Chapter 3 - The Man Beside Him
I folded the note before Marco could see it.
Too late.
Adrien noticed.
“What is it?”
My mouth went dry.
Marco stood six feet away.
The man at his right hand.
Maybe my father had meant someone else sixteen years ago.
Maybe he had meant Carlo.
Maybe it was symbolic.
Maybe it was nothing.
But every instinct I had screamed at me not to read the note aloud.
“Just something personal.”
Adrien watched me.
He knew I was lying.
I could tell.
But he didn’t expose me.
“Marco,” he said, “check the alley.”
Marco looked from him to me.
Then nodded.
The second he left, Adrien closed the bedroom door.
“What did it say?”
I handed him the paper.
He read it once.
Then again.
His face became unreadable.
“You trust him?” I asked.
“With my life.”
“That’s not comforting right now.”
“Marco was twelve when your father disappeared.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“He wasn’t standing beside me sixteen years ago.”
Relief hit first.
Then confusion.
“So who was?”
Adrien looked toward the door.
“My father’s head of security.”
“Who?”
“Victor Sanz.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
“Car accident. Two months after Miguel disappeared.”
I stared at the note.
“That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.”
“No.”
Adrien crouched beside the overturned sewing box.
The sight was strangely disorienting.
A man who probably owned buildings worth more than the entire block was kneeling on Grandma’s carpet, searching threads and buttons for clues.
He found a small brass key lodged beneath a loose floorboard under the dresser.
“They didn’t get it.”
I grabbed it.
A number had been stamped into the metal.
317.
Adrien looked at it.
“Bank box?”
“Could be.”
His phone rang.
Marco.
Adrien answered.
A minute later, his face hardened.
“The man who searched the apartment is dead.”
My stomach turned.
“What happened?”
“Found in the alley behind a closed pharmacy. No wallet.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, I saw something in Adrien that frightened me more than his reputation.
Not rage.
Calculation.
He was putting pieces together.
And someone had just realized we were doing it.
The next morning, Grandma was transferred to a private surgical floor.
I tried to argue.
Adrien ignored me.
He placed two guards outside her room.
I argued harder.
He ignored that too.
“You are impossible,” I told him.
“So I’ve heard.”
“From everyone?”
“Mostly people who are no longer employed.”
I stared.
He almost smiled.
Grandma watched us from the bed.
When Adrien left to take a call, she whispered, “That man looks at you strangely.”
“Please don’t.”
“I’m old, not blind.”
“He fired me yesterday.”
“And today he paid for my surgery.”
“That is exactly why this is complicated.”
Grandma squeezed my hand.
“Complicated men usually come with expensive funerals.”
“Very comforting.”
Her smile faded.
“Lena, I remembered something.”
I leaned closer.
“Your father used to keep records at First Lake Trust.”
My pulse quickened.
“Safety deposit boxes?”
“I think so.”
I showed her the key.
She nodded slowly.
“That bank still exists?”
“It merged twice, but the original vault is downtown.”
Adrien arranged access before noon.
I didn’t ask how.
I didn’t want to know.
At three-thirty, we entered a private room beneath a bank that smelled like metal and old paper.
Box 317 was small.
Inside were four things.
A photograph.
A cassette tape.
A sealed envelope.
And a silver pendant shaped like a tiny bird.
I picked up the photograph first.
My mother stood in the center.
Younger than I remembered her.
Her dark hair was tied back.
Beside her was my father.
And on the other side—
Adrien.
He looked about twenty-one.
He was smiling.
Actually smiling.
“What is this?”
Adrien took the photo.
His face changed.
“I remember that day.”
“You knew my parents?”
“Your father trained security at one of our properties. Your mother came to bring him lunch.”
“Did you remember her from the clinic?”
“Not then.”
He turned the photograph over.
My father had written a date.
Sixteen years ago.
Two weeks before he disappeared.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
Sofia—
If you are reading this, Carlo knows I found the accounts.
The shipments marked BLUEBIRD are not imports. They are payments.
Victor is helping him.
Matteo does not know.
Adrien does not know.
If anything happens to me, take Lena to Rosa and disappear.
Do not trust the police captain Carlo uses.
The proof is in the recording.
I looked at Adrien.
“Bluebird.”
He took the cassette tape.
“We need a player.”
The bank manager found one in a storage office.
The tape crackled.
Then my father’s voice filled the room.
I hadn’t heard it in sixteen years.
I stopped breathing.
“If this recording is being played, my name is Miguel Reyes. I work security for Matteo Varelli.”
My knees weakened.
Adrien pulled a chair toward me without touching me.
I sat.
The tape continued.
“I found payments to Victor Sanz, Captain Harold Brennan, and a private medical company. The payments come from Carlo Varelli’s accounts.”
Adrien’s jaw tightened.
