Chapter 2 - THE FIRST LIE
The first man through the downstairs door called me boss.
That was the part I would remember.
Not the crash of wood.
Not Beatrice gasping.
Not Luca gripping the edge of the table as eleven years of captivity returned to his face.
Just one voice from below.
“Boss? Lorenzo sent us.”
I went still.
Of course he had.
Luca whispered, “Matteo.”
“I heard him.”
“How many?”
I glanced through the curtain.
At least six outside.
Possibly more downstairs.
Beatrice grabbed my sleeve.
“There’s another way out.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
“Bathroom.”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
“Patrick built it.”
Another crash came from below.
Beatrice moved.
We followed.
The bathroom was barely large enough for one person. Beatrice dropped to her knees beside the bathtub and pulled away a loose plywood panel.
Cold air poured through.
Beyond it was a narrow maintenance passage leading toward the neighboring building.
I looked at Luca.
“You first.”
“No.”
“Luca.”
“You’re still my little brother.”
“And I’m still the one with men downstairs calling me boss while coming to kill you.”
That silenced him.
“Move.”
Beatrice crawled through first.
Luca followed.
I heard footsteps on the stairs.
I entered last and dragged the panel back into place.
Seconds later, the bathroom door opened behind us.
Someone cursed.
We kept moving.
The passage was narrow, filthy, and freezing. Pipes ran overhead. My coat caught twice on exposed nails.
At the far end, Beatrice pushed open another panel.
We emerged inside the basement of an abandoned bakery.
Luca leaned against a wall, breathing hard.
I looked at him.
“You okay?”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“I know.”
He looked at me strangely.
Neither of us knew what to do with twelve stolen years.
There wasn’t time to learn.
We exited through the bakery’s rear door and crossed an alley while snow erased our footprints almost as quickly as we made them.
My phone rang.
Lorenzo.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His voice sounded irritated.
Concerned.
Perfectly rehearsed.
“Driving.”
“With who?”
I looked at Luca.
“Why?”
“We had a security problem at the estate.”
“What kind?”
“A camera went down.”
I almost laughed.
“You called me six times because a camera went down?”
Silence.
Then Lorenzo said carefully, “I couldn’t reach you.”
“I’m a grown man.”
“Matteo—”
“I’ll call later.”
I hung up.
Luca was staring at me.
“He sounds exactly the same.”
I slipped the phone away.
“You haven’t heard him in twelve years.”
“Oh, I heard Lorenzo plenty.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“He visited me.”
Beatrice’s face tightened.
“How often?”
“At first? Every week.”
My stomach turned.
“He would sit across from me and tell me what was happening outside. Father’s health. Your promotions. Territory changes. Weddings. Funerals.”
He paused.
“He told me when you became boss.”
I looked away.
That had happened six years earlier after our father, Dominic Vale, died unexpectedly at sixty-three.
Official cause: cardiac arrest.
Luca continued.
“He brought champagne.”
“What?”
“The night you took over. He poured himself a glass and said, ‘Your brother finally has what he always wanted.’”
I faced him.
“I never wanted your place.”
“You were twenty-eight, Matteo. Of course part of you wanted it.”
“That’s different from wanting you dead.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Luca stared at me.
For a moment, anger flashed between us.
Then disappeared beneath something heavier.
Pain.
He had been tortured by lies about me.
I had been shaped by lies about him.
That was what Lorenzo had stolen.
Not twelve years.
A brother.
We reached a twenty-four-hour grocery store and stepped into the brightness.
Nobody looked twice at us.
Chicago was good that way.
People had their own problems.
Beatrice led us toward a small diner attached to the store.
We took a booth in the rear.
Luca kept his back to the wall.
I noticed.
He noticed me noticing.
“Habit,” he said.
I didn’t ask.
A waitress poured coffee.
Nobody touched it.
I looked at Beatrice.
“Start at the beginning.”
She folded her hands.
“My husband Patrick worked for North Star Behavioral Health.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“It was a private long-term care facility outside Joliet. Very expensive. Very secretive.”
“Who owned it?”
“Nobody knew.”
Luca answered.
“Vale Holdings.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“Vale Holdings doesn’t own medical facilities.”
“Not directly.”
Beatrice pulled an envelope from inside her coat.
She placed it on the table.
“Patrick spent months copying records.”
Inside were financial statements.
Transfers.
Shell corporations.
Invoices.
I recognized one name immediately.
Bellweather Property Management.
Bellweather leased warehouses and storage units to companies we controlled.
Another company flowed into Bellweather.
Another behind that.
Then another.
Finally, North Star.
My own organization had paid for Luca’s prison.
“How did Patrick get these?”
“He was careful.”
Beatrice’s voice broke.
“Not careful enough.”
