Chapter 3 - Sylvia’s Secret
Victor found Sylvia at 7:12 a.m.
She was sitting alone inside a nearly empty diner on the South Side.
The snow had reduced traffic to almost nothing.
She was wearing a black coat and drinking coffee.
She looked completely calm.
Victor entered the diner with two men behind him.
Every conversation stopped.
Sylvia looked up.
“You came.”
Victor sat across from her.
“Where is my wife?”
Sylvia took another sip of coffee.
“I don’t know.”
“You were seen with her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She came to me.”
Victor leaned forward.
“What did she say?”
“That she thought you were cheating on her.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Were we?”
Sylvia gave him a tired look.
“No.”
Victor stared at her.
“Then why am I smelling like you?”
“Because you hugged me.”
“I did not hug you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I would remember.”
“You were bleeding.”
Silence.
Sylvia reached into her purse and placed a photograph on the table.
Victor looked down.
The photograph showed him standing beside Sylvia outside a warehouse.
There was blood on his sleeve.
Sylvia’s arms were around him.
His face was pale.
The image had been taken from a distance.
It looked intimate.
Victor remembered the night.
He had been attacked.
A man had tried to stab him.
Sylvia had dragged him into a car and pressed a towel against the wound.
He had blacked out for several minutes.
He had never told Nora.
He had not told anyone.
“How did this get into circulation?” he asked.
Sylvia looked at him.
“Because someone wanted your wife to see it.”
Victor’s expression changed.
“Who?”
“Enzo.”
The name hit like a gunshot.
Victor leaned back.
“No.”
Sylvia opened her purse again.
This time she removed a folder.
Bank transfers.
Phone records.
Warehouse security logs.
And copies of internal documents.
Victor scanned them.
Millions of dollars moved through shell companies.
Payments to security contractors.
Private investigators.
Doctors.
Two judges.
A hospital administrator.
And one recurring transfer.
Every Thursday.
To an account controlled by Enzo Bellini.
Victor’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“How long?”
“Almost a year.”
Victor continued reading.
Then he saw another document.
A medical file.
Leo and Mia Rinaldi.
His hands froze.
“Why does Enzo have my children’s medical records?”
Sylvia looked away.
“That is why I called you last night.”
“You called me?”
“I told you to come to the warehouse.”
Victor’s mind raced.
Then he remembered.
Sylvia had said, “There is a mole close to you.”
He had gone.
Someone had shot at him.
Then the pain.
Then Sylvia.
Then the hospital.
Then home.
And he had forgotten his phone in the car.
He reached inside his coat.
The phone was gone.
Sylvia saw his expression.
“They took it.”
“Who?”
“I think Enzo has someone inside your private security team.”
Victor stood.
“I am going to kill him.”
Sylvia grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
Victor looked down.
“That is exactly what he wants.”
He slowly sat again.
She continued.
“Enzo has been feeding information to Dante Moretti.”
Victor’s face became stone.
Dante Moretti.
His father’s oldest enemy.
A man whose organization had been dismantled fifteen years earlier.
Victor had always believed Dante disappeared.
Apparently, he had been waiting.
“What does Dante want?”
Sylvia’s eyes hardened.
“Not your money.”
“What, then?”
“Control.”
She opened another file.
Inside was a photograph of a document signed by Victor’s father.
A trust.
One Victor had never seen.
Sylvia pointed to a clause.
“If Victor dies or becomes incapacitated, control of the Rinaldi shipping network transfers to…”
Victor read the name.
Enzo Bellini.
He looked up.
“He was named successor.”
“Yes.”
“My father trusted him.”
“Your father trusted him because Enzo was the one who gave him the idea.”
Victor stood.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he walked outside.
Mateo was waiting.
Victor got into the car.
“Do not contact Nora.”
Mateo turned.
“You said find her.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Boss?”
Victor looked out at the snow.
“If Enzo can access her communications, every move we make could lead him to her.”
Mateo stared.
“What do you want to do?”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Nothing.”
Mateo blinked.
“Nothing?”
“No surveillance. No threats. No men at her location.”
“That goes against everything you believe.”
Victor looked at him.
“My wife ran because she thought she had to escape me.”
He paused.
“I am not going to prove her right.”
That afternoon, Victor did something almost no one in Chicago had ever seen him do.
He asked for help.
Not from a gunman.
Not from a judge.
Not from a politician.
From a pediatrician.
Dr. Hannah Reeves had treated the twins since birth.
Victor arrived alone.
“Doctor,” he said, “if someone wanted to keep premature babies alive without access to a major hospital, what would they need?”
She studied him.
“Why?”
“My wife left.”
Dr. Reeves understood immediately.
“They need medication, a stable temperature, feeding equipment, oxygen if necessary, and monitoring.”
“Where would someone go?”
“Someplace isolated but near a medical road.”
Victor looked down.
Helen Calloway.
An old house.
Snow.
Isolation.
A woman who knew his family.
He suddenly understood.
Nora had not disappeared randomly.
She had followed a plan.
And Victor knew exactly where to start looking.
May you like
Not for her.
For the people who had forced her to run.
