Chapter 3 - A Name Hidden in the Santoro Files
By midnight, the gunfire outside had stopped.
The danger inside had not.
The Santoro estate remained locked down.
Every employee was accounted for.
Every guard had been questioned.
Every room was searched twice.
And still nobody knew who had planted the transmitter beneath Leo’s desk.
Greg sat under guard in a basement room.
Leo had not ordered him harmed.
That surprised Tessa.
Everything she had heard about men like Leo suggested that betrayal was answered with blood.
Instead, Leo called an attorney.
Then a federal contact.
Then he ordered his men to preserve every piece of evidence.
“You’re giving Greg to the police?” Tessa asked.
They were standing inside the library.
The room looked different now.
Not because anything had physically changed.
Because she knew it had been violated.
Someone had listened here.
Perhaps for weeks.
“Yes.”
Leo removed a file from his desk.
“I’m not interested in killing idiots who can testify against Moretti.”
Tessa folded her arms.
“That almost sounds responsible.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
She gave him a look.
He almost smiled.
The tension between them had transformed.
The jealousy from earlier still existed somewhere beneath the surface.
But now there were larger questions.
Dangerous questions.
One of Leo’s investigators entered.
“Boss.”
He carried a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a tiny black device.
“We found a partial print.”
“Whose?”
“Running it.”
Leo nodded.
The investigator hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
He placed a second bag on the desk.
Inside was a silver cuff link.
Leo stared at it.
Tessa noticed the change immediately.
“You recognize it.”
He did not answer.
“Leo.”
His eyes lifted.
“It belonged to my brother.”
Tessa blinked.
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Most people don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he died twelve years ago.”
The investigator shifted uncomfortably.
“Boss, there’s an engraving.”
Leo took the bag.
Tessa leaned closer.
Two initials.
A.S.
“His name?”
“Antonio Santoro.”
Tessa looked again.
“Then why A.S.?”
Leo’s expression became distant.
“Antonio Salvatore Santoro.”
He sat slowly behind the desk.
For the first time since Tessa had known him, he looked shaken.
“Where did you find it?”
“Behind the radiator in the west corridor.”
“That corridor hasn’t been renovated in twenty years.”
“Exactly.”
Tessa looked between them.
“So the cuff link could have been there for years.”
“Yes,” Leo said.
“But?”
He looked at her.
“My brother disappeared inside this house.”
The words changed the air.
“You said he died.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“By whom?”
Leo stared toward the fireplace.
“My father.”
Tessa knew very little about Leo’s father.
Only that Salvatore Santoro had built the family’s criminal empire and died six years earlier.
Leo stood.
“Leave us.”
The investigator exited.
Tessa remained near the desk.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I think I do.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody dragged you into this.”
He crossed to the liquor cabinet.
This time he did not pour anything.
“My brother Antonio was seven years older than me. He was supposed to inherit everything.”
“The business?”
“All of it.”
“He didn’t want it?”
“No.”
Leo gave a bitter smile.
“Antonio wanted to leave.”
Tessa understood immediately.
“That wasn’t allowed.”
“In my family, leaving was considered betrayal.”
“What happened?”
“One night he came into my bedroom and told me he had evidence against my father.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Murders. Bribery. Politicians. Judges.”
Tessa stared.
“He planned to go to the authorities?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“He disappeared.”
Leo’s voice became flat.
“My father told everyone Antonio had been killed by Moretti’s father.”
“You believed him?”
“I was nineteen.”
He looked at the cuff link.
“I wanted to.”
Tessa suddenly saw Leo differently.
Not as the powerful man who controlled the estate.
As a nineteen-year-old trapped in a house where questioning his father might get him killed.
“What does this have to do with tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
A knock interrupted them.
Marco entered carrying a tablet.
“Print came back.”
Leo looked up.
“Who?”
Marco’s face was grim.
“Eleanor Briggs.”
Tessa frowned.
“Mrs. Briggs?”
The head housekeeper.
Sixty-two years old.
Silver hair.
Quiet voice.
She had trained Tessa.
Taught her which antique tables could not tolerate certain cleaners.
Brought soup when Tessa had the flu.
“She planted it?”
Marco shook his head.