I looked up.
“His heart attack.”
She shook her head.
“He was fifty-nine. He had no heart condition.”
I understood.
“You think Lorenzo killed him.”
“I think Patrick found something he wasn’t supposed to find.”
Luca reached over and covered Beatrice’s hand.
She looked at him like family.
Maybe after eight months of hiding him, he was.
“Patrick got Luca out three days before he died,” she continued. “He told me to take Luca somewhere nobody connected to us.”
“The coach house?”
“My sister owned it before she moved to Arizona. Nobody uses it.”
“And you’ve been feeding him from my house.”
Her face reddened.
“I couldn’t afford much after Patrick died. He controlled our finances. There were bills.”
She looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
I thought of Lorenzo calling her a thief.
People like that always become a problem.
My jaw tightened.
“You don’t apologize for feeding my brother.”
Her eyes filled.
That was the first moment she stopped being afraid of me.
I turned toward Luca.
“What else did Patrick find?”
Luca reached beneath his sweater and removed a small key attached to a chain.
“This.”
“What does it open?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why is it important?”
“Because Patrick died trying to keep it hidden.”
He placed it in my palm.
An old brass key.
A number engraved along one edge.
314.
Beatrice said, “Patrick’s last words were ‘Union.’”
“Union Station?”
“We assumed.”
I studied the key.
“Locker?”
“Maybe.”
Luca leaned back.
“Patrick said everything Lorenzo feared was waiting where people came and went without staying.”
Union Station fit.
I looked at my watch.
Nearly two in the morning.
“We go now.”
Beatrice shook her head.
“They’ll be watching.”
“So we don’t walk in.”
Luca gave me the first hint of his old smile.
“There’s the Matteo I remember.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time it wasn’t Lorenzo.
It was my estate security chief, Anthony Ferraro.
Boss, I need to speak to you privately. Something is wrong.
I called him.
“Talk.”
His voice was low.
“Mr. Lorenzo ordered me to send Team Three to Bridgeport.”
I looked at Luca.
“Why?”
“He said there was a threat to you.”
“Did I make that request?”
“No.”
“Then why did you send them?”
A pause.
“Because Mr. Lorenzo used your authorization code.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“That code changes every morning.”
“I know.”
Only three people received it.
Me.
Anthony.
And Lorenzo.
Anthony whispered, “There’s more.”
“Go.”
“I checked the dispatch record after you called me last week about irregular security expenses.”
I hadn’t.
“Anthony, I never called you about security expenses.”
Silence.
Then:
“Boss… yes, you did.”
“No.”
His breathing changed.
“I spoke to you for eleven minutes.”
“Was it video?”
“No.”
A voice clone.
Or someone good enough to imitate me.
Lorenzo wasn’t merely lying.
He had been using my authority without me.
“How long?”
“I’m checking.”
“Don’t.”
“Boss?”
“If he realizes you’re checking, you become a problem.”
I glanced at Beatrice.
Lorenzo’s words echoed again.
People like that always become a problem.
“Go home,” I said. “Say nothing.”
“What about Team Three?”
“Where are they?”
“They reported the Bridgeport property empty.”
“Good.”
“And Lorenzo?”
I stared through the diner window at the falling snow.
“Lorenzo believes I’m still blind.”
Luca watched me.
I finished softly.
“Let’s keep it that way.”
I hung up.
For the next hour, we moved through Chicago using methods I hadn’t needed since I was twenty-five and still learning how to survive men more powerful than me.
By 3:18 a.m., we stood inside Union Station.
The enormous hall echoed with rolling luggage and distant announcements.
Beatrice stayed near a coffee shop.
Luca wore my coat and kept his face lowered beneath a hat.
Locker 314 was downstairs.
The brass key fit.
My hand paused on the lock.
“You ready?”
Luca looked at me.
“No.”
I opened it anyway.
Inside sat a black leather briefcase.
Nothing else.
I placed it on a bench.
The lock was already broken.
Inside were three objects.
A flash drive.
A stack of sealed envelopes.
And a photograph.
I picked up the photograph first.
My father stood outside our Lake Geneva house.
Dominic Vale.
Alive.
Smiling.
The date printed in the corner was seven months after his funeral.
My fingers went numb.
“That’s impossible.”
Luca took the photograph.
His face drained of color.
Behind our father stood another person.
A woman.
Older than I remembered.
But unmistakable.
Our mother.
The mother Luca and I had buried twenty years ago.
Beatrice whispered, “Matteo?”
I couldn’t answer.
My brother had been dead for twelve years.
My father for six.
My mother for twenty.
May you like
Yet according to the photograph in my hands, three dead members of the Vale family had been alive at the same time.
And someone had built my entire life around making sure I never knew.
