Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
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Serena had expected anger when she finally saw Matteo again.
She had prepared herself for questions, accusations, perhaps even threats.
What she had not prepared for was the expression on his face when he entered the private room of a Boston hotel and found her standing beside the window.
He looked as though he had not slept in days.
His black coat was wet from the rain. His tie hung loose, and the hard certainty that once defined him had been replaced by something less familiar.
Fear.
“Serena.”
She did not move toward him.
“Mr. Falcone.”
The formal address stopped him cold.
“You don't have to call me that.”
“I don't have to call you anything.”
He accepted the rebuke.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Matteo placed a folder on the table.
“I found the original shipping records. Thomas altered them. Arthur confirmed that you warned him about the Delaware company. Walsh told me you never agreed to testify against me.”
Serena's face remained composed.
“And?”
“And I was wrong.”
She looked away.
“That's a beginning.”
“I know I don't deserve forgiveness.”
“No. You don't.”
The answer was immediate, and Matteo did not argue.
He had imagined this meeting countless times. In some versions, Serena slapped him. In others, she cried. In the worst ones, she looked at him exactly as she did now: as a man whose love had become another threat she needed to survive.
“I want to know what Thomas is doing,” he said.
“Of course you do.”
“Forty-two million dollars is tied up in the financial system you designed. Northstar is moving money through an account linked to my father. Two of my men are dead, and Arthur was shot.”
Serena's expression changed at Arthur's name.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes. He'll recover.”
She released a breath.
“Good.”
“Serena, I need your help.”
“No.”
Matteo had prepared himself for resistance. He had not expected the answer to arrive without hesitation.
“People are dying.”
“People were dying when I warned you. You didn't care about my explanation because Thomas gave you permission to believe the worst about me.”
“That isn't true.”
“Then tell me why you didn't investigate the Delaware company before throwing me out.”
He had no answer.
Serena turned from the window.
“You didn't want the truth, Matteo. You wanted certainty. Thomas offered you certainty, and I offered you a problem that required you to admit you might be wrong.”
Her voice trembled, but she continued.
“You made your choice.”
He lowered his head.
“I can't change what I did.”
“No. But you can stop expecting me to repair what you broke.”
Matteo stood silently until she returned to the table.
She opened a folder of her own and laid out three documents.
“The dead man's switch isn't a weapon. It's a record-preservation mechanism. When I realized someone was manipulating the accounts, I created a system that would preserve the original records if anyone attempted to alter them.”
“Can it release the money?”
“Not without the appropriate verification. And I won't help you bypass it.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We follow the evidence.”
She pointed to Northstar's latest transaction.
“Someone is moving money through Bellweather Trust. The same trust connected to your father's original businesses. But the transfers aren't designed to enrich Thomas alone.”
“Who else?”
“That's what I haven't been able to prove.”
She showed him a series of payments made to a private security contractor, a shipping broker, and a medical research foundation.
The last recipient was a company called Ashcroft Biologics.
Matteo recognized the name from his father's old correspondence.
“What does a research foundation have to do with my family?”
“I don't know yet. But the same foundation paid for a private clinic where your father reportedly died.”
Matteo stared at the document.
“You think he could be alive.”
“I think somebody wants us to believe that. There's a difference.”
She closed the folder.
“There's something else. Liam wasn't taken into federal custody because he betrayed you. He was helping Walsh identify the person who had been using my name to move information out of your organization.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know whether you were safe to tell.”
The words hurt because they were true.
Matteo took a step closer, then stopped when she stiffened.
He noticed.
For the first time, he understood that restraint was not weakness. It was the smallest form of respect he could offer her.
“Tell me what you need from me,” he said.
“Your cooperation. Not your protection. Not your money. And certainly not your orders.”
“You have it.”
“Then we start with the deposit box.”
She reached into her handbag and removed a brass key.
Matteo recognized the shape immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your father sent it to my family before he died. My mother kept it hidden until she passed away.”
“Why would he give it to your family?”
Serena looked at him.
“Because my father was the last accountant who audited Vincent Falcone's private holdings before his death.”
Matteo felt the room tilt.
He had never known Serena's father had worked for his family.
“Your father died in a car accident,” he said.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
The same year Vincent Falcone had supposedly died.
Matteo looked at the key.
“Serena, what did your father discover?”
She hesitated.
Then she handed him an old photograph.
It showed Vincent Falcone standing beside a younger man with Serena's eyes and unmistakable smile.
On the back, someone had written a date and a sentence.
The children must never learn what their fathers agreed to.
Before Matteo could ask another question, Serena's phone rang.
It was Liam.
She answered.
A man's voice came through, breathless and terrified.
“Serena, don't go to the bank. It's a trap.”
A crash sounded at the other end.
Then Liam whispered three words before the call went dead.
May you like
“Your father is—”
A gunshot followed.
