Chapter 7 - THE OLD MAN FROM JERSEY
Z
Luca Moretti was seventy-six years old and carried an oxygen tank.
He did not look like a man capable of frightening Marco Keane.
Yet when he entered Claire’s apartment, Marco’s hand moved unconsciously toward his jacket.
Luca noticed.
“Still like your father.”
Marco’s face hardened.
“You knew him.”
“I knew everybody.”
Luca looked at Claire.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then his eyes filled.
“You have Mara’s face.”
Claire suddenly felt twelve years old.
“Why did my mother run?”
Luca sat at the kitchen table.
“Because she discovered Antonio Bianchi was stealing from Patrick Keane.”
Marco remained standing.
“That part we know.”
Luca nodded.
“But she found something worse. Antonio was working with Salvatore Ferraro. Drugs. Weapons. Judges. Police. Whatever paid.”
“And my mother?” Marco asked.
“Lucia Keane discovered it first.”
Marco’s jaw clenched.
Luca continued carefully.
“Lucia was planning to take you and leave New York.”
Marco went completely still.
Claire watched him absorb a version of his mother he had never known.
“She told Mara,” Luca said. “Mara copied everything.”
“Why didn’t she give it to my father?”
“Because Patrick Keane loved power more than safety. Mara didn’t trust him to protect Lucia.”
Marco looked away.
“She was right.”
Luca nodded sadly.
“The bomb went off before Lucia could leave.”
Claire sat across from him.
“What happened after?”
“Mara panicked. She had a daughter. You.”
Claire swallowed.
“She thought Antonio would come for the records.”
“He did.”
“And my father?”
Luca looked confused.
“Your father?”
Claire hesitated.
“People think Patrick Keane might have been…”
“No.”
Luca’s answer was immediate.
Marco’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.
Claire did not know whether to feel relieved or insulted by the situation.
Luca smiled faintly.
“Your father was Daniel Bennett. Good man. Schoolteacher. Terrible poker player.”
Claire closed her eyes.
She remembered him vaguely.
He had died when she was six.
Car accident.
“Was that really an accident?”
Luca’s silence answered.
Claire’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her hands began to shake.
Marco moved closer but didn’t touch her.
Luca continued.
“Daniel discovered Mara was being followed. He confronted the wrong man.”
Claire stared at the table.
“My mother told me he fell asleep driving.”
“She was protecting you.”
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
Her voice broke.
“Apparently protecting me meant lying about my entire life.”
Luca lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
That honesty hurt more than reassurance would have.
Marco finally asked, “What does Victor want?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“To finish what his father started.”
“Control?”
“Revenge first. Control second.”
“Why now?”
“Because Patrick is dead. Most of the old guard is dead. You modernized everything. Made legitimate companies too profitable. Victor believes the old families have become businessmen.”
Marco’s mouth curved without humor.
“And he preferred murderers.”
“He prefers men he can buy.”
Luca turned toward Claire.
“Your mother had the original account ledgers.”
“We found the coded recipe messages.”
“Those were directions, not evidence.”
Claire leaned forward.
“Where is the evidence?”
Luca looked at Lily’s crayon drawing stuck to the refrigerator.
“Where mothers put things they hope children will someday understand.”
Claire frowned.
Luca smiled.
“The bank.”
“What bank?”
“Your mother opened a safe-deposit box under your married name.”
Claire stared.
“I was never married.”
“You were supposed to be.”
The room went silent.
Evan stiffened.
Claire looked at him.
Luca continued, unaware.
“Mara created instructions years before you met that man. She used the surname of the person she believed you would marry.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not if someone changed the records later.”
Marco looked sharply at Evan.
Evan’s face had gone gray.
Claire whispered, “What did you do?”
Evan said nothing.
“Evan.”
He looked at her.
“Victor knew about the box.”
Claire stood.
“He sent you to marry me.”
“At first.”
“You proposed because he ordered you to?”
“Yes.”
Claire remembered the tiny Italian restaurant.
The cheap ring.
Her tears.
His nervous smile.
Every memory turned poisonous.
“But we never married.”
“I delayed it.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I loved you.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“That’s supposed to help?”
“No.”
Luca looked between them.
“The box may still exist. Mara used an identity system through a private bank that later merged with Hudson Atlantic.”
Marco turned to Daniel.
“Find it.”
Daniel began typing.
Three minutes later, he looked up.
“There is a safe-deposit record.”
Claire’s pulse raced.
“Name?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Claire Ross.”
Her nearly married name.
A life that never happened.
Marco checked the time.
“We go now.”
Luca grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
Marco looked down.
“Why?”
“Because Victor knows.”
Daniel’s laptop chimed.
An alert.
Then another.
He turned the screen.
Hudson Atlantic’s security feed showed three black SUVs pulling into the bank’s underground garage.
May you like
Marco’s expression hardened.
Victor had gotten there first.
