Chapter 2 - The Car Behind Them
Salvatore did not tell Emery they were being followed.
He simply changed direction.
Instead of heading toward their home in Greenwich, he turned south toward the highway.
The black sedan turned too.
Emery sat quietly in the back seat with the broken wooden horse beside her.
She held the DeLuca ring tightly.
“Daddy, are we going home?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“I need to stop somewhere first.”
She nodded.
Emery had learned not to ask too many questions when Salvatore used that voice.
It was the same voice he used when thunderstorms knocked out the electricity.
Calm.
Controlled.
Protective.
His phone rang.
Unknown number again.
Salvatore answered through the car speaker.
“Who is this?”
A man whispered.
“Do not say my name.”
Salvatore checked the mirror.
The sedan remained four cars behind.
“Then tell me yours.”
“You knew me when you were younger.”
“That narrows it down to several thousand people.”
The man ignored the sarcasm.
“Your father trusted me.”
Salvatore’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Did you send the messages?”
“Yes.”
“What is Ravenna?”
A long pause followed.
“I cannot tell you over the phone.”
“Then tell me where to meet you.”
“Not while you are being followed.”
Salvatore looked into the mirror again.
Emery looked up.
“Someone is following us?”
Salvatore cursed himself silently.
The caller had spoken through the car speakers.
He disconnected Bluetooth and lifted the phone to his ear.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Emery looked back through the rear window.
The black sedan changed lanes.
Her face became worried.
Salvatore spoke quietly into the phone.
“How do I lose them?”
“Take Exit Twenty-Nine.”
Salvatore did.
The sedan followed.
“Now?”
“Drive toward the old St. Michael freight district.”
“That area has been abandoned for years.”
“Exactly.”
Salvatore hesitated.
He had Emery with him.
He did not like being directed toward an isolated industrial district by an anonymous caller.
The man seemed to understand.
“You have your daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Then do not come to me.”
Salvatore frowned.
“Make up your mind.”
“Lose the car and go somewhere secure.”
“How?”
“Your father built contingency routes.”
“My father was a shipping executive, not a spy.”
The man gave a humorless laugh.
“You never knew half of what your father prepared for.”
The call ended.
Salvatore turned off the main road.
The sedan followed.
He drove past warehouses covered in snow.
Most had been closed since the river terminal moved.
He remembered something.
Vittorio had once owned a small storage facility here.
Salvatore had visited it as a teenager.
He suddenly saw the faded DeLuca Logistics sign ahead.
He turned sharply through the gate.
The black sedan accelerated.
Salvatore’s pulse increased.
“Emery, put your head down.”
“Why?”
“Just for a minute.”
She obeyed.
Salvatore drove around the rear of the warehouse.
An old loading tunnel cut beneath the building.
He remembered his father explaining that delivery trucks once entered from one street and exited onto another.
Salvatore pushed the SUV through the tunnel.
The sedan entered behind them.
Salvatore reached the other side.
Two roads branched immediately.
He took the left.
Then another left.
Then cut through an abandoned rail yard.
By the time the sedan emerged, several buildings blocked its view.
Salvatore crossed a narrow service bridge and returned toward the highway.
He watched the mirrors for five minutes.
Nothing.
Emery slowly sat upright.
“Did we win?”
Salvatore almost smiled.
“For now.”
His phone vibrated.
A new message appeared.
GOOD.
THAT WAS THE FIRST TEST.
Salvatore stared at it.
Then another.
VITTORIO SAID YOU WOULD REMEMBER THE TUNNEL.
Salvatore felt a strange pressure in his chest.
Even dead, his father appeared to be guiding him.
He typed.
WHO ARE YOU?
The reply came seconds later.
MARCELLO VANE.
Salvatore almost dropped the phone.
Marcello Vane had been Vittorio’s personal attorney for nearly thirty years.
According to Francesca, Marcello had retired to Switzerland six months before Vittorio’s death.
Salvatore had not heard from him since.
He called immediately.
Marcello answered.
“You should not have typed my name.”
“You’re supposed to be in Switzerland.”
“I was supposed to be dead.”
Salvatore stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Your mother was told I moved overseas because Vittorio believed it was safer if certain people thought I had disappeared.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I will.”
“Tonight.”
“No.”
“Marcello.”
“You have Emery.”
“Exactly.”
“Then take her somewhere protected.”
Salvatore thought of his company’s downtown headquarters.
Too obvious.
He thought of private security.
Too easy for Dante to identify.
Then he remembered Anna.
Anna Russo had been Emery’s nanny since she was three.
