Chapter 4 - THE MAN IN THE SNOW
I had spent most of my adult life around dangerous men.
Nothing had ever frightened me like hearing my daughter's voice in darkness.
“Lily!”
Sophia moved first.
I caught her arm.
“Stay behind me.”
Emergency lights flickered on.
The sofa was empty.
Lily had been sleeping there seconds earlier.
A side door stood open.
Cold air pushed into the library.
Snow blew across the marble floor.
I drew the pistol beneath my jacket.
Enzo was already moving.
“Lock the property.”
Sophia's face went white.
“Lily!”
We ran outside.
Small footprints crossed the terrace.
Then larger ones.
My blood went cold.
They led toward the greenhouse.
I followed them through the snow.
The greenhouse door slammed open before I reached it.
A man emerged holding Lily.
My gun came up.
“Put her down.”
“Dominic!”
Lily wasn't struggling.
She looked confused rather than frightened.
The man holding her was approximately sixty, gray-haired, wearing a catering jacket.
I recognized him.
Carlo Vitale.
Isabella's uncle.
He had spent thirty years managing the Vitale family's legitimate businesses.
And considerably less legitimate ones.
Isabella came running behind us.
“Uncle Carlo?”
His expression changed when he saw her.
“This wasn't supposed to happen.”
“What wasn't?”
Carlo looked at Lily.
The child's backpack hung from his shoulder.
I understood.
“The documents.”
He smiled faintly.
“Your mother should have burned them.”
Victoria arrived with Enzo.
When she saw Carlo, something passed between them.
Recognition.
Not surprise.
“You,” I said to my mother. “Again?”
Victoria shook her head.
“No.”
Carlo laughed.
“Tell him.”
“Carlo, stop.”
“Tell him who suggested Sophia disappear.”
I stared at Victoria.
She said nothing.
Carlo shifted Lily.
My finger tightened against the trigger.
“Put my daughter down.”
He looked at me sharply.
So did Lily.
My daughter.
The words had escaped before I could stop them.
Lily stared at me.
“Mommy?”
Sophia was crying silently behind me.
Carlo slowly lowered Lily.
She ran toward Sophia.
I waited until Sophia had her before crossing the distance and driving Carlo against the greenhouse wall.
Enzo took the backpack.
I searched Carlo and found a small pistol.
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody.”
“Why steal the file?”
“Because what's inside destroys more than your mother.”
Isabella stared at him.
“What did you do?”
Carlo's smile disappeared.
“Your father and I were negotiating an alliance with the Morettis four years ago. Dominic marrying Sophia would have destroyed it.”
“There was no engagement agreement four years ago,” I said.
“No. There was a business agreement.”
I remembered.
My father had wanted Moretti shipping routes combined with Vitale port contracts.
After his death, negotiations collapsed.
Carlo looked at Victoria.
“She needed Sophia gone. We needed Dominic unattached.”
Victoria whispered, “I never agreed to violence.”
Sophia went still.
“What violence?”
Carlo realized he'd said too much.
I grabbed his collar.
“What violence?”
He smiled.
“You really think she moved because of a conversation?”
Sophia's hand covered her mouth.
I remembered a detail I'd ignored.
Sophia had disappeared on Friday.
On Thursday night, a car had nearly struck her outside her apartment.
She'd mentioned it once.
I had assumed it was an accident.
I looked at Victoria.
Her face told me she knew.
“Carlo arranged it,” she said.
Sophia recoiled.
“You knew?”
“Not beforehand.”
“But afterward?”
Victoria nodded.
“I confronted him.”
“And then?”
“I made sure he never went near you again.”
Carlo laughed.
“She paid me.”
Victoria slapped him.
The sound echoed through the greenhouse.
“I paid you to dissolve the agreement and stay away from her.”
“Same difference.”
“No,” Victoria said. “It isn't.”
For once, I believed her.
Carlo had exploited my mother's fear.
But Victoria had opened the door.
Isabella stared at her uncle as though she'd never seen him before.
“You used me.”
Carlo looked at her.
“You were supposed to marry Dominic.”
“I loved him.”
“That's irrelevant.”
She flinched.
I understood Isabella differently in that moment.
She had been another piece on someone else's board.
Maybe that was why she'd brought Sophia into my house.
Not cruelty.
Rebellion.
Enzo opened Lily's backpack.
The documents were inside.
So was something else.
A sealed envelope.
Sophia saw it.
Her face changed.
“No.”
I took it.
My name was written across the front in handwriting I recognized immediately.
Sophia's.
“The letter?”
She nodded.
“The one I sent four years ago.”
“How did you get it back?”
“Victoria mailed it to me.”
I looked at my mother.
She lowered her head.
I could have opened it.
Instead, I handed it back to Sophia.
“You wrote it to the man I was then.”
Her eyes met mine.
“I'd rather hear what you want to tell me now.”
Something softened in her expression.
It lasted only a second.
Then police sirens sounded beyond the gates.
Enzo frowned.
“I didn't call them.”
Neither had I.
Carlo smiled.
That was when I understood.
He had never expected to escape.
He had expected someone else to arrive.
Enzo's phone rang again.
He listened.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“Federal agents.”
I stared at Carlo.
His smile widened.
“Those documents aren't the only reason I came tonight.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you do?”
Carlo looked toward the mansion.
“I gave them something much better.”
May you like
He nodded toward my father's study.
“Your books.”
