Chapter 5 - The Enemy at Alexander’s Table
Alexander refused pain medication until he had read every file on the flash drive.
The doctor called him impossible.
Marcus called him worse.
I said nothing.
I understood obsession.
Once numbers begin forming a pattern, it is almost impossible to look away.
For the next six hours, we worked around a conference table inside Marcus’s secure office in Milwaukee. No Moretti computers. No Moretti phones. No Moretti network.
Alexander sat across from me with his shirt replaced, his skin still gray from blood loss.
Between us lay fifteen years of betrayal.
Olivia had not created all the files herself.
Metadata showed that many of the documents were older than her employment. Some had been copied from external drives. Others had been updated regularly by someone with access to Moretti schedules.
Carlo’s name never appeared directly.
That was almost proof by itself.
Everyone else was there.
Drivers.
Captains.
Accountants.
Attorneys.
Rivals.
Police officers who had accepted bribes years earlier.
Businessmen who had switched loyalties.
Dead men.
Missing men.
But not Carlo.
Never Carlo.
Alexander stared at the screen.
“My father trusted him.”
Marcus leaned against the wall. “Your father may have trusted the wrong brother.”
Alexander’s eyes flashed.
Marcus did not care.
“He may also have known,” I said quietly.
Alexander looked at me.
I slid Elena’s letter across the table.
“Your mother wrote that your father knew Richard Hayes sold information after Matteo died. She believed he handled it privately.”
“He would have killed Hayes.”
“Maybe.”
“There is no maybe.”
“That’s exactly the kind of certainty that let Olivia back into your office.”
Silence.
Alexander leaned back.
I regretted the cruelty of the sentence for half a second.
Then I remembered him telling me I could not survive without him.
I let it stand.
Luca returned from a call.
“We found Olivia.”
Everyone looked up.
“She used one of Carlo’s vehicles after leaving headquarters. Traffic cameras picked it up near his house, then downtown. She abandoned it at Union Station.”
“Train?” Alexander asked.
“No ticket under her name.”
“Airport?”
“We’re checking.”
Marcus looked at Alexander. “You need police involved.”
Alexander’s expression hardened automatically.
“No.”
I closed the laptop.
“Then I’m leaving.”
His head snapped toward me.
“What?”
“I am not spending the next several months hiding while you solve this through private revenge.”
“Claire—”
“I mean it.”
“Police cannot protect you from Carlo.”
“And your men did such an excellent job?”
He went silent.
I stood.
“My condition for staying in this room is simple. We use evidence. Attorneys. Federal investigators if necessary. We do not start a war in the streets because your uncle betrayed you.”
Alexander stared at me for so long that Luca shifted uncomfortably.
“Do you know what Carlo has done?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“He helped murder my brother.”
“I know.”
“He sent men after you.”
“I was there.”
His jaw flexed.
I softened my voice without softening my position.
“And if you respond the way he expects you to respond, he controls you again.”
That landed.
Alexander looked away.
Carlo knew his temper.
Everyone did.
If Alexander started retaliating violently, evidence would disappear, witnesses would flee, and law enforcement would focus on the Moretti response instead of Carlo’s conspiracy.
More importantly, I was carrying a child.
I had no intention of raising that child around a war Alexander could choose not to create.
Finally, he said, “What do you want?”
“Full copies of everything relevant.”
He laughed without humor. “Absolutely not.”
“Then goodbye.”
I picked up my coat.
“Claire.”
I kept walking.
“Fine.”
I stopped.
Marcus looked delighted.
Alexander looked murderous.
“Copies,” he said. “Through your attorney. Nothing operational that puts uninvolved people at risk.”
“Agreed.”
“And you don’t go anywhere alone.”
“That is not your condition to set.”
“It is if someone is trying to kill you.”
“Marcus’s security stays with me.”
Alexander hated that answer.
Which was one reason I liked it.
“Fine,” he said again.
I turned back to the table.
For the first time in five years, Alexander and I negotiated as two separate people rather than husband and wife.
It was strangely clarifying.
At 2:13 a.m., we found the first direct link to Carlo.
It was hidden inside a deleted calendar archive from Olivia’s laptop.
A recurring appointment every second Thursday.
No name.
No location.
Only the initials C.M.
The appointments began two weeks before Alexander rehired her.
I looked at him.
“You said she contacted HR herself?”
“Yes.”
“She told you she had been unfairly punished because of my jealousy?”
