Chapter 2 - The Man From Lisbon
My father's letter contained three paragraphs.
I read the first one twice because my mind refused to accept it.
Leandra,
If you are reading this, then Ciro Vale has done the one thing I made him swear he would do if the old agreement ever resurfaced. He has put distance between you and Chicago.
The second paragraph was worse.
Do not mistake distance for rejection. If Ciro sends you away, it means he believes keeping you close will get you killed.
By the third, my hands were shaking.
There are men in both our families who will use you to finish a war your mother and I tried to bury. Trust no one who speaks to you about the December Compact without showing you the black seal. If Rafael Lanza brings you this letter, hear him out. If Ciro is still alive, make him tell you the rest.
Dad
There was no black seal in the envelope.
Only a pressed indentation where something had once been attached.
I read the letter again.
Then I looked up.
Ciro had closed the office door.
Rafael sat in the chair opposite his desk as if he had all afternoon.
Saurin stood near the windows.
I remained by the conference table with my father's letter in my hand.
"You knew," I said.
Ciro loosened his tie.
That tiny movement told me more than any confession could have.
"Lea—"
"You knew my father left instructions involving me. You knew there was an agreement. You knew Lisbon was connected to it."
"Yes."
One word.
No excuse.
No denial.
It landed like a slap.
"And you let me spend four years thinking you sent me away because I was inconvenient."
His jaw tightened.
Rafael leaned back.
"For what it's worth, I told him that was a stupid strategy."
Ciro's eyes cut toward him.
"For what it's worth, nobody asked you to speak."
"You invited me to a meeting."
"I permitted you to enter the building. Those are different things."
Under any other circumstances, their hostility might have entertained me.
Not now.
I slapped the letter onto Ciro's desk.
"What is the December Compact?"
Ciro stared at the page.
Rafael answered.
"A peace agreement signed after six men died in forty-eight hours. Vale. Moretti. Lanza. Three families trying to stop a war none of them could afford."
"When?"
"Twelve years ago."
I calculated automatically.
I had been seventeen.
My father had died the following year in what every newspaper called a single-car accident on Lake Shore Drive.
I looked at Rafael.
"My father died eleven years ago."
"Yes."
"Was it an accident?"
Ciro said my name.
I turned on him.
"Was it?"
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
My chest went cold.
"No," he said.
The room tilted.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
For eleven years, I had carried the image of a wet road, a black sedan, a police officer at our front door, my mother's knees giving out beside the entry table.
For eleven years, I had believed bad weather and bad timing had taken my father.
"Who killed him?"
Ciro's answer came carefully.
"We never proved it."
"Who did you suspect?"
He looked at Rafael.
Rafael looked back without blinking.
"My father," Rafael said.
I stared at him.
"And yet you walked into this office carrying my father's letter."
"Because my father died before I could ask him why he had it."
"Convenient."
"Not for him."
There was no humor in his voice.
Rafael reached into the inside pocket of his coat again.
This time he moved slowly enough that no one touched a weapon.
He placed a black metal disk on Ciro's desk.
It was the size of a quarter, stamped with three marks: a V, an M, and an L around a small crown.
The black seal.
My father's words returned immediately.
Trust no one who speaks to you about the December Compact without showing you the black seal.
I looked at Ciro.
"Do you have one?"
He opened the top drawer of his desk and removed an identical disk.
My stomach dropped.
"How long?"
"Since I was twenty-three."
"And my father trusted you with it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
For the first time since Rafael arrived, Ciro hesitated.
Rafael's eyebrows lifted.
"This part," he said softly, "I would very much like to hear."
Ciro ignored him.
His eyes stayed on mine.
"Because your father thought I would protect you."
I laughed once.
It came out sharp and ugly.
"You protected me by lying to me."
"I protected you by making sure the men who wanted leverage over me believed you meant nothing to me."
The room went silent.
Even Rafael stopped moving.
I heard every word separately.
The men who wanted leverage over me.
I meant nothing to me.
I looked at Ciro, and suddenly yesterday's unfinished sentence was in the room with us.