She lived with her husband on a heavily secured equestrian property outside Stamford.
Her husband, Carlo, was a retired federal investigator.
More importantly, almost nobody in the DeLuca family knew where they lived.
Salvatore called.
Anna answered immediately.
“Mr. DeLuca?”
“I need help.”
She heard something in his voice.
“Bring her.”
Salvatore blinked.
“I haven’t explained.”
“You don’t need to.”
Twenty-five minutes later, he drove through the Russo gate.
Carlo was waiting outside.
He took one look at Salvatore and locked the gate manually behind him.
Emery ran to Anna.
The moment Anna saw the broken rocking horse, she gasped.
“What happened?”
Emery’s eyes filled again.
“Grandma pushed me.”
Anna’s face hardened.
Salvatore handed her a small overnight bag he kept in the SUV for emergencies.
“I need Emery to stay here tonight.”
Anna looked at him.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out why my father hid this.”
He showed her the note.
Carlo read it.
“When the house turns against her, open Ravenna.”
Carlo looked toward Salvatore.
“That sounds like a contingency instruction.”
“Do you know Ravenna?”
“No.”
Salvatore turned toward Emery.
She was studying the signet ring.
He knelt.
“I need you to give me Grandpa’s ring for a little while.”
Emery immediately closed her hand.
“No.”
Salvatore stopped.
“Sweetheart.”
“Grandpa said it was mine.”
“He did.”
“Grandma wants it.”
“She isn’t getting it.”
“Then I should keep it.”
Salvatore looked at Anna.
Anna gave him a tiny shrug.
Emery had inherited Salvatore’s stubbornness despite sharing none of his genetics.
Or so everyone believed.
Salvatore touched her cheek.
“You’re right.”
He did not take the ring.
Emery slid it into the small zippered pocket of her Christmas dress.
“I’ll protect it.”
Salvatore kissed her forehead.
“So will I.”
Before leaving, Carlo stopped him near the door.
“If someone followed you from the estate, this is bigger than an inheritance argument.”
“I know.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No.”
Carlo stared at him.
“That wasn’t a polite offer.”
Salvatore almost smiled.
“I’m meeting my father’s former attorney.”
“Where?”
“He hasn’t told me yet.”
Carlo handed him a small tracking beacon.
“Keep this in your pocket.”
Salvatore frowned.
“You carry these around?”
“I’m retired, not dead.”
Salvatore slipped it inside his coat.
He drove away alone.
Marcello finally sent an address.
It was not a law office.
It was a Catholic cemetery.
Vittorio DeLuca was buried there.
Salvatore arrived shortly after midnight.
Snow covered the headstones.
A single man stood near Vittorio’s mausoleum.
He was seventy, thin, and wearing a dark wool coat.
Salvatore recognized him immediately.
“Marcello.”
Marcello Vane turned.
“You look like your father when you’re angry.”
Salvatore walked straight toward him.
“You let us think you disappeared.”
“Your father asked me to.”
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“And apparently he expected my mother to attack my daughter.”
Marcello’s eyes shifted.
“He expected worse.”
Salvatore stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Marcello looked toward Vittorio’s name carved into stone.
“Your father discovered someone had been stealing from the DeLuca companies.”
Salvatore frowned.
“How much?”
“Almost eighty million dollars.”
He stared at Marcello.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“Who?”
Marcello looked directly at him.
“Dante.”
Salvatore felt anger rising.
“But Dante never controlled the primary accounts.”
“He had Francesca.”
Salvatore’s face changed.
Marcello continued.
“Your mother authorized transfers.”
“For Dante?”
“She believed Vittorio had given too much control to you.”
Salvatore laughed once in disbelief.
“My mother helped steal eighty million dollars because she was jealous?”
“No.”
Marcello’s expression darkened.
“She helped because Dante promised her something.”
“What?”
“Control after Vittorio died.”
Salvatore looked toward the mausoleum.
“Dad knew?”
“He found out approximately fourteen months before his death.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because that was when he discovered the theft was not the worst secret in the family.”
A cold wind moved across the cemetery.
Salvatore felt suddenly uneasy.
“What secret?”
Marcello looked toward him.
“Emery.”
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not involve my daughter in their crimes.”
“She was already involved before you adopted her.”
Salvatore froze.
Marcello continued carefully.
“You were told Emery’s biological mother died without identifying her father.”
“Yes.”
“You were told Vittorio discovered her through the foundation.”
“Yes.”
“You believed your father encouraged the adoption because he became attached to her.”
“He did.”
Marcello nodded.
“He also knew who she was.”
