Chapter 2 - The Photograph Beneath the Sole
Matteo Falcone did not repeat orders.
Everyone in the mansion knew that.
Yet when Elena refused to remove her shoe, he didn't raise his voice.
He simply stared at her.
That frightened the staff more.
“Everyone out.”
The housekeepers disappeared first.
The guards followed.
Within seconds, only Matteo, Lucia, and Elena remained in the breakfast room.
Lucia moved toward Elena.
“Daddy, don't scare her.”
Matteo's jaw tightened.
“I am not scaring her.”
“You're doing your scary face.”
“I have one face.”
“No. You have six.”
Despite everything, Elena almost laughed.
Matteo noticed.
It was the first time he'd seen anything resembling amusement on her face.
It vanished quickly.
“Elena,” he said, quieter now. “Whatever is inside that shoe made a metallic sound. You entered my home nineteen days ago. My daughter lives here. I cannot ignore that.”
“I understand.”
“Then show me.”
Elena looked toward Lucia.
“Not in front of her.”
Matteo's expression changed.
That was enough.
“Lucia, go find Rosa.”
“No.”
“Lucia.”
“I started this.”
“You're six.”
“Exactly. Nobody tells me anything.”
Elena wiped her cheek.
“It's all right.”
She placed the silver tray on the table.
Then she sat.
Her fingers shook as she untied the ruined shoe.
Matteo watched carefully.
Elena pulled it off.
Nothing happened.
Lucia leaned forward.
Elena removed her sock.
A folded piece of cardboard had been taped beneath the removable insole.
Beside it was a tiny brass key.
That was what had clicked against the marble.
Matteo frowned.
Elena peeled away the tape.
She removed the cardboard.
It wasn't cardboard.
It was a photograph.
Old.
Bent.
Nearly destroyed from years of being carried.
Elena turned it over.
Matteo stopped breathing.
The photograph showed three people standing outside a brick building beside the Chicago River.
A younger Elena.
A smiling middle-aged man.
And Matteo's father.
Salvatore Falcone.
Lucia looked at Matteo.
“Grandpa?”
Matteo took the photograph.
His father had been dead for seven years.
“What is this?”
“My father,” Elena whispered, pointing at the other man. “Daniel Carter.”
Matteo knew the name.
That was the problem.
Daniel Carter had been an accountant for Falcone Holdings.
Officially.
Unofficially, he'd handled records that never appeared on corporate servers.
And eleven years earlier, Daniel Carter had supposedly stolen $4.8 million before disappearing.
Matteo's father had ordered every connection to Carter severed.
The Falcone organization had spent months searching for him.
They never found him.
Matteo looked at Elena.
“You're Daniel Carter's daughter?”
“Yes.”
His voice hardened.
“You lied on your employment application.”
“I used my mother's last address. I didn't lie about my name.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And you deliberately entered my house.”
“Yes.”
Lucia moved closer to Elena.
Matteo saw it.
“Elena, step away from my daughter.”
The words hurt her more than he expected.
But she obeyed immediately.
Lucia didn't.
She grabbed Elena's hand.
“No.”
“Lucia.”
“She didn't hurt me.”
“You don't know what she's doing here.”
Lucia squeezed Elena's fingers.
“Then ask her.”
Matteo stared at his daughter.
Sometimes he wondered whether raising a fearless child had been a catastrophic parenting error.
He looked at Elena again.
“What is the key for?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not an acceptable answer.”
“It's the only answer I have.”
She took a slow breath.
“My father gave me those shoes eleven years ago.”
Matteo looked down.
“That pair?”
“They belonged to my mother. After she died, Dad repaired them for me even though they were too big. The night he disappeared, he woke me around two in the morning.”
Elena's voice trembled.
“He put the photograph and key beneath the insole. He told me never to let anyone find them. He said if anything happened to him, I was supposed to find Salvatore Falcone.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said Salvatore would know the truth.”
Matteo's face became unreadable.
“My father died seven years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then why come here now?”
“Because three weeks ago, somebody broke into my apartment.”
Matteo went still.
“They didn't take my laptop. Didn't take the cash in my kitchen. Didn't take jewelry.”
“What did they take?”
“Every photograph I had of my father.”
A cold silence settled over the room.
“And two days later,” Elena continued, “I received an envelope.”
“From whom?”
“No return address.”
“What was inside?”
“One sentence.”
She looked directly at him.
“Daniel Carter didn't steal from the Falcones. He died protecting one.”
Matteo's expression barely moved.
Lucia whispered, “Protecting who?”
Elena looked at her.
Then at Matteo.
“I don't know.”
Matteo examined the photograph.
His father and Daniel stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling like friends.
Salvatore Falcone rarely smiled in photographs.
Matteo turned it over.
There was handwriting on the back.
He recognized his father's immediately.
Daniel — if anything happens to me, the girl must never know what her father did for us.
Matteo read it twice.
Then a third time.
“The girl,” Elena whispered. “I always thought he meant me.”
Matteo's eyes lifted.
“So did I.”
Lucia pointed toward the photograph.
“What's that?”
Near the lower corner, almost hidden by a crease, was a number.
Matteo knew it instantly.
His father had owned hundreds of properties.
But there was only one place Matteo remembered being associated with that number.
Union Station.
Locker 417.
He had been there once as a teenager.
His father had told him never to ask about it.
Matteo reached for his phone.
Then stopped.
If Daniel Carter had been framed, somebody inside the Falcone organization had done it.
And if that person was still alive, calling his own men might be the worst thing Matteo could do.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“Who knows you're Daniel Carter's daughter?”
“Nobody here.”
“Outside?”
“My aunt. She died last year.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don't think so.”
Matteo looked toward the doorway.
Someone had been standing there moments earlier.
Someone had heard Lucia mention the shoes.
Possibly someone had heard the metallic click.
His instincts screamed.
“Lucia.”
“Yes?”
“Go upstairs with Rosa. Now.”
This time, something in his voice made her obey.
She hugged Elena unexpectedly before leaving.
“Your shoes aren't ugly anymore.”
Elena blinked.
Lucia smiled.
“They're secret shoes.”
Then she disappeared into the hallway.
Matteo waited until her footsteps faded.
“Elena, listen carefully. You will tell no one about the photograph or key.”
She nodded.
“You will not leave this estate without me.”
Her eyes widened.
“Am I a prisoner?”
“No.”
“Sounds like it.”
“It means somebody may have been searching for that key for eleven years.”
Matteo slipped the photograph into his jacket.
Elena immediately reached for it.
“Give that back.”
He looked at her.
“It belonged to my father.”
“And mine.”
Their eyes locked.
For the first time, Matteo saw something beneath Elena's fear.
Defiance.
He handed it back.
Then a gunshot shattered the breakfast-room window.
Matteo moved before the glass hit the floor.
He slammed Elena down behind the marble island and covered her with his body.
A second bullet struck the wall exactly where Elena's head had been.
Matteo drew his pistol.
Guards thundered through the hallway.
But Elena wasn't looking at the shattered window.
May you like
She was staring at her shoe.
The tiny brass key was gone.
