man I had mourned for twenty years.
He wanted to disappear again.
“You walk out that door,” I said, “and I may never forgive you.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
“I have to.”
“No. You always say you have to.”
My voice shook.
“You had to fake your death. You had to stay away. You had to watch me through cameras instead of being my father.”
I pointed toward the wall of photographs.
“You chose fear every time.”
He took the blow silently.
Then said, “Tomorrow I can help save two women.”
“And afterward?”
His eyes met mine.
“Afterward, if I’m alive, I will answer every question.”
Not good enough.
But maybe all I had.
I stepped aside.
He walked toward the door.
Then stopped beside Luca.
“If Enzo realizes Elena has found the ledger, he won’t bargain.”
“What will he do?” Luca asked.
Dad looked at me.
“He’ll burn the entire wedding venue to erase it.”
My pulse jumped.
“Eight hundred guests,” I whispered.
Dad nodded.
“That is why the wedding cannot happen.”
Luca’s expression became unreadable.
I knew what he was thinking.
Canceling would alert Enzo.
Proceeding would put hundreds of people at risk.
Then Marco received another message.
He read it twice.
“Boss.”
“What?”
Marco looked from Luca to me.
“The Grand Lorne is empty.”
Bastion’s face collapsed.
“No.”
“Someone cleared it less than an hour ago.”
Dad turned sharply.
“That’s impossible.”
Marco held up the phone.
“There’s something else.”
A photograph had been sent to Vivien.
Celeste and Camille sat side by side again.
This time they were wearing elegant dresses.
Wedding guest dresses.
Behind them was a familiar golden wall.
Luca’s face turned to stone.
I recognized it too.
They were already inside the Moretti Grand.
The wedding venue.
May you like
And across the bottom of the photograph, Enzo had written:
SEE YOU AT THE ALTAR.