Salvatore stopped breathing.
“Who?”
Marcello looked toward Vittorio’s grave.
“The last biological descendant of your grandfather’s oldest son.”
Salvatore stared at him.
“My father was his oldest son.”
Marcello shook his head.
“No.”
Salvatore’s entire body went still.
Marcello whispered.
“Vittorio had an older brother.”
Salvatore said nothing.
“His name was Alessandro.”
“I’ve never heard that name.”
“That was the point.”
Marcello reached inside his coat.
He removed a sealed envelope.
“Alessandro DeLuca disappeared from family history in 1968.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandfather erased him.”
Salvatore did not take the envelope.
“What does this have to do with Emery?”
Marcello extended it again.
“Everything.”
Salvatore opened the envelope.
Inside was an old photograph.
Two young men stood outside the DeLuca estate.
One was unmistakably Vittorio.
The other looked so much like Salvatore that his stomach tightened.
On the back, someone had written:
ALESSANDRO AND VITTORIO — SUMMER 1966.
Salvatore lifted his eyes.
“Emery?”
Marcello nodded.
“Alessandro’s great-granddaughter.”
Salvatore looked again at the photograph.
His thoughts collided.
Emery was not charity.
She was not an outsider.
She carried DeLuca blood from a branch nobody knew existed.
Marcello spoke softly.
“Under the original DeLuca family charter, succession passes through the eldest surviving bloodline before all younger branches.”
Salvatore’s throat tightened.
“Meaning?”
Marcello looked him directly in the eyes.
“Meaning Francesca was correct about one thing.”
Salvatore waited.
“Blood matters.”
Marcello pointed toward the photograph.
“And by blood, Emery outranks every living DeLuca.”
Salvatore looked back toward Vittorio’s grave.
“The ring.”
“Vittorio found Alessandro’s descendants two years before he died.”
“Why hide the ring inside the horse?”
“Because he realized Francesca and Dante had discovered Emery existed.”
Salvatore felt his stomach drop.
“They knew?”
“Not everything.”
Marcello’s voice lowered.
“But they knew enough to be afraid of her.”
Salvatore remembered Francesca pushing Emery from the chair.
He remembered Dante staring at the ring.
He remembered the black sedan.
His anger became colder.
“Ravenna.”
Marcello nodded.
“It contains the proof.”
“Where?”
Marcello looked past Salvatore.
His expression suddenly changed.
“Get down.”
Salvatore turned.
A vehicle raced through the cemetery gates.
Headlights flooded the snow.
Marcello shoved Salvatore behind a stone wall.
The vehicle stopped.
Two men stepped out.
Salvatore recognized one of them.
He worked for Dante.
Marcello whispered.
“They found us.”
One of the men shouted.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
Salvatore stayed low.
“We only want the ring.”
Salvatore looked at Marcello.
Neither man knew Emery still had it.
That meant they believed Salvatore had taken it.
The second man stepped closer.
“Give us the ring and everyone goes home.”
Salvatore’s voice carried through the cemetery.
“You followed a seven-year-old child for a piece of jewelry?”
“No one wants to hurt the girl.”
Marcello shook his head.
“They’re lying.”
Salvatore already knew.
The first man raised his voice.
“Dante says this does not need to become ugly.”
Salvatore slowly stood behind the wall.
“It became ugly when my mother threw my daughter onto the floor.”
The man moved closer.
Salvatore heard something metallic.
Marcello grabbed his arm.
“Do not.”
Then another engine roared behind them.
The men turned.
A dark pickup entered the cemetery.
Carlo Russo stepped out.
He was not alone.
Two former federal agents emerged with him.
Carlo looked toward Salvatore.
“I told you the tracker was staying in your pocket for a reason.”
Dante’s men immediately retreated.
They jumped into their car.
Within seconds, they were gone.
Carlo looked at Marcello.
“So this is the dead lawyer?”
Marcello frowned.
“Who are you?”
“The retired man keeping Salvatore alive tonight.”
Salvatore barely heard them.
He was staring at the photograph of Alessandro and Vittorio.
Carlo noticed.
“What is that?”
Salvatore looked toward his father’s grave.
“A reason my mother wants Emery gone.”
He put the photograph inside his coat.
Then he looked at Marcello.
“Take me to Ravenna.”
Marcello’s face tightened.
“There is a problem.”
“Of course there is.”
Marcello took a breath.
“Ravenna can only be opened with two physical keys.”
Salvatore nodded toward the ring Emery possessed.
“That’s one.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the second?”
Marcello hesitated.
May you like
“Your mother has it.”
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