If you walk past me one more time in that dress.
Seven years of eyes sliding past me.
Four years in Lisbon.
Three weeks back.
A pen that had gone still for forty seconds.
"Say that again," I whispered.
Ciro's expression shut down.
Too late.
I had heard him.
Rafael stood.
"I came for business, Vale, not whatever catastrophe the two of you have been calling professionalism."
"Sit down."
"No. I think Miss Moretti deserves the rest before you bury it under another decade of silence."
Ciro moved around the desk.
Saurin shifted subtly.
Not toward Rafael.
Toward Ciro.
That was when I realized he was not worried Rafael would start something.
He was worried Ciro would.
Rafael saw it too.
"Still have a temper," he said.
Ciro's voice was calm enough to be frightening.
"You have delivered the letter. Now tell me why you are in Chicago."
Rafael's face changed.
The amusement disappeared.
"Because somebody reopened the Compact."
He placed a photograph on the desk.
It showed a dead man inside a parked car.
I looked away instinctively, then forced myself to look back.
The man was maybe sixty.
Silver hair.
Dark wool coat.
A black disk rested on his chest.
"Who is he?" I asked.
"Paolo D'Amico," Rafael said. "One of the three witnesses who signed the Compact. He was killed in New Jersey eight days ago."
Another photograph.
A burned house.
"Helena Voss. Second witness. Vienna. Four days ago."
A third.
An empty apartment with blood near the door.
"Father Tomas Rizzi. Third witness. Missing since Tuesday."
My skin prickled.
"What does that have to do with me?"
Rafael looked at my father's letter.
"Each witness held part of the original record. Names, signatures, accounts, conditions. Someone is erasing everyone who can prove what happened twelve years ago."
Ciro's hand flattened on the desk.
"And you think I did it."
"I thought you might have."
"Past tense."
"Until I saw her."
Rafael nodded toward me.
"The man hunting the witnesses sent a message to Lisbon two nights ago."
My mouth went dry.
"What message?"
He took out his phone, opened a photograph, and handed it to me.
It showed a sheet of white paper on a wooden table.
Six words were typed across the center.
THE MORETTI GIRL IS BACK HOME.
Underneath was a Chicago address.
Ciro's house.
My bedroom floor number.
And a final line.
THIS TIME, VALE CANNOT SEND HER AWAY.
I looked up.
Ciro was no longer pale.
He was something worse.
Still.
Completely, terrifyingly still.
Rafael slipped his phone back into his pocket.
"That is why I came to Chicago."
Ciro turned to Saurin.
"Lock the building."
Then to me.
"You are coming home."
I folded my father's letter and put it in my pocket.
"No."
His eyes narrowed.
"Lea."
"No more commands without explanations. No more planes. No more rooms I'm told not to enter. No more protecting me by making decisions about my life while I'm standing ten feet away."
He took one step toward me.
"Someone has your address."
"Then tell me who wants me dead."
Silence.
"Tell me why my father trusted you."
Another step.
"Tell me what happened before Lisbon."
His face hardened.
"Not here."
"Why?"
A vibration sounded on the desk.
Ciro's phone.
He looked at the screen.
Everything in him changed.
He answered on speaker.
No one spoke on the other end.
Then came a man's voice, distorted electronically.
"Ciro Vale."
Ciro did not answer.
The voice continued.
"You should have let Lisbon keep her."
A gunshot exploded through the office window.
Glass burst across the room.
Ciro hit me before I understood what had happened.
Not struck me.
Hit me with his body, driving me to the floor as a second shot punched into the wall where my head had been.
Saurin drew his weapon.
Rafael overturned the desk.
People were shouting.
Alarms screamed.
Ciro covered me with his body, one hand at the back of my head.
His mouth was at my ear.
"Do not move."
I could feel his heart hammering against my shoulder.
For seven years, I had believed Ciro Vale had trained himself not to feel anything where I was concerned.
But lying under him with broken glass in my hair and a bullet in the wall, I learned the truth.
He was terrified.
May you like
Not for himself.
For me.
