Chapter 4 - The Dead Man Came Back for Me
Gabriel Moretti had been declared dead twelve years before I was born.
He disappeared after an explosion at a warehouse.
Three bodies were recovered.
The fourth was never identified.
His family held a funeral anyway.
Vincent had been seventeen.
He remembered the coffin.
He remembered his mother crying.
And he remembered his father telling him that Gabriel had been a traitor.
Now my mother claimed he was alive.
Vincent didn't believe her.
Until the next night.
A black car stopped outside the secured apartment.
A man stepped out carrying black roses.
He looked directly at the building.
Then he smiled.
Vincent saw him from the window.
“It's him.”
My mother whispered, “Gabriel.”
Vincent ordered every light turned off.
His men surrounded the building.
The man outside didn't run.
Instead, he left the roses on the sidewalk.
Then he walked away.
Vincent sent someone to retrieve them.
There was a note.
For Leora.
My name was written on the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
My father holding me as a baby.
I stared at it.
“That's my father.”
My mother began shaking.
Vincent flipped the photograph over.
One sentence was written on the back.
Your mother promised to hide you. Your father promised to return. Only one of them kept their promise.
Vincent stared at my mother.
“What does this mean?”
She didn't answer.
Instead, she told me the truth about my birth.
Adrian wasn't killed.
He was forced into hiding because he discovered Gabriel's betrayal.
Gabriel had sold the location of several Moretti operations to a rival syndicate.
But Adrian discovered something worse.
Gabriel wasn't working alone.
Someone inside city government was helping him.
And the name in Adrian's ledger belonged to one of the most powerful people in the state.
A judge.
The same judge who had dismissed every report about my stalking.
Vincent finally understood.
“This isn't about the sedan.”
“No,” my mother whispered.
“It is about the ledger.”
“Exactly.”
The ledger contained names.
Judges.
Police officers.
Politicians.
Bankers.
Businessmen.
People who had spent fifteen years believing the evidence was destroyed.
But Adrian had made one final copy.
And I was connected to it.
My mother revealed the last secret.
Before Adrian disappeared, he had hidden the ledger inside something he knew no one would suspect.
My childhood toy.
A blue rabbit.
The same blue rabbit I had owned since infancy.
Vincent stared.
“Where is it?”
My mother looked at me.
“I thought it was destroyed.”
I suddenly remembered.
The rabbit was in our old apartment.
Inside a storage box.
Vincent sent men immediately.
They returned forty minutes later.
The rabbit was gone.
Someone had already taken it.
The next morning, my mother received a phone call.
A distorted voice said:
You should have given her to us years ago.
My mother screamed.
Vincent took the phone.
“Who are you?”
The voice laughed.
“You're protecting the wrong person.”
“Try me.”
“You think the girl is innocent.”
Vincent looked at me.
“She is.”
“No.”
The voice lowered.
“She is the key.”
Then the call ended.
Vincent spent the next six hours investigating every employee at Belladonna.
One man was missing.
His security chief.
Marco.
The man who had been protecting me.
The man who had access to the house.
And the man who had known about the blue rabbit.
Vincent found his car abandoned near the river.
Inside was another photograph.
Marco was kneeling beside Gabriel.
They weren't strangers.
They were partners.
Vincent's entire organization had been penetrated.
That evening, Vincent came to my room.
“Leora.”
“Yes?”
“We're leaving.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere they cannot find us.”
“Will my mom come?”
“Yes.”
He knelt beside me.
“You need to trust me.”
I looked into his eyes.
“I do.”
For a moment, Vincent looked almost surprised.
Then the windows exploded.
Glass flew through the room.
Vincent grabbed me and pulled me beneath the bed.
Bullets tore through the wall.
My mother screamed.
Men shouted downstairs.
Vincent reached for his weapon.
Then everything went dark.
When the shooting stopped, there was blood on the floor.
But not mine.
Not my mother's.
Vincent looked toward the hallway.
And saw the blue rabbit sitting on the stairs.
The rabbit had a tiny black device sewn into its stomach.
A tracking beacon.
Someone had been following us the entire time.
Then Vincent saw the note attached to its ear.
Tonight.
Ashland Avenue.
Midnight.
Come alone.
Bring the girl.
Or your mother dies.
Vincent slowly folded the note.
Then he looked at me.
“I need you to understand something.”
May you like
“What?”
“I am going to break every rule I have ever lived by.”
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