Chapter 2 - The Man Who Came AloneThe man who stepped out of the car did not look like the four who had searched the diner.
That frightened Delaney more.
He wore no suit.
No visible weapon.
No earpiece.
Just a charcoal wool coat over a black shirt, dark trousers, and rain on shoulders broad enough to nearly fill the doorway when he entered.
He was perhaps thirty-eight. Maybe forty. Dark hair, slightly too long at the collar. A scar disappeared beneath his left ear. His face was controlled in a way that suggested control had become survival long ago.
He did not look around the diner.
He looked directly at the old woman.
She stopped breathing.
Delaney moved between them.
The stranger stopped.
Something changed in his expression.
Not surprise that Delaney had challenged him.
Surprise that anyone had.
“Move,” he said quietly.
“No.”
The diner owner disappeared into the kitchen.
Delaney noticed.
Wonderful.
She had officially become the entire security department.
The stranger looked past her.
“Mrs. Moretti.”
Delaney felt the old woman stiffen.
There it was.
A name.
“Do you know him?” Delaney asked.
The old woman stared at the stranger.
“Yes.”
That did not answer the important question.
“Do you trust him?”
Silence.
The man’s jaw tightened.
“Mrs. Moretti, Gabriel has half the state looking for you.”
The woman flinched at the name.
Delaney saw it.
The stranger saw Delaney see it.
“Who’s Gabriel?” she asked.
The old woman whispered, “My son.”
The stranger took one step closer.
Delaney did not move.
He stared at her for several seconds before saying, “You have absolutely no idea what you stepped into tonight.”
“Probably.”
“You lied to armed men.”
“Yes.”
“You hid someone they were searching for.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re standing between me and her.”
Delaney folded her arms.
“You’re catching on.”
For the first time, something almost human crossed his face.
Almost amusement.
It disappeared immediately.
“My name is Thomas Bellini. I’ve worked for her family for twenty-six years.”
The old woman finally spoke.
“Show her.”
Thomas reached slowly inside his coat.
Delaney’s muscles tightened.
He withdrew a photograph.
It was old, edges softened from years of handling.
A family stood outside a large stone house. The woman beside Delaney was perhaps thirty years younger, elegant and smiling.
Beside her stood two boys.
One was maybe fifteen.
The other perhaps ten.
“That’s Gabriel,” Thomas said, indicating the older boy.
Delaney looked at the woman.
“Why were those men looking for you?”
Thomas answered.
“We don’t know.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
The old woman stood.
“My name is Teresa Moretti.”
Her voice had changed.
The frightened stranger in wet clothes was still there, but beneath her Delaney suddenly saw someone else—a woman accustomed to being heard.
“Three nights ago, someone tried to kill my driver.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
Teresa continued.
“We were returning from Newport. A truck forced us off the road. My driver told me to run.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas looked away.
Teresa saw it.
“Thomas.”
“He’s alive.”
The old woman sagged with relief.
“But whoever attacked you knew your route.”
Thomas looked toward the windows.
“That information existed among only six people.”
Teresa’s relief vanished.
“One of Gabriel’s?”
“Possibly.”
Delaney understood now.
Teresa had not been running from her son.
She had been running from a traitor close enough to wear his colors.
Thomas turned toward Delaney.
“You need to come with us.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“That makes it an easier no.”
His eyebrows rose.
Teresa almost smiled.
Then Thomas said something that erased all humor.
“The men who came in here saw your face.”
Delaney looked toward the window.
“They believed she was my mother.”
“Exactly.”
The meaning settled slowly.
Whoever was hunting Teresa might now believe Delaney was connected to her.
“I have an apartment.”
“Not anymore.”
Delaney stared at him.
Thomas placed another object on the table.
A photograph.
This one had been taken perhaps twenty minutes earlier.
Delaney recognized her apartment building.
A black SUV was parked outside.
Her stomach dropped.
“How did you get that?”
“One of our people is watching your address.”
“You had somebody go to my home?”
“We identified you after the diner’s employee schedule was checked.”
“You did that in twenty minutes?”
Thomas looked at her as if the question were strange.
“This is what we do.”
Delaney hated how calmly he said it.
She thought about the yellow envelope in her kitchen drawer.
The overdue rent.
The eviction notice.
The photograph of her mother she kept beside the window.
Everything she owned was inside that apartment.
Which suddenly felt impossibly far away.
Teresa touched her wrist.
“Come with me.”
Delaney looked at her.
“I’m not joining the mafia because I gave somebody socks.”
Thomas actually coughed.
Teresa’s mouth twitched.
“Neither am I asking you to.”
“What exactly are you asking?”
“For one safe night.”
Delaney stared at the old woman.
Then at Thomas.
Then at the rain.
She should have walked away.
Instead, twenty minutes later, she was sitting in the back of Thomas Bellini’s sedan beside Teresa Moretti while Providence disappeared behind sheets of rain.
They drove north.
No one explained where.
After fifteen minutes, Teresa fell asleep against the window.
Delaney removed her jacket and placed it over her.
Thomas watched through the rearview mirror.
“You do that a lot?”
“What?”
“Take care of strangers.”
Delaney looked outside.
“No.”
“You did tonight.”
“She needed help.”
“That answer can get you killed around people like us.”
“Then maybe people like you need better answers.”
Thomas was silent after that.
Thirty minutes later, iron gates appeared.
Beyond them stood a mansion of dark stone and glass overlooking Narragansett Bay.
Cars lined the circular drive.
Men with weapons stood beneath the portico.
And in the center of them was one man.
He did not move when their car arrived.
He wore a black suit without a tie.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark hair swept back from a face that seemed carved for anger.
Thomas parked.
Teresa woke.
The man outside approached before the engine stopped.
Thomas whispered, “Gabriel.”
The rear door opened.
Teresa barely had time to step out before Gabriel Moretti pulled his mother into his arms.
The feared man Delaney had not yet heard named aloud by anyone outside that car held his mother as though the world had nearly ended.
For five seconds, he was simply a son.
Then his eyes lifted.
They landed on Delaney.
His expression changed.
“Who is she?”
Teresa stepped away from him.
“The reason I’m alive.”
Gabriel stared at Delaney.
Thomas came around the car.
“She hid Mrs. Moretti from Russo’s search team.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“Russo?”
“That’s the problem.”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“They weren’t Russo’s men.”
Gabriel went still.
“Then whose were they?”
Thomas looked toward the armed men surrounding the house.
“We think they were ours.”
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel slowly looked at every guard standing beneath his roof.
Then back at his mother.
And Delaney understood why Teresa had been afraid.
May you like
The enemy had not been outside the Moretti family.
The enemy was already inside the gates.
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