Chapter 5 - The Little Boss Conducts an Investigation
By nine the next morning, Mia had formed her own security department.
It consisted of herself, a stuffed rabbit named Captain Pickles and Rosa’s elderly dachshund.
Their headquarters was beneath the grand staircase.
Their equipment included a plastic magnifying glass, two crayons and a stolen walkie-talkie.
Elena discovered them during breakfast.
“No.”
Mia looked up.
“You don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re holding Mr. Valente’s security radio.”
“It found me.”
“Elena.”
Luca’s voice came from behind her.
She turned.
He stood halfway across the foyer.
Mia immediately hid the radio behind her back.
Luca approached.
“Is that mine?”
“No.”
“It has my name on it.”
Mia examined it.
“Maybe another Luca.”
“There is no other Luca in the house.”
“That seems lonely.”
Elena pressed her lips together.
Luca looked at her.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
Mia climbed from beneath the staircase.
“I’m investigating the bird.”
The atmosphere changed.
Elena crouched.
“You are doing nothing of the kind.”
“But grown-ups are bad at it.”
“That is—”
Luca interrupted.
“Why do you think that?”
Mia pointed toward the conference room.
“Because Bird Man is still here.”
Luca’s gaze sharpened.
Julian had arrived ten minutes earlier.
“How do you know?”
“I saw his car.”
Luca studied her.
Children noticed things adults filtered out.
“What else do you notice?”
Elena stood.
“Do not recruit my daughter.”
“I’m asking a question.”
“You sound exactly like someone recruiting my daughter.”
Mia raised her hand.
“I volunteer.”
“No.”
Luca almost smiled.
Then Julian appeared.
“Am I interrupting?”
Mia stepped behind Elena.
That tiny movement told Luca more than any answer.
Julian noticed it too.
For the first time in ten years, Luca saw uncertainty in his adviser’s eyes.
“Conference room,” Luca said.
Julian followed.
Before entering, Mia called after them.
“Don’t lie!”
Julian stopped.
Luca turned.
Mia crossed her arms.
“It makes your nose weird.”
Elena whispered, “Mia.”
Julian touched his nose unconsciously.
Luca nearly laughed.
The conference-room doors closed.
Luca placed one photographed ledger page on the table.
Julian did not react.
Then another.
Still nothing.
Then the photograph of the Hawk Circle.
Julian sat very still.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mateo Reyes.”
Julian’s composure cracked.
“Mateo is dead.”
“So is my father.”
“Luca—”
“Why was Elena’s husband part of the Circle?”
“He wasn’t.”
“The photograph disagrees.”
“He worked for us briefly.”
“Doing what?”
Julian looked toward the windows.
Luca waited.
Finally Julian said, “Finding traitors.”
The answer changed everything.
“Mateo was an auditor?”
“More than that.”
“What?”
“A ghost.”
Luca frowned.
Julian explained.
Antonio Valente had suspected someone inside the organization was stealing money and selling information.
He needed someone young.
Unknown.
Someone outside the established families.
Mateo Reyes was brilliant with numbers and invisible to powerful men.
So Antonio recruited him secretly.
“And the ring?”
“Temporary identification.”
“Why did Mateo keep investigating after my father died?”
Julian looked at him.
“Because he didn’t believe Antonio’s death was natural.”
Luca’s face became stone.
Officially Antonio Valente had suffered a massive heart attack.
Luca had never questioned it.
He had been twenty-two.
Grieving.
Overwhelmed.
Dependent on Julian.
“Was it?”
Julian said nothing.
Luca stood slowly.
“Was my father murdered?”
“Yes.”
The word was almost gentle.
Luca heard nothing for several seconds.
Some truths arrive like explosions.
Others enter silently and reorganize everything you thought you knew.
“Who?”
“We never proved it.”
“You knew for ten years?”
“Yes.”
Luca struck the table.
The sound shook the room.
Outside, Elena heard it.
Mia looked up from Captain Pickles.
“Angry eyebrows.”
Inside, Luca’s voice dropped.
“You let me bury him believing his body betrayed him.”
“I let you live.”
“Explain.”
“Your father discovered a conspiracy extending beyond the family. Judges. Shipping unions. Police. Politicians. If twenty-two-year-old Luca Valente had announced an investigation, you would have been dead within a week.”
“So you lied.”
“I protected you.”
“Those are not always different.”
Julian removed the hawk ring.
For the first time Luca had ever seen, his smallest finger was bare.
“Mateo continued the investigation for me.”
Elena entered.
Neither man had heard the door.
Her face had gone white.
“For you?”
Julian stood.
“Elena—”
“My husband died working for you?”
“No.”
She approached.
“Do not choose your next word carelessly.”
Julian swallowed.
“Mateo stopped working for me seven months before his death.”
“Why?”
“Because he found the crown.”
Luca looked between them.
“What is it?”
Julian’s eyes shifted toward him.
“The person above the Hawk Circle.”
Luca remembered the ledger.
Hawk.
Crown.
“Who?”
Julian hesitated.
That hesitation destroyed whatever trust remained.
“Say it.”
Julian reached inside his jacket.
Luca’s hand moved toward his weapon.
Elena stepped back.
Julian slowly removed a folded piece of paper.
Not a gun.
A letter.
He placed it on the table.
“Your father wrote this the night before he died.”
Luca unfolded it.
Three lines.
Antonio’s handwriting.
If anything happens to me, do not let Luca become me.
Burn the empire before the empire burns him.
And never trust Sebastian.
Luca looked up.
“My uncle is dead.”
Julian’s expression carried no humor.
“No.”
The room seemed suddenly colder.
“He isn’t.”
Elena whispered, “Then where is he?”
Julian looked toward the photograph.
“We don’t know.”
A small voice came from beneath the conference table.
“I do.”
Every adult froze.
Luca slowly looked down.
Mia crawled out holding Captain Pickles.
Elena’s face became pure horror.
“MIA.”
“I was investigating.”
“How long have you been under there?”
“I don’t know time.”
Luca rubbed his forehead.
“Of course.”
Mia pointed at Sebastian’s photograph.
“I saw him.”
Silence returned.
Julian crouched.
“When?”
Mia looked at Elena.
“At the park.”
Elena’s stomach dropped.
“What park?”
“The duck park.”
They went there every Sunday.
Mia continued.
“He gave me candy.”
Elena stopped breathing.
“And he said Mama looked just like the picture.”
Julian’s face lost all color.
Luca asked softly, “What picture?”
Mia shrugged.
“He didn’t show me.”
Then she frowned.
“He said he’d see us at the party.”
“What party?”
Mia smiled.
“The one tomorrow.”
Tomorrow night, Luca was hosting three hundred people at the Valente Foundation gala.
Politicians.
Business leaders.
Judges.
Old families.
The largest gathering of Luca’s network all year.
Julian stood.
“That isn’t a gala.”
Luca understood.
“It’s a target.”
And suddenly Mia’s ridiculous investigation no longer seemed funny.
Someone had been watching Elena.
Watching Mia.
May you like
Watching Luca.
And whoever had waited ten years to return had chosen tomorrow night to walk through the front door.
