Chapter 5 - The Camera Across the StreetVictor DeLuca left the mansion smiling.
Nora discovered that twelve hours later.
She had no intention of entering the DeLuca mansion.
Then Isabella refused to let go of her sweater.
Doctors discharged the baby under extraordinary security measures once tests showed no lasting effects from the attempted poisoning.
Matteo offered Nora money.
She refused.
He offered a car to take her home.
She accepted that.
Then Isabella screamed when Nora tried to hand her over.
Ten minutes later Nora was sitting in the back of Matteo's armored SUV holding the baby while four vehicles surrounded them.
“You know,” Nora muttered, “this is exactly how people accidentally get involved in organized crime.”
Matteo looked out the window.
“You are not involved.”
“I've been arrested, interrogated, threatened, and nearly watched your daughter get poisoned.”
He glanced at her.
“Fair.”
The DeLuca estate stood outside Boston behind stone walls and steel gates.
Nora expected gold, chandeliers, and tasteless displays of wealth.
Instead, the house was almost painfully elegant.
Dark wood.
Old paintings.
Gray stone.
Everything looked expensive without trying to prove it.
What surprised Nora most was the silence.
A house containing thirty employees and armed guards should have sounded alive.
It didn't.
Everyone seemed afraid to make noise.
Isabella buried her face against Nora.
“You need more laughter in here,” Nora said.
Matteo removed his coat.
“Excuse me?”
“This place feels like a funeral home.”
Dominic coughed.
Possibly to hide a laugh.
Matteo ignored him.
“Prepare the nursery.”
A housekeeper approached.
Isabella tightened her grip on Nora.
The housekeeper stopped.
Nora sighed.
“I'll take her.”
Matteo nodded.
Two hours later Isabella finally slept.
Nora emerged from the nursery and found Matteo waiting in the hall.
“We need to talk.”
“That sentence never leads anywhere pleasant.”
He walked toward his office.
Nora followed.
Inside, Matteo locked the door.
Then he opened a concealed safe.
He removed a thin envelope.
On the front was written one name.
MARA.
Nora stared.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You had a file on her.”
“I had an envelope.”
He placed it on the desk.
“It arrived thirteen months ago. No return address.”
“Why didn't you open it?”
Matteo said nothing.
Nora looked at him.
“You never opened it?”
“I believed I knew what it contained.”
“What?”
“Blackmail.”
She stared.
Matteo rested both hands on the desk.
“Isabella's mother was my wife, Sofia.”
Nora waited.
“She died six months after Isabella was born.”
“Oh.”
“Aneurysm.”
His voice became quieter.
“Sofia and I were married seven years. She wanted a child more than anything. We tried for years. Doctors told us it might never happen.”
Nora glanced at the envelope.
“Then Isabella came.”
“Yes.”
“And Mara?”
“I didn't know she existed.”
Nora opened the envelope.
Inside were photographs.
Medical records.
A handwritten letter.
Matteo unfolded it.
The first sentence destroyed the last year of his life.
Matteo,
If you are reading this, I am probably dead.
Nora sat.
Matteo continued.
Sofia could not carry a pregnancy. She was ashamed to tell you. Your family doctor arranged something illegal. I carried the baby. I was supposed to disappear afterward.
Matteo's hands began to shake.
Nora read over his shoulder.
Mara described an embryo transfer.
Matteo was the biological father.
Sofia was the biological mother.
Mara had served as the gestational surrogate.
But after Isabella's birth, someone refused to pay Mara what she'd been promised.
Worse, Mara claimed she had discovered falsified medical records and suspicious transfers from DeLuca-controlled accounts.
She believed someone inside Matteo's family had been using the surrogacy arrangement to hide money.
Then came the final paragraph.
If something happens to me, protect Isabella from Victor.
Matteo stopped breathing.
Nora looked up.
“Victor who?”
The office door exploded inward.
Dominic entered with two guards.
Matteo's expression turned dangerous.
“I locked that door.”
“Sir, we have a security breach.”
“What?”
Dominic placed a phone on the desk.
A live camera feed showed the front gate.
A limousine waited outside.
An older man stepped from it.
Silver hair.
Tailored navy suit.
Black gloves.
Matteo stared.
Nora noticed his face.
“Who is that?”
“My uncle.”
Dominic answered quietly.
“Victor DeLuca.”
The man Mara had warned them about.
Victor entered the mansion like he owned it.
Maybe, Nora thought, he once had.
Matteo met him in the foyer.
Nora remained on the upper landing with Isabella's baby monitor in her hand.
Victor smiled.
“Matteo.”
“You weren't invited.”
“Family shouldn't need invitations.”
“Why are you here?”
“I heard about Isabella.”
His expression turned solemn.
“Terrible business.”
Matteo said nothing.
Victor looked upstairs.
His gaze found Nora.
It remained on her several seconds too long.
“Who is she?”
“The woman who saved Isabella.”
Victor's smile sharpened.
“The dumpster girl.”
Nora hated him instantly.
He looked back at Matteo.
“Interesting choice, bringing her here.”
“She goes where I decide.”
Victor's smile widened.
“Just like your father.”
Silence hit the foyer.
Matteo stepped closer.
“Be careful.”
Victor leaned on his cane.
“I always am.”
Then he removed something from his pocket.
A photograph.
He tossed it onto the table.
Nora descended three steps.
The image showed her outside the Hawthorne Hotel three weeks earlier.
Talking to Luca DeLuca.
Nora's blood went cold.
Matteo looked up at her.
“I've never met your brother.”
Victor smiled.
“The camera disagrees.”
Nora stared at the photograph.
She remembered the man now.
A stranger asking directions.
Thirty seconds.
Maybe less.
Someone had photographed them deliberately.
Another trap.
Victor tapped the picture.
“Your brother ends up nearly murdered. Your daughter ends up in a dumpster. And this woman appears in the middle of both.”
Matteo's gaze hardened.
Victor lowered his voice.
“You arrested the right woman the first time.”
Nora expected Matteo to turn against her.
Instead, he picked up the photograph.
Tore it in half.
Then again.
“No.”
Victor's smile disappeared.
Matteo stepped between him and Nora.
“I arrested the woman who saved my daughter.”
May you like
He dropped the pieces at Victor's feet.
“I won't make the same mistake twice.”
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