“She says no.”
“Where is she?”
“Kitchen.”
Leo headed for the door.
Tessa followed.
Mrs. Briggs sat at the servants’ table.
Her hands trembled around a cup of tea.
When Leo entered, she did not look surprised.
“Took you long enough.”
Everyone stopped.
Leo stared.
“You knew.”
Mrs. Briggs looked at Tessa.
“I knew this day would come.”
Tessa’s heart pounded.
“What day?”
The older woman reached beneath her cardigan.
Two guards immediately moved.
Leo raised a hand.
Mrs. Briggs slowly removed a key hanging from a chain around her neck.
She placed it on the table.
“Your brother gave me this the night he disappeared.”
Leo went pale.
“What does it open?”
“A lockbox.”
“Where?”
“Not here.”
His voice sharpened.
“Where?”
Mrs. Briggs looked toward Tessa.
“At Meadow Haven.”
Tessa’s blood turned cold.
“My father’s facility?”
“Yes.”
Tessa stood.
“How do you know my father?”
Mrs. Briggs closed her eyes.
“Because your father knew Antonio.”
Silence.
Tessa almost laughed from disbelief.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Mrs. Briggs looked genuinely sorry.
“Your father wasn’t always an accountant for the city, Tessa.”
“What was he?”
“A forensic accountant.”
Tessa knew that.
Her father had once worked investigations before illness took his memory.
But she had never connected that work to the Santoros.
“He helped Antonio collect financial evidence against Salvatore.”
Leo gripped the back of a chair.
“And the lockbox?”
“Contains copies.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
Tessa’s mind raced.
“Why keep it at Meadow Haven?”
“It wasn’t there originally.”
Mrs. Briggs looked at her.
“Your father moved it before his health deteriorated.”
“Why?”
“Because he trusted you would eventually find it.”
Tessa stared.
“I didn’t even know it existed.”
“He intended to tell you.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
Mrs. Briggs’s voice softened.
“Because the stroke came first.”
Tessa turned away.
Her father’s declining health had been painful enough.
Now she was learning that pieces of his past had been hidden from her.
Leo spoke.
“Who knows about the box?”
Mrs. Briggs hesitated.
That hesitation terrified Tessa.
“Eleanor.”
Leo’s voice became cold.
“Who?”
“Vincent Moretti.”
Tessa closed her eyes.
Of course.
Everything suddenly fit.
The photograph outside Meadow Haven.
Greg.
The fake courtship.
The attempt to keep her away from the estate.
Moretti did not want Tessa.
He wanted access to her father.
“The attack tonight was a distraction,” Leo said.
Mrs. Briggs nodded.
Leo’s phone was already in his hand.
“Call Meadow Haven.”
Marco did.
Nobody spoke while it rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then Marco’s face changed.
“No answer.”
Leo turned toward the door.
Tessa caught his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“My father is there.”
“Tessa—”
“If Moretti wants something hidden by my father, then my father may be the only person who knows where it is.”
“That makes him a target.”
“That makes me useful.”
“It makes you another target.”
She stepped closer.
“My father spent years protecting your brother’s evidence.”
Leo looked at her.
“If he is in danger because of your family, you are not leaving me behind.”
He clearly wanted to refuse.
Then he nodded once.
“Stay beside me.”
Twenty minutes later, three black vehicles tore through the rain toward Meadow Haven.
Tessa sat beside Leo in the back seat.
Neither spoke.
Halfway there, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, only static.
Then a man’s voice.
“Ms. Jenkins.”
Leo heard it.
His eyes sharpened.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed softly.
“Tell Leo I’ve been waiting twelve years to finish what his father started.”
Tessa’s grip tightened.
“Where is my father?”
“Alive.”
“For now.”
Leo reached for the phone.
Tessa stopped him.
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
She looked at Mrs. Briggs’s small brass key in her palm.
“How do you know I have it?”
Another quiet laugh.
“Because, Tessa, I know everything happening inside that house.”
The call ended.
Leo and Tessa looked at each other.
The traitor was not Mrs. Briggs.
The transmitter was only one piece.
Somebody else was still feeding Moretti information.
May you like
And that person knew they were already on the road.
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