Chapter 5 - What Fire Could Not TakeThe flames climbed the doorway faster than they should have.
Someone had soaked the hall.
“Back wall!” Luca shouted.
Emmett grabbed the metal document box.
Valerie froze.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
Her eyes locked on the fire.
Her breathing stopped obeying her.
“Valerie.”
Nothing.
The flames reflected in her eyes.
“Red.”
She flinched.
Emmett took her face between both hands.
“Look at me.”
Her gaze found his.
“You are not fourteen.”
Smoke rolled across the ceiling.
“You are not trapped in that house.”
Her breath shuddered.
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.”
“I smell it.”
“I know.”
“My mother—”
“I know.”
A bullet struck the wall above them.
Emmett lowered his forehead to hers.
“Stay with me.”
Her fingers closed around his coat.
“I’m here.”
“Good.”
He pulled her toward the rear of the room.
Luca kicked through rotted paneling and discovered an old utility passage.
Franca crawled first.
Valerie followed.
Emmett went last carrying the box.
Behind them, fire consumed Angela Russo’s hiding place.
They emerged into the church furnace room.
Luca slammed a steel door.
“Three shooters,” he said. “Maybe four.”
“Faces?”
“Covered.”
Emmett looked at Franca.
“Take the women through the south exit.”
Valerie shook her head.
“No.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Then negotiate with someone else.”
Even now.
He almost admired it.
“Stay behind Luca.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to ask questions.”
“With bullets?”
“Usually faster.”
She caught his sleeve.
“Emmett.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t become your father while trying to prove you’re not him.”
The sentence hit somewhere dangerous.
He did not answer.
Outside, one attacker was found unconscious beside a service truck.
Another had escaped.
The third died after Luca shot him when he raised a weapon.
The fourth was not found.
The surviving man carried no identification.
But he had a tattoo behind his left ear.
A small black crown.
Luca stared at it.
“Costas crew.”
Valerie crossed her arms tightly.
“So Adrian tried to kill us.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
Emmett looked at the burning basement window.
“Too obvious.”
Luca understood.
“Someone wants us to blame Adrian.”
“Or Adrian doesn’t care if we know.”
They returned to Emmett’s mansion before dawn.
The document box went into a secure room.
Franca made Valerie tea.
Valerie held the cup but did not drink.
Emmett watched her from the doorway.
“You have guest rooms.”
“I have a shelter bed.”
“Not anymore.”
“That sounded dangerously like an order.”
“It was.”
She looked up.
“I’m not your employee.”
“No.”
“Or your prisoner.”
“No.”
“Or your charity case.”
Something sharpened in his face.
“No.”
Valerie studied him.
“What am I?”
The question settled between them.
Emmett answered carefully.
“Someone they’re trying to kill.”
“That isn’t an identity.”
“It’s enough for tonight.”
She looked away.
He left her alone.
At eight in the morning, Delphine arrived.
No appointment.
No warning.
She walked into the mansion wearing a camel coat and anger.
Luca tried to stop her.
Emmett waved him off.
Delphine entered the study.
“You disappeared from our engagement lunch, canceled the announcement, and my father’s men tell me you spent half the night digging around a cemetery.”
“Your father’s men follow me?”
“They follow everyone.”
“That was the wrong answer.”
She removed her gloves.
“What happened?”
Emmett studied her.
She was beautiful.
Perfectly controlled.
Raised to survive rooms where everyone lied.
He had considered marrying her because she understood his world.
Now he wondered what else she understood.
“Do you remember Angela Russo?”
The change in her face was almost invisible.
Almost.
“No.”
“Valerie Russo?”
“No.”
“St. Ambrose?”
Delphine looked toward the window.
“Of course.”
“The fire twenty years ago?”
Her eyes returned.
“I was a teenager.”
“So you remember.”
“I remember hearing about it.”
“Were you there?”
The question struck.
Delphine became very still.
“Who told you that?”
“Answer.”
She laughed once.
“You really are your father’s son.”
Emmett crossed the room in two steps.
“Do not use him to avoid the question.”
“I was fourteen.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
The word hung between them.
Emmett’s hands remained at his sides.
“Why?”
“My father picked me up from a school event.”