Alexander’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“And Carlo supported bringing her back.”
He looked at the screen.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not a seduction.
A placement.
Olivia had been inserted back into Alexander’s office by the uncle he trusted.
The marriage conflict was useful because it gave her a believable reason to seek emotional closeness with him.
Every time I objected, Alexander saw a jealous wife.
Every time Olivia cried, he saw a vulnerable employee.
Carlo had not needed Alexander to fall in love with her.
He only needed Alexander to underestimate her.
By dawn, Luca located Carlo’s last known phone signal.
It had pinged at a warehouse owned by a Moretti shipping subsidiary on the south side of Chicago.
Alexander stood.
I immediately said, “No.”
He looked at me.
“You are not going there yourself.”
“Claire—”
“We just discussed this.”
“I’m not sending police to a property containing records that could implicate dozens of people who have nothing to do with Carlo.”
“Then send Luca.”
Luca looked offended.
“Why am I suddenly the disposable one?”
Marcus almost laughed.
Alexander ignored both of them.
“I need to see him.”
There was something in his face I understood.
Carlo had taught him how to shoot.
Carlo had stood beside him at Matteo’s funeral.
Carlo had given a toast at our wedding.
This was not only strategy.
It was grief.
I hated that I understood him.
“Then I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Interesting. You want freedom to make a reckless decision, but mine requires permission?”
“You’re pregnant.”
“And still capable of sitting inside an armored vehicle.”
Marcus stepped in. “She stays in the command car with me. You go nowhere without a live feed. If anything feels wrong, we leave and call law enforcement.”
Alexander looked at him.
Then at me.
He knew arguing would waste time.
“Fine.”
The warehouse appeared abandoned when we arrived shortly after sunrise.
No guards.
No vehicles.
No lights.
That frightened me more than visible men would have.
Alexander and Luca entered with a small security team while Marcus and I monitored cameras from the SUV.
The first floor was empty.
The offices were empty.
Then Alexander reached the central conference room.
A single chair sat beneath the light.
On the table was a phone.
It rang.
Alexander answered on speaker.
Carlo’s voice filled the room.
“Nephew.”
Alexander went rigid.
“Where are you?”
“You always ask the wrong question first.”
“You sent men after my wife.”
“Your wife took something that belongs to this family.”
“She is this family.”
I closed my eyes.
Even after everything, those words hurt.
Carlo laughed softly.
“That is exactly the weakness your father warned me about.”
Alexander’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Matteo.”
Silence.
Then Carlo sighed.
“Your brother was going to ruin everything.”
Alexander stopped breathing.
In the SUV, Marcus reached for the recording controls.
Every word was being saved.
Carlo continued.
“Matteo wanted out. He wanted to take records to the government and disappear with that girl he was seeing. Your father would never have survived the scandal.”
“So you killed him.”
“I protected the family.”
Alexander’s face changed into something I had never seen.
Not rage.
Pain so complete it looked almost peaceful.
“And Richard Hayes?”
“A useful coward.”
“Olivia?”
“A useful daughter.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
I knew he was thinking of the island.
Of my empty seat.
Of Olivia smiling beside him while I sat in Chicago understanding that my marriage had become expendable.
Carlo spoke again.
“She was supposed to separate you from Claire. Nothing more. But your wife became curious.”
“You mean intelligent.”
Carlo laughed.
“Still defending her after she left you?”
“She left because I failed her.”
The words were quiet.
They were also being recorded.
I looked down.
Marcus glanced at me but said nothing.
Carlo’s voice became colder.
“Then let her go. Give me Elena’s records and Olivia’s drive. Walk away. I disappear. Claire stays alive.”
Alexander looked directly into the warehouse camera, knowing I could see him.
“No.”
My pulse jumped.
Carlo chuckled. “You think you have leverage?”
Alexander did not blink.
“No. Claire does.”
He placed the phone back on the table.
“My wife has the evidence. Her attorney has copies. Her brother has copies. If anything happens to her, everything goes public.”
That was not true yet.
But it was brilliant.
Carlo was silent.
Then he said, “You always were your mother’s son.”
The call ended.
A second later, an alarm appeared on Marcus’s screen.
Motion sensor.
Upper floor.
Then another.
Then another.
Marcus swore.
“Alexander, get out.”
Luca shouted through the radio.
A timer appeared on the warehouse security panel.
03:00.
02:59.
02:58.
May you like
Carlo had not invited Alexander there to negotiate.
He had invited him there to die.
