Chapter 5 - THE FATHER WHO NEVER LEFT
Delaney entered Luca’s hospital room ready to hate him.
It was easier that way.
Anger gave her somewhere to stand.
Luca sat upright despite his injuries, an IV in one arm and bruising along his jaw.
A laptop rested open beside him.
Delaney dropped Melissa’s notebook onto the bed.
“You knew my dad.”
“Yes.”
“Start talking.”
Marco remained near the door with his shoulder bandaged.
Luca looked at him.
“You were shot?”
“Grazed.”
Delaney said, “He complained a lot.”
Marco stared at her.
“I was bleeding.”
Luca almost smiled.
Delaney did not.
“My father.”
Luca’s expression sobered.
“Thomas Mercer handled financial records for my father.”
“Accountant?”
“Closer to investigator.”
“What does that mean?”
“My father, Vincent Raldi, suspected money was disappearing through legitimate companies. He hired Thomas quietly.”
“Why him?”
“Thomas had worked in forensic accounting for the state.”
Delaney knew none of this.
Her father, in her memories, fixed appliances badly and made pancakes shaped like planets.
“You’re lying.”
“I have photographs.”
Luca opened the laptop.
A younger Vincent Raldi appeared in a photograph outside a warehouse.
Beside him stood Thomas Mercer.
Delaney’s breath caught.
Her father was younger than she remembered.
Smiling.
Alive.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father’s archives.”
“Why did Mom tell me he left?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what happened?”
Luca closed the image.
“Thomas discovered a laundering network.”
“Harbor Light?”
“Yes.”
The charity officially provided housing grants.
In reality, money from city redevelopment projects flowed through shell companies, inflated construction contracts and fake nonprofit payments.
Renato Raldi and Caleb Caldwell had built it together.
“Your father gathered evidence,” Luca explained. “Then he disappeared.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Delaney’s voice cracked.
“The week he left us.”
“Yes.”
“You think they killed him.”
Luca did not soften it.
“Yes.”
Her knees went weak.
Marco pulled out a chair.
She ignored it.
“My mother knew?”
“Probably not at first.”
“But later?”
“I think she discovered it when Larkin Row was targeted.”
Delaney looked down at Melissa’s notebook.
Her mother had not accidentally stumbled into corruption.
She had recognized names.
Followed the trail that killed her husband.
“She was trying to finish his work.”
“Yes.”
Delaney turned away.
For years she had been angry with Thomas Mercer.
She had imagined him building another family.
Forgetting birthdays.
Forgetting her.
Now grief arrived eleven years late.
And it was enormous.
“Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Luca’s answer was quiet.
“My father tried to find Thomas. Then he became ill. Renato slowly took control of the organization.”
“And you?”
“I was twenty-five and arrogant enough to think the family business began where I started paying attention.”
Delaney looked back.
“How many people got hurt because you didn’t pay attention?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Too many.”
She expected self-defense.
Instead he continued.
“That is not the same as saying I caused everything. But power makes ignorance expensive for other people.”
Delaney stared.
Her mother could have said that.
Luca touched Melissa’s notebook.
“Your parents both tried to expose this.”
“And both ended up dead.”
Silence.
She suddenly stepped toward him.
“You’re going to die too.”
Marco shifted.
Luca remained still.
Delaney’s voice rose.
“Everybody who touches this dies.”
“Delaney.”
“No.”
Tears burned.
“My dad disappeared. My mom died trying to fix what he started. You nearly got buried alive.”
“She died from cancer,” Luca said gently.
“After losing her apartment. After working through chemo. After spending her last year terrified someone was following her.”
Her voice broke.
“You people didn’t have to shoot her. You just made being alive too hard.”
That silenced everyone.
Delaney wiped her face angrily.
“I’m done.”
She grabbed the notebook.
Luca stopped her with words.
“What does done mean?”
“I burn it.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
She glared.
“You ran toward a grave when every intelligent instinct told you to run away. You found evidence your mother died protecting. You won’t burn it.”
“I might.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because then the people who hurt your parents win.”
She hated him.
Mostly because he was right.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then stiffened.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
“Mr. Bellini?”
“Yes.”
“This is Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Sloan.”
Everyone looked at one another.
She continued.
“I believe you have evidence related to Harbor Light Foundation.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“How did you get this number?”
“I received a scheduled email from Melissa Mercer approximately four hours ago.”
Delaney stopped breathing.
“What?”
The prosecutor continued.
“The email was configured to send automatically if a certain cloud account was accessed.”
Marco looked at the hard drive.
Delaney whispered, “When we opened Mom’s files.”
“Yes,” Sloan said. “She created what appears to be a dead-man trigger.”
Even Luca looked impressed.
“My mom did that?”
“She did.”
“What did she send you?”
“Enough to request a meeting.”
Luca interrupted.
“No.”
Sloan’s voice sharpened.
“And you are?”
“Luca Raldi.”
A pause.
“Well. This just became interesting.”
Luca continued.
“We don’t know who is compromised.”
“You don’t need to trust me.”
Delaney almost smiled.
Apparently trustworthy people kept saying that.
Sloan said, “Melissa specifically named me.”
Delaney looked at Luca.
“Did she?”
Sloan read from the email.
“If Delaney ever finds the stars, contact Rebecca Sloan. She helped Thomas before he disappeared.”
Delaney grabbed the phone.
“You knew my father?”
“I met him twice.”
“Was he alive after he left us?”
Sloan hesitated.
“Yes.”
The room vanished around Delaney.
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Three weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he come home?”
“He was protecting you.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“Everyone keeps deciding what protects me.”
Sloan’s voice softened.
“He was terrified.”
“Did he say anything about me?”
Another pause.
“He carried a photograph of you in a red winter coat.”
Delaney covered her mouth.
She remembered that coat.
Secondhand.
Too big.
Her father called her a walking tomato.
“He talked about you constantly.”
Tears spilled freely now.
“He was trying to secure enough evidence to put Renato Raldi and Caldwell away. Then he disappeared.”
“Body?”
“Never found.”
One word changed everything.
Delaney lowered her hand.
“Never?”
“No.”
Luca looked sharply at Marco.
Sloan continued.
“We presumed he was dead.”
“Presumed,” Delaney repeated.
“Yes.”
Hope was dangerous.
Delaney knew that better than anyone.
But once hope entered a room, it refused to leave quietly.
“What if he isn’t dead?”
Nobody answered.
Then Luca’s laptop chimed.
Marco looked at the screen.
A message had arrived through an encrypted channel.
No sender.
Attached photograph.
Luca opened it.
The image had been taken recently.
Very recently.
A thin gray-haired man sat beside a newspaper dated three days earlier.
He had a beard.
His face was older.
But Delaney knew the eyes.
Her knees buckled.
“Dad.”
Across the bottom of the image was a message.
TRADE THE MERCER FILES FOR THOMAS MERCER. MIDNIGHT TOMORROW. NO FEDERALS.
Delaney stared at the photograph until she could barely see through tears.
Her father had not been buried eleven years ago.
May you like
He had been kept alive.
And somewhere in the city, someone had waited more than a decade for the day his daughter would finish what he started.