“Carlo has been moving money without Matteo’s knowledge. I believe he arranged the attempted hit on the South Side warehouse last March. I also believe Victor helped him.”
A pause.
Then Dad’s voice changed.
“Most important: Carlo has been paying someone connected to Adrien’s kidnapping.”
Adrien went completely still.
The tape hissed.
“He says it was insurance. I think it was leverage. If I’m right, Carlo knew more about the kidnapping than anyone was ever told.”
Adrien’s hand tightened around the edge of the table.
His knuckles whitened.
The cassette continued.
“I am taking this to Matteo tomorrow. If I do not make it, Sofia knows what to do.”
Adrien reached for the pause button.
“Wait.”
I looked at him.
His face had changed.
“What?”
“Your father said he was taking it to mine.”
“Yes.”
“My father died believing Miguel stole from him.”
I stared.
“Carlo told him that?”
“Apparently.”
Adrien stood and walked to the far wall.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he laughed once without humor.
“My father spent the last years of his life calling Miguel Reyes a traitor.”
My chest tightened.
“And Miguel died trying to protect him.”
“Yes.”
I watched Adrien stare at the blank bank wall.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You usually do.”
“Did your father ever apologize to people?”
He looked at me.
“Rarely.”
“Do you?”
His eyebrows lifted.
“That was not the direction I expected.”
“I’m serious.”
He thought about it.
“When I’m wrong.”
“That sounds suspiciously like something people say when they don’t apologize.”
A real flicker of amusement appeared.
Then he looked down.
“I was wrong to fire you.”
I blinked.
“That is your apology?”
“It’s the beginning.”
“Needs work.”
“I’m new at this.”
I smiled despite myself.
Then his expression softened.
“My father taught me that admitting error gave people leverage.”
“My grandmother taught me refusing to admit error got you hit with a wooden spoon.”
“Her method may have been more effective.”
For the first time since entering the vault, the pressure in my chest eased.
Adrien sat again.
“Play it.”
I pressed the button.
Then another voice appeared.
My mother’s.
Faint.
“Seven bluebirds.”
Dad said something I couldn’t understand.
Mom repeated, “Seven bluebirds. Union Station.”
The tape ended.
I looked at Adrien.
He wasn’t breathing normally.
His eyes were fixed on nothing.
“Adrien?”
No response.
His chest rose too quickly.
I had seen panic attacks before at the diner.
Veterans.
Students.
A woman whose husband had died.
But watching Adrien Varelli lose control was different because he had built his entire life around never allowing anyone to see him vulnerable.
I moved slowly.
“Adrien.”
He flinched when I stood.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I know.”
His voice was strained.
“You don’t have to touch me.”
His eyes closed.
I waited.
Then he held out his left wrist.
Not a command.
A request.
I wrapped my fingers around it.
His pulse was wild.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“You’re in a bank.”
He breathed.
“Downtown Chicago.”
Another breath.
“You’re thirty-seven, not eleven.”
His shoulders lowered.
“Carlo isn’t here.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Neither are the men who kidnapped you.”
Slowly, his pulse eased.
He looked at my hand.
Then at me.
“You’ve done this before.”
“No.”
“You knew what to say.”
“My grandmother used to do it when I had nightmares after my parents disappeared.”
Something passed between us.
Two children who had grown up.
Two people who hadn’t entirely left the worst nights behind.
When we returned to the hospital, Grandma’s room was empty.
The bed was stripped.
The flowers were gone.
My heart stopped.
“Where is she?”
A nurse hurried toward us.
“Ms. Reyes?”
“Where is my grandmother?”
“She’s in pre-op.”
I nearly collapsed.
Adrien closed his eyes once.
The surgery had been moved up because an operating room became available.
I laughed shakily.
“Please tell me things like that before I think someone kidnapped her.”
The nurse looked confused.
Adrien said, “That is probably not a sentence she hears often.”
We waited four hours.
At eight-fifteen, the surgeon came out.
“The operation went well.”
I cried so hard I embarrassed myself.
I hugged the doctor.
Then the nurse.
Then I turned toward Adrien without thinking.
I almost hugged him too.
I stopped inches away.
His body stiffened.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at me.
Then, very slowly, he opened his arms.
Not much.
Barely enough.
But enough.
I stepped forward.
My cheek touched his chest.
His arms closed around me.
The hallway seemed to disappear.
He was rigid for the first second.
Then he exhaled.
His chin lowered toward my hair.
No panic.
No flinch.
Nothing but silence.
When I pulled back, Marco was standing at the end of the hallway.
Watching us.
His expression disappeared the second I noticed.
That night, while Grandma slept in recovery, I went to wash my face.
When I returned, an envelope was lying on the chair.
No one had seen who delivered it.
Inside was a photograph of Grandma asleep in her hospital bed.
Taken from inside the room.
May you like
On the back, five words were written in black ink.
STOP TOUCHING HIM OR SHE DIES.
