Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO KNEW THE TRUTH
“Look at me.”
Aloyio didn’t.
Martina stood in the wreckage of the penthouse while alarms screamed around them.
“Look at me!”
His eyes finally met hers.
“What did you know about my father?”
Dante stepped between them.
“Not now.”
Martina pointed the stolen pistol directly at his chest.
“Move.”
Dante looked at Aloyio.
Aloyio nodded once.
Dante moved.
“My father,” Martina repeated.
Aloyio wiped blood from his cheek where flying glass had cut him.
“Vincenzo contacted me six days before the fire.”
Martina felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“You told me you found my identity after seeing me at the bar.”
“I lied.”
The honesty was almost insulting.
Martina’s finger tightened around the trigger.
“Why?”
“Because if I had walked into that bar and told you the truth, you would have disappeared.”
“What truth?”
Aloyio reached inside his jacket.
Dante tensed.
Aloyio removed an old brass key.
Martina recognized it immediately.
Her father had worn it around his neck for years.
She crossed the room and snatched it from Aloyio’s hand.
“Where did you get this?”
“From Vincenzo.”
“No.”
“He gave it to me.”
“No.”
“The night before he died.”
Her hand struck Aloyio’s face.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Aloyio slowly turned his head back toward her.
He could have punished the insult.
Instead he said, “You deserved that one.”
“Tell me everything.”
So he did.
Years earlier, Vincenzo had discovered that the Marchetti organization he served had formed a secret alliance with corrupt financiers, port officials, and members of rival families. Their goal was not simply money.
They wanted control of the ports from Providence to Baltimore.
Vincenzo had collected evidence.
Ledgers.
Recordings.
Names.
He intended to trade that evidence for immunity and disappear with his family.
But somebody discovered his plan.
“The Calibris were hired to burn the house,” Aloyio said. “They were contractors, not architects.”
“Who hired them?”
“I never knew.”
Martina laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
“Your father didn’t trust me enough to give me the name.”
“But he trusted you with this?”
She held up the key.
“He said if his daughters survived, one of them would eventually come looking for the truth.”
Martina stared at the brass key.
“What does it open?”
“I’ve spent three years trying to find out.”
The answer came from Sophia.
“A music box.”
Everyone turned.
Sophia stood in the hallway.
Her face was pale.
“What?”
“Dad’s music box,” she said. “The walnut one Mom hated.”
Martina remembered it.
A carved wooden box in their father’s study.
It had supposedly burned with everything else.
Sophia swallowed.
“It didn’t burn.”
Martina stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I have it.”
Three hours later they were inside a storage facility outside Newark.
Sophia had hidden the box there after receiving it anonymously eight months earlier.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because every conversation we had was you telling me where to go, what name to use, and when to disappear.”
Sophia’s voice cracked.
“You never asked me anything.”
Martina had no defense.
She inserted the key.
Click.
The false bottom opened.
Inside sat a flash drive.
And a photograph.
Martina picked it up.
Her father stood beside several men at a charity dinner.
One was Carlo Tuscono.
Aloyio’s uncle.
On the back, Vincenzo had written:
If anything happens to me, follow the money. Never trust the man who benefits from both sides.
Dante cursed.
Aloyio remained expressionless.
But Martina saw the hurt.
Carlo had raised him after his own father died.
“Could be planted,” Dante said.
“It could,” Martina agreed.
They opened the flash drive.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn’t.
A video.
Vincenzo appeared on-screen.
Martina stopped breathing.
Her father looked older than she remembered.
Tired.
“If Martina is watching this,” he began, “then I failed.”
Her eyes burned.
“I taught you how to survive enemies, sweetheart. I never taught you how to survive becoming like me.”
Martina covered her mouth.
Aloyio quietly stepped away.
Vincenzo continued.
“There is a consortium inside our world. They manufacture wars, then purchase whatever remains. The families believe they are fighting each other. They are being harvested.”
Names appeared.
Politicians.
Shipping executives.
Judges.
Then the recording glitched.
The final section was corrupted.
But before it disappeared, Martina saw a symbol.
A black rook.
She knew it.
She had seen it recently.
On Victor Sanz’s cuff links.
They found Victor before dawn.
Dead.
His body sat behind his office desk.
A black rook rested inside his mouth.
Dante stared.
“So he was involved.”
“No,” Martina said.
She walked closer.
Victor’s computer had been wiped.
His safe stood open.
But the room was wrong.
Too deliberate.
“He was framed.”
Aloyio studied her.
“How can you know?”
“Because somebody wants us to stop looking.”
A phone buzzed.
Victor’s.
Martina picked it up.
A message from an unknown number.
MIDNIGHT. RUSTY ANCHOR. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO ORDERED THE FIRE.
Aloyio immediately said, “No.”
Martina looked at him.
“That wasn’t a question.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“Then you’re not going.”
She almost smiled.
“You don’t give me orders.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“I survived before I met you.”
“Barely.”
That hit harder than intended.
Martina stepped closer.
“And you think because you dragged Sophia into your penthouse and handed me twenty thousand dollars, suddenly you own the right to decide what happens to me?”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“I think your father asked me to protect you, and I already failed him once.”
Martina’s anger stopped.
“What?”
Aloyio realized his mistake too late.
“Failed him how?”
He said nothing.
Martina understood.
“You were there.”
His silence answered.
“The night of the fire,” she whispered. “You were there.”
“I arrived after it started.”
“You saw the house burning?”
“Yes.”
“You saw me?”
Aloyio’s face changed.
“No.”
“Then what did you see?”
His answer came quietly.
“Your father.”
Martina’s heart stopped.
“He was alive when I reached him.”
She could barely speak.
“What were his last words?”
Aloyio looked at her for a long moment.
May you like
Then he destroyed the memory she had carried for three years.
“Martina,” he said, “your father didn’t die in that fire.”
