Chapter 7 - What Mateo Was Hiding
Elena had imagined telling Luca the truth many times.
Never with three hundred terrified guests downstairs, Sebastian handcuffed to a chair and Mia asking whether she could have another cookie.
“Mia,” Elena said, “go with Rosa.”
“No.”
“Mia.”
“I want to hear the secret.”
“It isn’t a children’s secret.”
“Those are always the interesting ones.”
Julian unexpectedly laughed.
Sebastian glared.
Rosa carried Mia away despite protests.
Then Elena faced Luca.
“Mateo wasn’t only investigating your organization.”
“What else?”
“He was working with federal investigators.”
Julian closed his eyes.
Luca’s expression became unreadable.
“For how long?”
“Almost two years.”
“You knew?”
“Not until the last month of his life.”
Luca walked toward the window.
Elena continued because stopping would be worse.
“He wanted out. He thought if he gave them enough evidence, they could dismantle the network around Sebastian without destroying everyone connected to it.”
“Including me?”
“He thought you were different.”
Luca turned.
“You never met me.”
“Mateo did.”
That landed strangely.
“When?”
“Twice.”
Julian answered.
“After Antonio died.”
Luca looked at him.
Julian lowered his gun onto the table.
“Mateo watched you. He needed to decide whether you were continuing Antonio’s crimes or trapped inside them.”
“And?”
Elena swallowed.
“He told me you looked like a boy wearing a dead man’s coat.”
Luca’s face changed.
Because that was exactly how twenty-two had felt.
The suits.
The chair.
The men twice his age waiting for answers he did not possess.
Every morning he had worn his father’s authority like clothing tailored for someone else.
“What happened to Mateo?”
Julian looked toward Sebastian.
Sebastian smiled.
“I imagine he died.”
Elena stepped toward him.
Luca caught her arm.
“Don’t.”
“He killed my husband.”
Sebastian tilted his head.
“Did I?”
Julian stared.
“What does that mean?”
Sebastian leaned back.
“You people remain remarkably certain about death.”
Elena’s blood turned cold.
“No.”
Sebastian smiled.
“Ask yourself why the body was cremated so quickly.”
Elena remembered.
The accident.
The closed casket.
The identification made from a wallet and dental records because the car had burned.
She had been pregnant with grief.
Exhausted.
Mia barely six months old.
She had accepted what officials told her.
Luca approached Sebastian.
“Is Mateo alive?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena nearly struck him.
Then Theo entered carrying a tablet.
“You need to see this.”
Security had searched Sebastian’s temporary residence.
They found passports.
Encrypted drives.
Cash.
And surveillance photographs.
Hundreds.
Luca.
Julian.
Elena.
Mia.
One photograph had been taken nine months earlier.
A man leaving a train station in Montreal.
Baseball cap.
Beard.
Older.
But Elena knew the walk.
She sat down.
“Mateo.”
Her husband.
Alive.
The room tilted.
For three years she had mourned him.
Defended his memory.
Explained death to their daughter.
Slept beside an empty half of a bed.
And somewhere in the world he had continued walking.
Luca crouched beside her.
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“I don’t know whether to cry or kill him.”
“That seems reasonable.”
She laughed once through tears.
It sounded awful.
“Why wouldn’t he come home?”
Julian answered quietly.
“To protect you.”
Elena looked at him.
“Do not romanticize abandonment.”
Julian flinched.
“He had enemies.”
“So did I. I still raised his daughter.”
No one argued.
Because she was right.
Three days later, Sebastian was transferred into federal custody.
The gala became public scandal.
Newspapers called it an attempted assassination.
Television anchors speculated about organized crime.
Luca ignored them.
He focused on finding Mateo.
Elena focused on surviving the possibility.
Mia focused on learning to whistle.
She was terrible at it.
One evening Luca found her sitting on the kitchen counter beside a bowl of flour.
“What happened?”
“I’m helping.”
The kitchen looked as if winter had occurred indoors.
Elena stood covered in flour.
“She decided to make pancakes.”
“Without a recipe?”
Mia looked offended.
“I know pancakes.”
Luca removed his jacket.
Elena stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“You?”
“I can cook.”
She laughed.
“I’ve seen your refrigerator.”
“What does that mean?”
“It contained sparkling water, mustard and one lemon.”
“The lemon was fresh.”
“It had become philosophical.”
Mia announced, “Luca cooks.”
Elena blinked.
First name.
Mia had begun calling him Luca two days earlier.
He had not corrected her.
Thirty minutes later, the pancakes were oddly shaped but edible.
One resembled New Jersey.
Mia ate it anyway.
For a little while, nobody discussed conspiracies.
Luca realized how dangerous ordinary happiness could become.
It created things to lose.
After Mia fell asleep at the table, Elena carried her toward the apartment.
Luca followed.
At the doorway, Elena looked at him.
“Thank you.”
“For ruining pancakes?”
“For everything.”
Their eyes held.
Something had been building between them quietly.
Not passion exactly.
Recognition.
Two people who had spent years surviving different versions of abandonment.
Luca touched a streak of flour on her cheek.
Elena stopped breathing.
Then his phone rang.
She stepped back.
Of course.
Luca answered.
Theo.
“We found him.”
Elena froze.
Luca listened.
His face changed.
“Where?”
A pause.
“When?”
He looked at Elena.
“Mateo crossed the Canadian border yesterday.”
Her heart began pounding.
“Going where?”
Luca lowered the phone.
“New York.”
Elena gripped the doorframe.
“Why?”
Theo answered through speaker.
“Because someone sent him a photograph of Mia.”
Elena’s fear returned instantly.
“What photograph?”
Theo hesitated.
“The one from the dressing room.”
Mia.
In Luca’s black suit.
Standing beside him.
Someone had photographed the moment.
May you like
And beneath it, a handwritten message had been added.
Your daughter found the wrong family.
