Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE
By sunrise, Marco Bellini was gone.
That was the first problem.
The second was that he had taken one of Carmine's security cars.
The third was that every exterior camera covering the rear alley had been erased between 2:41 and 3:08 a.m.
Carmine stood in the security room watching the blank footage.
Leo stood beside him.
“No one touched the system from outside,” Leo said.
“Then someone touched it from inside.”
Leo's expression tightened.
“Marco?”
“Maybe.”
Carmine hated maybe.
He preferred facts.
“Where's Ivy?”
“Upstairs. Room eleven.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
Carmine turned.
“Who is with her?”
“Mrs. Rossi's former housekeeper.”
Carmine stared at Leo.
“I didn't authorize that.”
“Neither did I.”
That answer changed everything.
They hurried upstairs.
Ivy's door was open.
The room was empty.
The window was unlocked.
Carmine's face went cold.
He walked inside.
On the bed lay Ivy's folded uniform.
Beside it was a piece of paper.
Three words were written across it.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.
Leo whispered a curse.
Carmine grabbed the note.
“Lock every gate.”
“Already done.”
“Search the grounds.”
“Already doing it.”
Carmine looked toward the window.
Then stopped.
Something didn't make sense.
Ivy was terrified of Marco.
If Marco had come for her, why leave a note?
Why risk being seen?
Why leave evidence?
Unless the note wasn't from Marco.
Carmine turned.
“Who found the room?”
“Security.”
“Who touched the note?”
“No one.”
“Good.”
Carmine placed it inside an evidence sleeve.
Then he noticed something else.
A small smear of red lipstick on the doorframe.
Ivy didn't wear lipstick.
He stared at it.
“Leo.”
“Yes?”
“Find out who visited this hallway between midnight and four.”
Leo nodded.
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
An hour later, the estate was surrounded by men.
No one found Ivy.
Carmine returned to the kitchen.
He stood where she had cried.
On the floor beside the sink was a tiny silver pendant.
He picked it up.
There was a photograph inside.
A woman.
Older.
Smiling.
Ivy's mother.
On the back were four handwritten words.
You were right about him.
Carmine's pulse slowed.
Who was “him”?
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man's voice said:
“You're looking for the wrong person.”
Carmine's eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?”
“You think Marco attacked the maid.”
“I know he did.”
“No.”
The caller laughed softly.
“Marco found her first.”
Carmine said nothing.
The voice continued.
“She wasn't supposed to survive.”
Carmine's grip tightened around the phone.
“Explain.”
“Ivy Hayes has been lying to you.”
Carmine's eyes darkened.
“About what?”
A pause.
“Everything.”
The call ended.
Carmine immediately ordered the number traced.
Nothing.
Burner phone.
He looked down at the pendant again.
Then he noticed a tiny inscription beneath the photograph.
A hospital name.
St. Vincent's.
Carmine's mind began connecting pieces.
Ivy's mother had died two years earlier.
Why would her pendant contain a warning about a man?
And why had Ivy never mentioned it?
He called Leo.
“Find every hospital record connected to Ivy Hayes's mother.”
Leo hesitated.
“Boss, that's private medical information.”
“Find it.”
“Understood.”
Twenty minutes later, Leo returned.
His face was different.
“What?”
“There was something unusual.”
“What?”
“Her mother wasn't treated only for illness.”
Carmine waited.
“She was a witness.”
“To what?”
Leo swallowed.
“A murder.”
Carmine stared at him.
“Whose?”
Leo placed a file on the table.
“Your father's.”
Carmine went completely still.
His father had been murdered twenty years earlier.
The official story had always been that a rival family ordered it.
Carmine had spent half his life believing that.
He opened the file.
Inside was a handwritten statement from Ivy's mother.
One sentence had been underlined.
The man who ordered the killing was inside the Rossi family.
Carmine looked at the signature.
Then at the date.
Two weeks before her death, Ivy's mother had tried to reveal the truth.
Someone had stopped her.
And now Ivy was missing.
Carmine closed the file.
“Find her.”
Leo nodded.
“Alive?”
Carmine looked toward the dark hallway.
“Alive.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“And whoever took her…”
May you like
He slipped the pendant into his pocket.
“…is going to regret leaving me clues.”
