Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE WITHOUT LIGHTThe first shot shattered a window.
The stranger remained beneath the umbrella as if standing outside the most heavily guarded private residence in northern Illinois were no more unusual than waiting for a restaurant reservation.
Gray coat.
Expensive shoes.
Calm posture.
And the blue ring.
Luca stood beside Matteo.
“You know him?”
“No.”
“He seems to know you.”
“He knows my father.”
That was worse.
Matteo pressed the intercom.
“You have thirty seconds to leave my property.”
The man chuckled.
“So you do remember Antonio’s manners.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“Who are you?”
“Victor Sloane.”
The name meant nothing.
That bothered Matteo.
He knew bankers who hid money for dictators, judges who sold verdicts through cousins, contractors who supplied half the criminal organizations between Chicago and Detroit.
Victor Sloane existed nowhere in Matteo’s memory.
“I’m looking for Elena Marlowe,” Sloane continued.
“She isn’t here.”
The lie came naturally.
Sloane glanced toward the mansion.
“That pendant always made Antonio a terrible liar too.”
Matteo’s fingers curled.
Luca murmured, “We can take him.”
“No.”
“Boss—”
“Not yet.”
Matteo understood predators.
The dangerous ones rarely walked voluntarily into cages.
Sloane wanted to be seen.
He wanted Matteo angry.
That meant this was theater.
“What do you want with Elena?” Matteo asked.
“She stole something.”
“What?”
“My patience.”
Sloane smiled.
“Send her outside and whatever trouble she brought to your gate disappears.”
Matteo looked toward the upstairs hallway where Elena lay unconscious.
“No.”
Sloane’s smile vanished.
Only for a second.
It was enough.
“Then you’ve made your decision.”
“Apparently.”
“You should know what happened to the last DeLuca who made that choice.”
Matteo’s blood went cold.
His father.
Luca stepped closer to the monitor.
Matteo spoke quietly.
“Leave.”
Sloane turned.
Before entering his sedan, he raised the hand wearing the blue ring toward the camera in a mock salute.
Then he disappeared into the darkness.
“Follow him,” Matteo ordered.
Luca immediately called two teams.
“Discreet?”
“Very.”
“And if he notices?”
Matteo stared at the empty gate.
“He already knows we’ll follow him.”
That was what frightened him.
At 4:06 a.m., Elena woke screaming.
Matteo heard her from downstairs.
He reached the guest room before the nurse.
Elena had backed against the headboard, ripping the IV loose.
“No!”
Blood spotted the sheet.
Matteo stopped in the doorway.
“Elena.”
She stared.
Recognition returned.
Then panic.
“He came.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
Her face went white.
“You let him in?”
“No.”
“Did he see me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Matteo moved slowly toward her.
“My property has forty-seven cameras and twelve guards. I’m sure.”
She gave a hollow laugh.
“You think cameras stop Victor?”
“They stop most people.”
“He isn’t most people.”
“No.”
Matteo sat across from her.
“But neither am I.”
For the first time, something besides terror appeared in her expression.
Curiosity.
Perhaps disbelief.
Matteo placed the pendant on the nightstand.
“Start talking.”
Elena looked at it.
“My mother gave me that three days before she died.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Her name?”
“Rose Marlowe.”
Nothing.
“What did she tell you?”
“That if anything ever happened to me, I should find Antonio DeLuca.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
“My father died twenty years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then why come here?”
“Because she added something.”
Elena met his eyes.
“She said if Antonio was gone, find his son.”
Matteo leaned back.
“What was your mother’s connection to my father?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was nineteen when she died. She had cancer. Every time I asked about the pendant, she changed the subject.”
“And Victor?”
Elena looked toward the windows.
“I worked for him.”
That surprised Matteo.
“Doing what?”
“Accounting.”
“For what company?”
“Halcyon Maritime.”
Matteo knew it.
A shipping corporation operating freight terminals throughout the Great Lakes.
Respectable.
Profitable.
Almost too respectable.
“I was hired eighteen months ago,” Elena said. “Six weeks ago, I found payments that didn’t make sense. Shell companies. Dead executives receiving consulting fees. Insurance payouts connected to cargo vessels that burned years ago.”
Matteo’s attention sharpened.
“And you kept digging.”
“I’m an auditor. Digging is the job.”
“Not when your employer is laundering money.”
“I didn’t know that at first.”
“What changed?”
“I found a file.”
Elena swallowed.
“Project Cerulean.”
The word meant nothing to Matteo.
But she saw something in his face anyway.
“The oldest entries were from twenty-three years ago,” she continued. “Your father’s name was in them.”
Matteo became completely still.
“What did they say?”
“I never got to finish reading.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor walked into my office.”
She touched the bruising near her wrist.
“He knew.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Elena’s eyes flickered.
“Not then.”
“What did you steal?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Sloane claims otherwise.”
“I copied the files.”
“Where are they?”
Elena hesitated.
Matteo leaned forward.
“If men are arriving at my gate at three in the morning and mentioning my murdered father, I’m already involved.”
“I mailed the drive.”
“To whom?”
She looked at him.
“You.”
Matteo blinked.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“To this address?”
“No. Your restaurant.”
His downtown restaurant was partly legitimate business, partly neutral ground.
Matteo immediately called.
His night manager answered on the fourth ring.
“Mr. DeLuca?”
“Did a package arrive for me yesterday?”
A pause.
“Yes. Small envelope. No return address.”
“Where is it?”
“In your private office safe.”
“Touch nothing.”
Matteo ended the call.
Elena closed her eyes in relief.
“You still have it.”
“Apparently.”
A message came through Luca’s phone.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Our team lost Sloane.”
“Where?”
“Lower Wacker.”
“Both cars?”
Luca nodded.
Matteo looked at Elena.
“You said he isn’t most people.”
“He isn’t.”
Another notification sounded.
This time from Matteo’s restaurant security system.
ALARM TRIGGERED.
Then came a phone call.
The manager again.
Matteo answered.
Instead of the manager’s voice, he heard breathing.
“Hello?”
A man laughed.
A familiar voice.
Victor Sloane.
“You really should upgrade your locks, Matteo.”
Matteo was already moving.
“Where is my employee?”
“Alive.”
“For now.”
Behind Sloane’s voice came the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.
“You want the drive,” Matteo said.
“I want what belongs to me.”
“Then why are you at my restaurant instead of here?”
“Because I knew Elena would send the evidence to you.”
Sloane paused.
“But she made one mistake.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t know what’s actually on that drive.”
Matteo reached the stairs.
“And you do?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“It contains the name of the man who ordered your father’s murder.”
The line went dead.
For the first time in twenty years, Matteo DeLuca felt eleven years old again.
Standing in his father’s office.
Holding a photograph.
Watching Antonio rip it from his hands.
Some doors stay closed for a reason.
Matteo looked toward Elena.
She had dragged herself from bed despite the pain.
“What did he say?”
Matteo stared at her.
“That your little accounting problem just became mine.”
Then the mansion lights went out.
May you like
Every single one.
In the darkness, a gunshot exploded downstairs.
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