“And?”
“He received a phone call.”
“And?”
“He drove to Pawtucket.”
Emmett’s voice lowered.
“You waited in the car.”
Delphine’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“While Angela Russo burned.”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“You saw the house.”
“I saw men go inside.”
“You saw fire.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was fourteen!”
The shout shocked both of them.
Delphine rarely raised her voice.
“He told me if I left the car, he would kill my mother.”
Emmett stared at her.
“My father wasn’t the only monster in Providence.”
Silence followed.
Delphine’s breath shook.
“I saw a girl crawl out a side window.”
Emmett’s expression hardened.
“Valerie.”
“I didn’t know her name.”
“You watched them chase her.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“One of the men hit her.”
“Then?”
“A woman arrived.”
“Marian?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe her.”
“Dark hair. Maybe forty.”
Franca’s sister.
“She screamed at my father,” Delphine said.
“What did she say?”
“That Salvatore had changed the plan.”
Emmett went still.
“What plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Delphine pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“She said, ‘You were supposed to scare Angela, not burn her.’”
Valerie stood in the study doorway.
No one had heard her enter.
Delphine turned.
Recognition hit instantly.
Not because Valerie looked the same.
Because guilt remembers differently than affection.
“Oh God.”
Valerie stared.
“You.”
Delphine took a step backward.
Valerie walked forward.
“You sat in that car.”
“Yes.”
“You watched.”
“I was a child.”
“So was I.”
Delphine looked away.
Valerie’s voice trembled.
“You could have called someone.”
“My father controlled the police.”
“A neighbor.”
“He would have known.”
“You could have screamed.”
“I was terrified.”
“So was my mother.”
Delphine closed her eyes.
Valerie lifted one hand.
For a second Emmett thought she might slap her.
She did not.
She let her hand fall.
“That’s the difference between us,” Valerie whispered. “I know what fear costs other people.”
She walked out.
Delphine’s composure shattered.
She covered her mouth.
Emmett said nothing.
After several seconds, she spoke.
“You think I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“At least you’re consistent.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“I’m not.”
He glanced toward the doorway where Valerie had disappeared.
“That’s becoming the problem.”
Delphine saw it.
Something colder than jealousy entered her face.
“You care about her.”
“I knew her before I learned not to.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Delphine picked up her gloves.
“My father wasn’t the man who ordered the fire.”
Emmett looked at her sharply.
“You just said Salvatore changed the plan.”
“Yes.”
“Then Salvatore ordered it.”
“No.”
Delphine shook her head.
“My father blamed him for years.”
“Blamed him for what?”
“For turning a retrieval into murder.”
“Then who lit the match?”
Delphine’s face went pale again.
“Your uncle.”
Emmett froze.
“Which uncle?”
“Matteo.”
The name struck like a fist.
Matteo Castelli.
Salvatore’s younger brother.
The man who had taught Emmett to shoot.
The man who stood beside him at his father’s funeral.
The man who died twelve years ago in a supposed boating accident.
Delphine continued.
“He was obsessed with finding the ledger.”
“He’s dead.”
“So we were told.”
Emmett stared.
“What does that mean?”
Delphine opened her handbag.
She removed her phone.
Then showed him a photograph.
It had been taken yesterday.
A gray-haired man entering a private airport terminal outside Montreal.
Even older, Emmett recognized the shape of the shoulders.
The scar beside the mouth.
Matteo.
Alive.
On the screen, a second figure stood beside him.
A woman.
Sixties.
Dark hair streaked with silver.
Valerie had returned to the doorway.
She saw the photograph.
Her coffee cup slipped from her hand.
“Marian.”
Emmett looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
Valerie’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
Delphine swallowed.
“My father received this image forty-eight hours ago.”
“From who?”
“He doesn’t know.”
Emmett stared at Matteo and Marian.
Two people believed dead or missing.
Standing side by side.
Then Valerie noticed something in the photograph.
She stepped closer.
“Zoom in.”
Delphine did.
On Matteo’s coat was a brass button.
Worn smooth.
Crooked V.
Emmett’s blood turned cold.
May you like
Valerie whispered the words from Marian’s message.
“Don’t trust the man wearing your button.”
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