Chapter 3 - The Man Outside the Door
“Get behind me,” Enzo whispered.
The chain lifted another inch.
He pulled me backward.
I couldn’t see the weapon in his hand, but I knew it was there.
The door pushed inward.
The sofa stopped it.
A man cursed outside.
Enzo waited.
So did I.
My heart hammered so violently I was sure whoever stood in the corridor could hear it.
Then a voice came through the opening.
“Mr. Relli.”
Enzo said nothing.
“I’m not here to hurt the woman.”
“Then you chose a poor way to introduce yourself.”
“I need five minutes.”
“You have five seconds.”
A pause.
“My name is Luca.”
Enzo went completely still.
I felt it.
“Luca is dead,” he said.
“Your father told you that.”
The hallway went silent again.
Enzo approached the door.
“Show me your face.”
A phone slid through the narrow opening.
Its screen displayed a photograph.
Enzo looked down.
I couldn’t see it.
But whatever was on that screen changed him.
He lowered the gun.
“Move the sofa.”
I stared at him.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Sofia.”
“You told me someone is trying to kill us.”
“This man may know who.”
“Or he may be that person.”
Enzo looked at me.
“You’re right.”
I blinked.
Enzo Relli had just admitted I was right.
Apparently the apocalypse had arrived with the storm.
He opened the door only enough to speak.
“Hands where I can see them.”
A man stepped inside.
He was perhaps sixty.
Gray hair.
Wet coat.
A scar across one cheek.
Enzo stared at him like a ghost had walked into the room.
“Seventeen years,” Enzo said.
The man nodded.
“Your father made sure of it.”
“Why?”
“Because I discovered who was stealing from him.”
Enzo’s eyes hardened.
“Who?”
Luca looked at me.
“No.”
Enzo stepped between us.
“You came here. You say it.”
Luca’s expression filled with something close to pity.
“The person who betrayed your father never left the family.”
He reached slowly into his coat.
Enzo raised the gun.
Luca froze.
“Photograph,” he said.
Enzo nodded.
Luca removed an old photograph.
He placed it on the desk.
Three men stood together outside a restaurant.
One was younger Enzo.
Another looked like Enzo’s father.
The third man had his arm around both of them.
I recognized him.
Everyone in Enzo’s organization knew him.
Matteo Relli.
Enzo’s uncle.
His father’s younger brother.
“No,” Enzo said.
Luca pointed toward the photograph.
“Look at Matteo’s watch.”
Enzo did.
“So?”
“Now look at the photograph sent to Sofia.”
Enzo opened my phone.
He enlarged the reflection in the rain-covered window.
A hand was barely visible near the edge of the frame.
On the wrist was a distinctive watch.
Enzo’s expression changed.
“You’re saying Matteo is here.”
“I’m saying Matteo arranged for you to come here.”
“Why Sofia?”
Luca looked at me again.
“Because she found something.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. You just didn’t know what you found.”
My mind raced.
Invoices.
Corporate accounts.
Hotel reservations.
Travel expenses.
I processed thousands of documents.
“What?”
“The March reconciliation.”
I remembered.
Three weeks ago, two accounts had been off by exactly $86,400.
I had flagged them.
Enzo had told me accounting would handle it.
“You noticed duplicate payments,” Luca said.
“Yes.”
“They weren’t duplicate payments.”
Enzo turned toward me.
“What were they?”
“Transfers.”
“To whom?”
Luca looked at him.
“Your uncle.”
The room became very quiet.
I understood now.
The flash drive.
The message.
Someone wanted to make it look as though I had stolen information.
“Matteo planted the drive.”
Luca nodded.
“He intended Enzo to find it.”
“And blame me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if Enzo believed his secretary had betrayed him, he would stop looking at the accounting trail.”
My stomach turned.
Enzo looked furious.
Not at me.
At himself.
“I brought her into this.”
“No,” Luca said. “She was already in it the moment she noticed those numbers.”
Enzo turned away.
I had never seen guilt sit so heavily on another person.
“You couldn’t have known,” I said.
“I should have.”
“You’re not responsible for everything.”
His laugh contained no humor.
“You don’t know my family.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
He looked at me.
“You think you understand me after one night?”
“No.”
I remembered what I had told him earlier.
You’re not what they say you are.
“You told me I didn’t know what you were yet.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“I’m beginning to think neither do you.”
Luca cleared his throat.
“The emotional breakthrough is touching, but Matteo has men in this hotel.”
I looked away quickly.
Enzo did not.
“How many?”
“At least four.”
“My security?”
“Two were intercepted before the bridge. The other two are somewhere downstairs.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
“We leave.”
“The road is flooded.”
“Not by road.”
Luca stared at him.
“There’s an old service tunnel beneath the hotel.”
Of course there was.
Mafia problems apparently came with secret tunnels.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“To a maintenance building beyond the north ridge.”
“Can we reach a car?”
“If the lower passage hasn’t flooded.”
Enzo picked up the portfolio.
Then stopped.
He removed the flash drive.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“No what?”
“We don’t run with the evidence they want.”
He placed the drive inside an empty water glass.
Then crushed it beneath the metal base of the hotel lamp.
Luca grabbed his wrist.
“You don’t know what was on that.”
“I know exactly what Matteo wanted me to think was on it.”
Enzo broke the drive again.
“He wants control of the story.”
He looked at me.
“We give him a different one.”
“What are you planning?”
His expression became the one I knew from negotiations.
Cold.
Precise.
Dangerous.
“We let Matteo believe he succeeded.”
Enzo called the front desk from the room phone.
Someone answered.
“My secretary stole from me,” Enzo said.
I stared at him.
His performance was terrifyingly convincing.
“I found the evidence. I want a car the moment the road opens.”
He slammed down the receiver.
Luca smiled.
“He’ll hear about that.”
“That’s the point.”
“And Sofia?”
Enzo looked at me.
“She stays with me.”
The words were simple.
They shouldn’t have affected me.
They did.
Luca moved toward the bathroom.
“There’s an access panel behind the laundry cabinet.”
We shifted it together.
A narrow metal door appeared.
Luca opened it.
Dark stairs descended beneath the hotel.
Enzo turned toward me.
“Stay close.”
“I have been doing that all night.”
“Closer.”
I stepped toward him.
He handed me a flashlight.
Then the room phone rang.
Nobody moved.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Enzo answered.
He listened.
His expression went blank.
Then he slowly turned toward Luca.
“What?” I whispered.
Enzo lowered the receiver.
“My uncle is downstairs.”
Another knock hit the door.
This time there was no pretending to be hotel staff.
A familiar male voice called from the hallway.
“Enzo? Open the door. We need to talk.”
May you like
Matteo Relli had arrived.
And he knew we were still inside.
